Robber Baron Castle

hey everybody my name is Chase pipes and you're watching chasing history and we are in Southwestern Germany and there's a castle behind us dude we're here with local expert Andreas ker Andreas thank you so much for taking us out and showing us the history of this Castle sure so what what do we have going on behind us besides an awesome castle from the Medieval Era so the castle was first built in about 12:30 we don't know exactly it was first mentioned in a surviving document in 1285 okay and it was mainly built to protect the road that's right behind us in the valley was an important Road at the time okay and oversee the valley make sure no enemy troops coming through and keep an eye on Travelers okay so what what was the point of castles cuz that's one thing Germany is famous for is all these castles all over the place why are people building castles all over the place well the the main reason was that Knights uh uh had a castle and they were in charge of protecting the area Okay so for their services they got a percentage of the villagers income if you want if you had 10 pigs you give one to the Knight therefore you have his protection oh okay so like if you know an army were to invade could people like run to the castle for protection sure okay so it was kind of like a a regional Fort for the area that also served as a power base right okay let's talk about it changed a little bit during time you know during times but uh in the early days at least that was the idea too yeah okay so you know Castle construction how are castles built you know are they using you know permanent markers on the landscape high hills how do Castle typically um you have to imagine these castles were built before gunpowder was a thing so the initial idea was we have to be on High Ground so an invading army with infantry and swords and halberts and Lancers you know has to go up the hill so they typically up on a hill okay uh in this particular case there was a sandstone outcrop and the castle is literally built into and on top of the Sandstone outcrop so they looked at this sandstone outcrop and was like this is a great place for a castle we can Cy The Rock here if we want and we can use this rock to Anchor our Castle to this Hillside overlooking they would literally cut the rock out of the Hillside and build the castle with it right there oh that's cool and there's a really good spot on the other side of the castle we're going to go take you to and and just show you how that work was done let's go so behind me you can see the natural rock outcropping that this Castle is built upon but you know why is it choose a natural rock outcropping it just seems like a hell of a lot of work it is but you're on a high hill with a natural Sandstone top and it's solid Sandstone so you can actually carve Chambers into it you can put staircases into it and then the Rock you're cowing out of that you can use for outer walls and the chambers that you have now into the Rock they more secure so this rock is good enough where you could actually Cory it and use the actual rock that you're you know building on top of to actually build the outside of the castle yeah all all these towers and things you see behind us that's all cored right here that's part of this mountain that is so cool and I guess it would offer you you know instead of having to build a room with four walls you could just build a room with three walls and just butt it up to the Natural one wall in this case or yeah that's actually really cool if you see behind me there there's a cut out room in literally into the rock formation itself you know and then I also shows you that the castle itself existed out to where we are standing today you know there's now how would they get the stones high up in the castle I mean do they have cranes did they have Fork I guess they didn't have forklifts back there no forklifts no forklifts but they had primitive cranes if you want U and if you see up there on those rocks each Rock has a dimple in the middle on each side so they had a a metal Contraption like two hooks basically with a joint that would grab the Rock and so they could hoist it up okay so all of these dimples that we're seeing along inside the castle they're not impacts from musket shots or whatever they're actually part of the construction process where a crane would cramp the block pick it up and place it in spot that is really cool otherwise you couldn't these things all way you know s00 pound so you pick them up right so the spiral staircases that we've got going on behind us how were those constructed uh for the most part they were wooden uh inside the tower you see rocks that stick out that were built into the wall okay but they only jut outs say a foot and then between them they would put wooden steps if you want yeah because there was just not enough big pieces of rock like that that would the Sandstone is very good to cut big building blocks but it's not stable enough to put a 6 foot step that's fairly thin it'll it'll break over it'll wear out and it's probably too porous so we'll see that another Castle later on where steps where people for a thousand years walked over the Sandstone it just wears through it yes and that's another interesting thing that we've seen here is is that you know they they've created steps into the natural rock formation itself going from point A to point B you know it's like well we've got to go to this part of the castle so