Ruine du Chateau de la Soie, Wallis, Switzerland
Posted by: 
tijgetje
N 46° 14.631 E 007° 19.641
32T E 371053 N 5122501
Ruines of a old castle located very nearby Sion the capital of Wallis.
Waymark Code: WMTYJ
Location: Valais, Switzerland
Date Posted: 10/12/2006
Views: 64
The ruins of this castle occupy a long rock edge, located at the south-west of the village of Granois and which drops gradually is in the west in the direction of Morge. It is a splendid view-point, in a position naturally favourable with defense, from where one dominates all the valley of the Rhone beyond Morge until Martigny. One can reach it, either by Granois, or by a way which crosses the combe starting from Muraz.
As of the prehistoric time, this headland played an important part. The medieval castle is a creation of Landri de Mont, bishop of Sion, in 1219. It quickly causes difficulties with the counts of Savoy, because it is an obstacle with their projects of domination on the area of Sion. It does not seem however to have suffered during wars from Were worth with Pierre It of Savoy.
Silk was constantly the preferred residence of the bishops of Sion, especially starting from XIVe century: they felt safe there freer and more that in their capital itself. A lord of the manor to which the bishop had made of it the military defense, managed the borough which had been constituted in front of the castle, as of XIIIe century; a sautier had as a function to perceive the taxes, and a gatekeeper, whose load was hereditary, took care of the entry of the borough.
It is in this castle that the long fight between the bishop Guichard Tavelli and the lords of the Tower finished tragically. August 8, 1375, of the sicaires to the pay of Antoine of the Tower manage to penetrate in the enclosure, seize themselves of the prelate who then recited his breviary in the garden surrounded of notched walls, and precipitate it in the rocks on the side of Chandolin. This fixed price unchains the most serious disorders in all Were worth it. The successor of Tavelli, Edouard of Savoy, is expelled by the Patriots who seize Silk; but, in 1384, the count Amédée VII takes again the castle which it consequently makes manage by lords of the manor. As for so much of other fortified towns of Were worth, the war of Rarogne was fatal with the castle of Silk: besieged in 1417, it capitulates, then, it is plundered and ruined. If the castle were never concerned its ruins, the borough continued to be still inhabited throughout XVe century.
This ruine also can be visted thru a cache hunt from geocaching
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