Hartberg Castle

Hartberg Castle, also known as Schloss Paar, is a castle complex in Hartberg, Austria’s district headquarters.

The castle is located northwest of Hartberg’s old town, at the foot of the Ringkogel.It is surrounded by parts of the city’s defensive wall and the Reckturm fortifications.The city park is located to the west, and the palace park and Herrengasse are located to the south.

The castle was included within a line of defenses established by the Traungau family on behalf of the local authorities at the highest point of today’s Hartberg, which was first mentioned in documents in 1147.The town that exists now evolved from the settlement that built up around the castle complex.In addition to the Meierhof, the complex included a mill and the Johannis church.

In 1469, Austrian commander Andreas Baumkircher attacked Hartberg and transferred the castle’s king, Anton von Herberstein, to Schlaining in Burgenland.When the city was taken by Hungarian monarch Matthias Corvinus in 1487, Baumkircher’s son Wilhelm received the city and castle as a fief.It was reclaimed in 1490 by the Roman-German king and later Emperor Maximilian I.Emperor Ferdinand I handed Hartberg to the administrator Siegmund von Dietrichsteinsold after the sovereign possessed it till 1529.The owners changed several times throughout the next few decades.

Post and quartermaster Johann Baptist von Paar, who had owned the fortification since 1571, converted it into a Renaissance-style castle from 1576 until 1584.In 1626, Hartberg Castle was included in the Paar family’s Familienfideikommiss.After the castle was seized owing to financial difficulties in 1634, it was transferred to Hans Albrecht von Herberstein, who passed it on to Governor Karl Graf von Saurau in 1641 until it was acquired by Georg Adam Graf von Lengheimb in 1682.Instead of the Meierhof, the new owner extended the castle and built an official building.

After more than a century, the Paar family recovered ownership of Hartberg Castle in 1756.The estate was administered by administrators selected by the family, who were residing in a Viennese house at the time.Karl Fürst Paar offered the castle for sale to the municipality in 1850, but the deal fell through due to the high purchase price.Following the sale of the Wiener Palais Paar in 1937 and the loss of the assets in Bohemia in 1945, the extremely damaged palace was only ceded to the city of Hartberg in 1981.

The castle was leased to the Stadtsparkasse after extensive renovations, and later to the cosmetics business and multilevel marketing corporation Ringana, where it now serves as an education and event center.The castle complex is currently being used by a cosmetics firm that has set up its administrative offices here.The exceptions are the Knights’ Hall, which is still open to the public, and a café in the old stables.In March 2021, Ringana stated that the lease will expire at the end of June 2021 and would not be extended.

Hartberg Castle was first mentioned in documents in 1147 as Hartberg Castle, while construction may have began as early as 1122 with the appointment of Konrad Bertha von Hartberg by Margrave Leopold I.Only the ruins of the ancient Johannis-und-Magdalenenkapelle can be seen today, indicating that the neighbouring castle chapel was most likely dismantled after the 16th century.The castle was built using Romanesque ashlars.The first market, today’s Herrengasse, was built about 1128.Several outbuildings were added to the castle during the next several centuries, some of which still exist today.In the 16th century, the entire castle was restored in the Renaissance style.The eye-catching arcade wing was also built a century later.

The palace with the pointed arch gate is the only structure that remains of the original royal castle complex.The northern part dates from the Middle Ages.The foundations of the ancient keep, which has a floor plan of 9.8 11 meters, have been discovered during archaeological research.The outdoor stairway on the courtyard side dates from 1576 and features a Renaissance-style bay window and a double window.

The knight’s hall is a vast royal chamber on the second floor of the castle with a stone Renaissance fireplace, the Paar-Haim families’ double coat of arms, and traces of wall paintings.The wing, which adjoins the Knights’ Hall wing to the north, has a medieval core.However, around the end of the 16th century, a conversion took place, during which the east wing’s outside wall was built.On the courtyard side, there are two-story arcades with glass arches.In 1958, baroque wall paintings from the 17th century were unearthed on the first storey.

Near the park gate on Herrengasse, an inscription by Johann Baptist von Paar and his wife Afra, née Haim, with the years 1584 and 1598 has been preserved.It is from the castle chapel, which has since been dismantled.