Bourscheid Castle

The rock above the Sûre carried buildings long before the castle: archaeological evidence on the site reaches back to Roman times. The stone castle itself went up around the year 1000, on earlier foundations and in place of an older timber fortification, a dating supported both by written sources and by the excavations carried out between 1986 and 1992. It sits on a spur enclosed by the river, some 150 metres above the water and rising to 379.8 metres above sea level at its highest point, in what was then the County of Luxembourg within the Holy Roman Empire.

It was first intended as a refuge for the inhabitants of the village that shares its name, but its position turned it into a strategic military post of the Count of Luxembourg. The earliest record of it, in 1095, names it as the property of Bertram von Bourscheid, bailiff of the Abbey of Echternach, who administered the castle on the abbey's behalf. That same document sets out Bertram's removal from office, on the grounds that he had "spread his wings too far".

The lords of Bourscheid held the castle until 1512, and they were found at the highest ranks of the Count of Luxembourg's retinue. Their upper castle, raised between 1000 and 1300, contained the keep, the palas with its knights' hall and the lord's chambers, the kitchen and the chapel. The walls enclose 12,000 square metres, which makes the complex the largest in Luxembourg by area.

The defences grew through the later Middle Ages. The lower castle was extended in the 14th century and given a double ring wall with a zwinger and six towers; the outer wall dates from 1350, and the Stolzembourg house was built in 1384 once the new ring wall was finished. The courtyard followed in 1477. Behind a gateway of the end of the 15th century, a ditch covered by four towers barred the way to the upper and lower castles, and the southern and eastern towers were added in 1498.

Bernhard IV of Bourscheid left the lordship to his two sisters, Maria von dem Weiher zu Nickenich and Wilhelma von der Neuerburg, and from them it passed into the hands of numerous co-lords drawn from the Metternich-Zievel, Zant von Merl, Ahr and Schwartzenburg families. Building work went on under them: the upper part of the castle had been extended in the 15th century, the great fireplace and tall chimney were finished about a hundred years later, artillery bastions were raised in the 16th century, and the chapel was enlarged for the last time in the 17th.

In 1626 Hans Gerhard von Metternich gathered all the shares into his own hand, and the lordship descended through three further generations of his family until his great-grandson Hugo Franz Wolf von Metternich sold it, for financial reasons, to Demoiselle Constance de Mathelin de Rolley in 1753. Metternich's niece Maria Theresia von Eltz-Rodendorf went to law against the sale; in 1762 four-fifths of the lordship were awarded to her, and in 1795 she acquired the remaining fifth.

The French Revolution put an end to the feudal power the lordship carried. Schenk von Schmidtburg, who acquired the castle at the end of the 18th century, undertook some repair work but was unable to prevent further degradation.

After the auction of 1812 the complex fell into decay. The chapel collapsed during the 19th century, and there was talk of demolishing what was left of the building. It became a listed site in 1936.

In 1972, urged on by an association called the Friends of the Castle of Bourscheid, the State acquired the building and undertook extensive repairs. The castle has belonged to the State of Luxembourg since then, and is managed by the Amis du Château de Bourscheid.

Apart from the keep and the cellar beneath the palas, the upper castle and the two castle-guard houses survive only as ruins. The castle is open to visitors all year round and remains a predominantly open-air ruin. Publication of the Bourscheid historical archives has since filled in the detail of the castle and of the people who lived in it.