instead of building a wooden steps let's just cut into the Rock itself where as it wears it's just going to wear deeper into the Rock yeah there's a lot of things going on with this Castle what's interesting is is how well it's preserved inside relatively speaking you know let's go in and let's show you guys what it looks like on the inside so now we're in a section of the castle that was you know added on to in the 1600s you know what was going on technologically that required for you know this Castle to be expanded really in the this this particular SE was proba a little bit earlier like uh early 1500s okay but basically the invention of gunpowder a couple hundred years earlier that had then traveled to this part of Europe uh had made it necessary for castles to change they were originally built in the 12 Century most of them 12 13th century prior to having gunpowder all you had to worry about was an army of foot soldiers and maybe some people on horse back coming up a hill at you with swords and such uh now you had cannons and you need to thicken your walls to withstand the cannonade but you also need your own cannons you need space for them and you need holes in the walls to shoot through such as what we see right here so this is basic evidence of where you know a cannon in placement to shoot out cuz the the when we look out the window it's down into a big flat plane you know area where armies could aass where they could attack organize themselves to attack the castle this area is very hilly and you don't have very many good spots to assemble an army or to get people information right uh it's very Rocky so this is one of the spots right out there so with the cannon that stood right here you can Lop shells right into the can right so basically you want to make sure that you know you pick a good spot for your Tower of cannons to be able to shoot at the spots that you want right yeah there's no need to cover a steep Hillside you know they can't bring up their own uh canons but when you look at a lot of these castles you you see this change in technology within the fortification itself I mean because you know the castle will start out as this small thing to defend against foot soldiers and horses and then all of a sudden cannons and artillery shows up and you know you've got to completely you know change your tactics with the change in technology so these castles got bigger they got thicker they got you know new technology more defensive until eventually you know the technology was so great the Cannons were so powerful that fortifications like this were became useless you know that's why we don't build fortifications anymore you know if you look around military fortifications today there's not a stone wall around it yeah there's a bob wire fence but you know you're not going to build something you know when the technology to to attack you will destroy your fortifications like that this Castle is built on top of a major Rock outcropping it's got a great look of the road that was here during the medieval period what's really fascinating is is that there's still a road here in modern time you know it's the the quickest point you know between A and B is following the natural terrain and it was a good place to travel back then just as it's a good place to travel today but you know so that why is this Castle you know set up here like this to protect the road is it just for the road or for the citizens how does that all work well so like we said earlier the the Knight that owns the castle is not only in charge of protecting the road but also the people that live on on his lands okay so for that protection they give him a percentage of what they produce so if you raise 10 pigs you give one to the Knight if you are a banker and you make x amount of money you give x amount to the Knight so the Knight can feed himself and his people and he can maintain the castle buy horses and such the problem arises in this area uh when several waves of the Black Death the plague came through so things were going really good you know everything was working as it should as a castle should naturally function protecting the people and you know the people paying tribute to the night where does it go wrong so several waves of play came through and in this area particular particularly it was really hard hit up to 75% of the population perished in the in the different outbreaks so now all of a sudden you have nobody that can tend to the field you have nobody that can work with the animals or make any kind of money people are starving therefore the Knight all of a sudden has no income he can't feed himself he can't feed his people he has no money so there's two ways of dealing with this three ways if you are really wealthy you can weather it um but most of these nights they weren't from a big family they were in like hapsburgs or whatever uh so some Knights sold off some of their belongings uh some of their property some of their lands parts of castles even uh and other nights like the one we're going to talk about uh basically resorted to robbing people or capturing people and holding them for R wow so he's he he's already got a good spot up on this Castle he's overlooking a major road you know with wealthy Travelers traveling from A to B so it's like hm I think I'll turn to Robbin yeah pretty much and uh there is evidence at this particular Castle so that like we said there's two castles with a very similar name and in the old documents