Burg Tunsel

Burg Tunsel once stood on a vineyard hill 240 metres above sea level on the north-west edge of Bad Krozingen’s Tunsel district. The site overlooks the Rhine plain and the Münstertal mining valleys, giving it a strategic position in the High Middle Ages. The first written record of a local noble family, the lords of Tunsel, appears in 1091 when they served the Zähringen dukes. By 1111 Wolfhelin and his son Hildebrand sold land in Schallstadt to St Peter’s Church for four marks of silver. In 1159 Burchard of Tunsel witnessed a charter for the same monastery, showing the family’s continuing influence. The fortress changed hands several times in the 13th century. On 21 January 1256 Rudolf of Razenhusen and his wife Anna, daughter of the late knight Berthold of Tunsel, sold the castle to Count Conrad of Freiburg for 400 marks. The count resold it the same year to St Trudpert’s monastery for 700 marks. A decade later Count Heinrich of Freiburg renounced his claims for 30 marks after disputes over inheritance between the Freiburg counts Egino and Heinrich. The castle’s name appears in documents until at least 1391, when a local cleric, Master Johannes of Tunsel, paid an annual rent of three pounds and eight shillings from a house near the Lehem gate. Today no visible traces remain of the stone buildings that once crowned the hill. The vineyards still stretch across the gentle slope, and the old stories of the lords of Tunsel are told in local legends. The site offers quiet walks among the rows of vines, with distant views over the Rhine valley and the Black Forest hills. A small information board marks the spot where the castle once stood, linking the present landscape to the medieval past. The hill remains a peaceful reminder of the region’s feudal history.