Germany, as a state, was created in the ninth century. When Charlemagne's son, the emperor Louis the Pious, died in 840, the Frankish Empire was divided among Louis' three sons. The easternmost portion - most of which is part of modern day Germany today - went to another Louis, thereafter known as "the German" (r. 840-876). Members of the Carolingian dynasty ruled Germany until 887, but following the deposition of Charles the Fat (r. 876-887), the monarchy became elective.
There were several major differences between Germany and France in the ninth and tenth centuries. While France broke down into many largely independent territorial units, Germany was marked by the establishment of five duchies: Bavaria, Franconia, Saxony, Swabia, and Thuringia. In France, feudalism was the norm in many areas. In Germany, feudalism was not as fully developed, particularly in the east, where the royal army was still largely composed of freeman rather than armored knights. In Germany, the tradition of loyalty to the king was stronger than in France.
During the ninth century, Germany, like other areas in the West, was raided by Vikings. From the mid-ninth century on, a more serious threat was posed by the Magyars, wild horsemen who by the early tenth century were regularly attacking different parts of Germany on an almost yearly basis. In 919, following the reigns of two weak kings, German nobles decided they needed a strong ruler to defeat the Magyars, and they elected as king the most powerful of the German dukes, Henry the Fowlers of Saxony (r. 919-936). Henry and his son Otto I "the Great" (r. 936-973, crowned 962) were able to defeat the Magyars, and Otto then set about strengthening royal power over the dukes. The Saxon, or Ottonian, kings based their power on freemen, on high churchmen, and on the ministeriales, a new class of serf-knights. The freemen provided military; bishops and abbots were given land and governmental powers in return for administrative and military support (they raised troops and sometimes even fought beside them): and the ministeriales served as armored cavalry and later as low-level administrative officials. German kings were able to count on the loyalty of all three groups. The freeman by tradition, the churchmen because they were royal appointees, and the ministeriales because they could lose their freedom if they did not obey the kings. In 962, Otto I went to Rome and was crowned emperor, thus reviving what was later called the Holy Roman Empire.
During the ninth and tenth centuries, the Church everywhere - including the papacy - fell under layman control. Laymen appointed unqualified persons to church offices, sold the offices, or on occasion, filled the offices themselves. From 910 on a growing reform movement, associated with the monastery of Cluny, sought to end lay control. In the mid - eleventh century, this reform movement reached the papacy (which had been controlled largely by local Roman nobles) when Henry III of Germany (r. 1039-1056, crowned 1046) went to Rome to be crowned emperor and appointed a reform pope. Henry died in 1056, leaving his six-year-old son as heir. During Henry IV's minority, the papacy was able to expand greatly its authority over the Church and to set to set up a papal election process that would free it from lay control. When Henry came of age, he found a newly strengthened papacy ready to challenge his control over the Church. Henry need to be able to appoint bishops and abbots because they served as his administrative agents and supplied him with military support. However, Henry's rival in this battle for control over the Church, Pope Gregory VII (1083-1085), saw these men primarily as churchmen invested with spiritual powers who should therefore be free from any sort of lay control. The conflict came to focus on the ceremony in which churchmen were invested with the symbols of their office. The papacy opposed lay investiture, and the resulting conflict became known as the Investiture Controversy.
The Investiture Controversy (1076-1122)was accompanied by widespread local warfare in Germany. The main parties in this warfare were the emperors and the German nobles who, in opposition to imperial control, advanced candidates of their own for the crown - generally with papal support. Local conflicts and feuds also played a part in these divisions. If one of the local parties supported the emperor, the opposing faction would adhere to the nobles. The absence of any effective overall authority led to widespread anarchy and insecurity, and so to the rise of feudalism. Freeman became vassals of nobles or were forced into serfdom; the ministerials threw off their serfdom and sold their services to the highest bidder; and as local nobles sought to protect themselves, castles sprang up everywhere. The period of the Investiture Controversy therefore marks both an important stage in the long-term loss of imperial control over Germany and the first great wave of German castle building.
During the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, several developments further reduced royal control in Germany. When Henry V of Germany (r 1106-1125, crowned 1111) died in 1125 without leaving a direct heir, the monarchy once again became elective, and the nobles, always in favor of a king who may be swayed, choose Lothair II (r. 1125-117, crowned 1133) of the Welf family. Lothair proved not to there liking because he tried to strengthen the seat of the emperor at the expense of the nobles. When Lothair died in 1137 without a direct heir, the nobles chose who they favored, a weak king, Conrad III (r. 1138-1152) of the rival Hohenstaufen family. The struggles between these two families led to what in effect were permanent rival parties. The Hohenstaufen usually (but not always) were the imperial party; the Welfs led the nobles, supported by the pope. In Italy, these parties were known as the Guelphs and the Ghibellines - the latter named from the Hohenstaufen castle of Waiblingen.
Under these circumstances, the emperors faced what amounted to a permanently organized opposition. Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1152-1190, crowned 1155) attempted to restore imperial control over northern Italy. He first had to make major concessions of political rights to German nobles to ensure peace in Germany while he was absent. Frederick failed to bring northern Italy totally under imperial control as he hoped. He did manage to marry his son, Henry VI of Germany (r. 1190-1197, crowned 1191), to the heiress to the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and South Italy. Henry died after a short reign, leaving a two-year-old heir, and a long period of civil war ensured. When Frederick II of Hohenstaufen came to age, he chose to base himself in his mother's Kingdom of Sicily. To retain control in Germany he made further concession to the German nobility. When Frederick II's son Conrad IV (r. 1250-1254) died, the German monarchy became truly elective again. The German kings lost many of their remaining royal powers. Germany became a collection of virtually independent principalities, cities, and territories and continued as such into the nineteenth century.
Under these circumstances of insecurity, warfare, and absence of central control, castles continued to flourish. Some castles such as Wartburg
were built as refuge, while others controlled territory, and still others to command trade routes and prey (legally or illegally) on merchants and travelers. This last comment helps to explain the high concentrations of castles along major rivers such as the Rhine River (e.g., the Marksburg and Burg Stahleck, and the Rheinstein) and along the Mosell River (Burg Eltz). During the later Middle Ages and in the early modern period, Germany remained subject to warfare, and castle defenses were continually updated. At the same time, castles were rebuilt to make them more comfortable to live in. During the Religious Wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many castles were destroyed, however, and the survival of German castles today is due largely to restoration during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Austria was originally the German East March (Ostmark), the southeastern frontier of Germany. Austria remained within Germany and the German Confederation until 1866. The political background leading to the building of Austrian castles is very much like that in the rest of Germany. One fine example of a castle that was built as a refuge is Hohensalzburg located in Salzburg, Austria.
Initially Switzerland was also mainly a German territory. In 1291 three cantons formed a defensive league, and during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries other nearby cities and territories joined the Swiss Confederation. During the fifteenth century, there was much warfare in Switzerland, often quite brutal. The Swiss proved that they also could be savage in warfare. Construction of castles came about the same way in Switerland as it had in Germany and Austria. Consequently, the Swiss Castles continued to be important militarily all the way up to the seventeenth century. Habsburg Castle is a fine example of a castle being built near a small village to help control the area and its inhabitants. Some of these castles were built to command a height and over look the territory as with Schloss Tarasp which is built on a peak almost 5000 feet (1,524m) high. A few castles were built on undefenseable ground and the owner created an artifical moat or pond to protect the castle as with Schloss Hallwill.