they often called the same but just the way the castle is situated this one by itself in the woods um the other one in a cluster of castles three or four other castles with it this has to be the one that they're talking about where this Robert Baron uh lived we only know his first name Stoess yeah um and he married the Widow of one of the Knights of the area um and then basically went out captured people threw them in the dungeon and if nobody paid ransom for them uh he let him St wow so when Canon technology came out there was a lot of improvements that went onto the castle right sure yeah not only that you have to thicken the walls and and put in your own Cannon uh positions like we talked about but behind us you see this really interesting structure it's almost like the bow of a ship and what that is about this was the main road that to the castle so there's really steep sides you can't bring your cannons up these these Hills so the Cannons of the enemy would come up this road right so this structure would actually deflect the cannonballs wow like a snow plow if you want uh or Le that was the idea so because this is the only level spot to really set up a cannon you know you needed a place to deflect the balls from destroying your main part of your structure and that's what this bow did was deflect that shot and then also on the bottom you know gave the opportunity to fire back on would be attack that's really cool you know the thing about these castles is is that you know they they tried to use them again and again and again with each ad you know with each advancement in military technology you know they kept trying to you know make these structures work until finally they got to the point where they couldn't work they were torn down and were no more so it's just really cool to see another example of the defensive work here in Germany so Andreas what is a robber barar I mean is this like a baron of robbers or no so the the German term is Al literally a robbing Knight but it doesn't have to be a knight it doesn't have to be a baron it doesn't have to be anybody of nobility the term is used for anybody that has a stronghold like this and from there you know goes out to do these illegal Deeds uh in those Medieval Times okay all right so the stresses on the population the plague coming in you know created you know Robert Baron here but was this common throughout JY it was common for several centuries um it became less common when things got more stable say in the 14th century yeah uh and when the the whole Black Death thing was the thing of the past um then you know things stabilized King's got things under control uh most of the castles that had robber barons were actually besieged by the king and destroyed yeah uh because you didn't want to have the reputation hey let not go to this part of Germany right yeah but I mean you know these weren't you know the whole dynamic really changed this is a place of protection a place of safety and then now it's a place of danger I mean these weren't good people these were really bad people right sure yeah I mean uh this particular guy we're talking about stoas um he like we said captured people and if nobody paid the ransom he literally let them starve to death in The Dungeons below us so literally in this so so if you didn't have enough money you know they would capture you Ransom was a big thing in that period and they would hold you for ransom and and if you couldn't pay you just starve to death pretty much yeah and in the in the 1600s I believe there's a text that survived uh when people this was a ruin and people were poking around in the cellers in the Dungeons and they started fighting these skeletons and limbs of people that got packed off or whatever and uh yeah crazy stuff so a lot of dark things happened down in the dungeons let's go check out the dungeons the dungeons all right let's [Music] go so we're now deep inside the bows of the castle in the dungeon of the castle and J what is a dungeon it's pretty much a type of prison you want that's a room deep inside the castle um that is secure that you can hold a prisoner or enemy whatever uh security inside the castle were dungeons common in this era yeah pretty much every Castle had one look for the Sinister purposes like this one but basically you had to De maybe the soldiers that a mutiny or U you captured an enemy and so you needed Adu it yeah it's just really wild to be in this in this place because a lot of really terrible things went on here so you know what are some of the things what is one of the reasons why someone would in in this place well first of all there was a lot of things that was a kind of offense and we can't even fa these things and you were sort of in many case you were sort of Lucky than kill our um you could be you know beheaded for owning coffee as a car just as B yeah that's crazy but yeah they would change to the wall uh and basically tort you if need be if they wanted some information from you uh in this case it was just about getting money as a ROM um and if you couldn't pay then just start wow so the rer bear that controlled this Castle what was his name again stus stus that is that is the most rer bear pirate name I've ever heard of so stus would capture you and find out that you're a rich person you've got a rich family and that that there's money back behind you that can be paid so he would take you throw you down into here sh the wall chain to the wall and then what