Ruine Freienstein

Ruine Freienstein stands above the village of Freienstein-Teufen in Switzerland and was erected in the mid-13th century by a member of the von Tengen noble family.

The site first appears in records in 1254 when Conrad de Tengen transferred the holding to his daughter Ita and her husband, Egolf von Hasle. After that gift, Egolf and his descendants adopted the name Freiherren von Freienstein, and the settlement became known as Freienstein. The local coat of arms combined a hazel twig, reflecting descent from the Hasle line, with a lion motif probably drawn from the Kyburg heraldic tradition. In 1302 Egolf, with the agreement of his sons Heinrich and Johannes, sold the farmstead of Freienstein, the Meierhof, to the monastery of Töss. Heinrich, who had married Nertha von Tüfen, served as land judge in the Zürichgau in 1282 and lived beyond 1314.

Citizens of Zürich destroyed the castle in 1334 or in 1338; the building was later rebuilt. Johannes von Freienstein died in 1360, ending the male line of that family, and the site then passed through a succession of owners. By 1436 the castle belonged to the Schaffhausen knight Herrmann Künsch. In 1443, after Künsch had taken a man from the County of Kyburg prisoner, armed contingents from Winterthur and Diessenhofen under the regional official Heinrich Schwend attacked and set the castle on fire; a prisoner left in the dungeon suffocated in the smoke. Ritter Felix Schwarzmurer acquired the property in 1485, and after his death in 1492 the ruined site passed to Hans Erhart and Urban zum Thor of Teufen.

In 1600 the judicial lordship and the lordship of Teufen were transferred to the Zürich family von Meiss, who retained ownership until they sold the estate in 1838. The last private owner was Lieutenant Colonel Gottfried von Meiss-Trachsler (1785–1862). In 1806 a large proportion of the castle’s masonry was removed and reused to construct the Töss bridge. The heirs of von Meiss-Trachsler handed the ruin to the Canton of Zürich in 1975. The ruin was conserved in 1976 with a donation from Franz Xaver Arnet and additional funds from the Confederation, the canton and the municipality, and the site was placed under the protection of the Swiss Confederation.