contact they would feed you just enough give you just enough water to keep you alive they contact your family or say you are a person that's the church they contact the church hey got this guy we want X and if your family wasn't able to or the church didn't want to whatever they would that is insane that's just so hard to Fathom I mean you know you would not want to be traveling through this area you know in the in the 14th century because this would have been an incredibly dangerous place to be and I mean just incredibly torturous ER I'm sure that major like let's say you know you knew where something was they would take you and throw you in the dungeon and put you through you know torture and try to get information out of you what kind of things would they do well there a million things said you have no idea how people can come up with this stuff I mean there was things like pulling on your fingernails or using H you know Focus that they you know you name just any way to hurt you they they would do and very creative methods it's so haunting to to be in a room like this and what's interesting is is so in the 1600s when people started re exploring this Castle what did they find down there so the castle was in Ruins then and they were poken around in these rooms and we have some uh letters that live where people describe the skeletons and hack off limbs that they found uh down in the dungeons from a few years before and see that's just it this is where this goes from you know mythology into fact is because you know we have contemporary documentation you know of people at this site exploring the site finding human remains down into the dungeons you know a dungeon is something that we think that is you know just a Hollywood myth ah throw them in the dungeon you know that kind of thing and and when really it's a real thing that happened to real people that happened right here and in the 1600s evidence was found of that hacked off arms skeletons remain people still changed in wall the things that you wouldn't fathom I mean it was like it would be like walking into a into a horror show you know it must have and it was such an impactful thing that people wrote it down for us to know today which is why we know so much about this this castle and the evil that was portrayed here I mean this is a a very haunting place to be in where a lot of really terrible terrible things happen this but according to local legs on because the local people are convinced that there are ghosts and all kinds of things going on there there's just get online and look there's a lot of ghost Legends I mean even when we when we first walked in here man this just uh-uh no so you know what's Wild though is that you know this is an era that can't last there's a lot of really terrible terrible things happening here and this has got to end this can't go on forever this dude can't keep pulling stuff off of the main road and you know throwing them in the dungeon and you go rans and people are going to get tired of that and they dig get tired of that we're going to go outside and we're to tell you exactly what they did to end this evil so you know you got a lot of bad things going on here for a very for you know a couple of decades and word got out not to come in this area you know otherwise you're going to get robbed You're going to get taken hostage terrible things are going to happen to you but you know that word getting out you know things get better over time and that's got to end at some point so how does how does this end how does this Robber Baron story finish so basically like you said it was bad for the local economy because people wouldn't travel to the area anymore it was also bad for the church because spaya which is down that way is an important Place uh big Cathedral and finally the king ordered other Knights and the bishop of spay and another couple of Bishops to raise an army to come here and Destroy This castle and get the guy out of here WAOW and so that's how it all ended an army was raised the castle was destroyed what happened to the guy himself do we know there's a few different versions of it um one says the next day or two days later he was beheaded in front of the SP Cathedral uh another version says that he got away and he never paid for his deeds uh we don't know wow and so ends the story of the robber barons of Southwestern Germany this is a a really interesting history you know when you look at it in terms of castles cuz we think castles as these places of you know nice and nobility and honor and morality but there's also a period of History to some of these castles like this one behind me that is dark and dangerous and really leads to myth and Legend and you know these are things that we think are are myth and Legend but in reality actually happened and this is one of the places where that actually happened Andreas dude thank you so much for having us out man we really appreciate it we thank you guys for watching this episode we hope that you will like And subscribe to our Channel put your comments in the comments below let us know what you think let us know if you saw a ghost floating around somewhere in the background of of the camera maybe an orb or something uh check out our social media chasing history both on Instagram and on Facebook and remember guys history rocks woohoo [Music] we got it ah we're dag in the gastle we're going to get get him God wills it God will get it Chase history God wills [Music] it