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Villages / Fribourg / Veveyse district / Château de Bossonnens

Château de Bossonnens

Site Canton of Fribourg · District: Veveyse · Uninhabited site (municipality of Bossonnens)
Part of the municipality of Bossonnens
Origin of the name Founding Historical timeline Must-see historical sites Remains Legends Sources and references Nearby villages

Origin of the name Château de Bossonnens

The castle bears the name of the village, recorded around the year 1000 as « Bucenens ». The site of the ruins is called « Sur la Tour ».[1][2]

Founding of Château de Bossonnens

The castle stands on the rock forming the last step of Mont Vuarat, above the village and the road from Oron to Vevey. Its round tower watches over the mouth of the Tatroz valley into the Broye valley. A first castle rose around 1150, probably at the initiative of the Blonay, who held this land from the abbey of Saint-Maurice. The Oron, who succeeded them in the 13th century, carried on building. To the north stood the castle, with its residential range and the chapel of Saint-André, defended by a sloping curtain wall. To the south, the town founded by Amédée d'Oron had some twenty houses below the round tower.[2][3][4][7]

History of Château de Bossonnens

Around 1150. A castle rises on the rocky spur, probably built by the Blonay. The square keep is thought to date from the 12th century.[1][3]

1221. Rodolphe I d'Oron, the first of his family named as lord of Bossonnens, carries on building the castle.[3][7]

Around 1260. Amédée I d'Oron has the round tower raised to the south and founds the town between the tower and the castle.[1][2][3]

1307. Amédée dies. His widow Jaquète inherits the castle.[3]

1349. By his will Girard II d'Oron leaves the castle to his nephew Aymon II, later grand bailiff of Vaud.[3]

1399. Marguerite d'Oron, lady of Bossonnens, makes a gift to the castle chapel.[3]

1410. On her death the castle passes to the sons of her first husband, François de La Sarraz. The Oron period ends.[1][3]

1455. The communal oven leaves the town for the new village at the foot of the rocks. The town is abandoned during the 15th century.[1][2][3][7]

1475. On 28 October men of Fribourg and Bern burn the castle, wrongly, since Bossonnens did not depend on the House of Savoy. Excavations revealed another fire, in 1512.[1][3][7]

1513. Georges de La Sarraz, in debt, sells the castle to the duke of Savoy. Pierre de Beaufort, bailiff of Vaud, takes possession on 3 October.[1][3]

1536-1554. Fribourg installs a bailiff and has a new dwelling built. The bailiff's house is rebuilt in 1553-1554.[2][3]

1618. On 8 May Fribourg sells the castle, already in ruins, and its estate to councillor Henri Lamberger. The site is gradually abandoned in the 17th century.[1][2][3]

1716. The stones of the medieval chapels are used to build the village chapel of Saint-André. The ruin becomes complete in the 18th century.[1][3][4]

1895. Charles Pasche describes the ruins in the Revue historique vaudoise and proposes a survey of them.[4]

Late 19th century-1939. The municipality has the walls and the northern tip of the rock crushed to supply gravel for the cantonal roads. The destruction stops in 1939, when the road is surfaced with tarmac.[6]

1975-1987. The cantonal archaeologist Hanni Schwab visits the site in 1975 at the request of Joseph Cottet. An expert examines it in 1987.[3]

1990-1996. The Association for the enhancement of the medieval remains of Bossonnens is founded in 1990. Restoration starts in 1996, with jobless workers and later trainees on reintegration schemes.[3][5][6]

2003-2004. Emptying the keep with a mechanical digger calls for a rescue excavation, which reveals a thick burnt layer, probably from 1475. The keep is then roofed, and a training excavation follows in 2004.[5][6]

2016. An educational trail of eleven panels, written by the archaeological service of the State of Fribourg, is opened.[3][8]

Historic sites in Château de Bossonnens

Keep. The square keep, about ten metres a side, is built of large conglomerate blocks quarried on the spot with wooden wedges. It controlled one of the ways into the town and is now protected by a roof.[5][6]

Round tower. The Savoyard-type circular tower of the 1260s dominates the south of the site. In 1895 it stood about 15 m high and 10 m across, with walls 3 m thick at the base, and its only opening was a narrow arrow slit.[1][2][4]

Curtain wall and residential range. A wall some thirty metres long, joined to the keep, protects a large building of 15 by 20 m, read as the residential range. The ruins of the castle and town are listed in the inventory of cultural property of national importance (category A).[5][9]

Trail. Eleven panels present the plan of the area, the excavations, the town, the castle, the site's chronology and the building techniques.[8]

Remains in Château de Bossonnens

The town. Some twenty « chésaux » stood in two rows, to the west and east. The land registers of 1496 and 1543 name their occupants, among them a chaplain, Pierre des Eschiens.[2][6]

Chapel of Saints Andrew and Theodulus. The chapel in the castle courtyard, recorded before 1358, was pulled down in 1716.[1]

Conglomerate blocks. Near the town, in the woods, two blocks bear notches for wooden wedges. They were taken for prehistoric cup-marked stones, but they are blocks prepared for splitting in the Middle Ages.[5]

Legends of Château de Bossonnens

Empress Adelaide. People in Bossonnens like to think that Empress Adelaide, daughter of Queen Bertha, rested here in 999, on her way from Selz in Alsace to Vevey and the abbey of Saint-Maurice. Charles-Albert Cingria told the story of this journey.[6]

Sources

  1. Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, « Bossonnens » (Marianne Rolle, version du 10.03.2011)
  2. Inventaire suisse des biens culturels, « Bossonnens, ruines du château et du bourg » (KGS 01960)
  3. Les vestiges de Bossonnens, « Quelques dates clés »
  4. Les vestiges de Bossonnens, « Un récit de 1895 » (Ch. Pasche, Revue historique vaudoise, 1895)
  5. Les vestiges de Bossonnens, « Chronique archéologique 2003 » (Gilles Bourgarel, Cahiers d'archéologie fribourgeoise)
  6. Les vestiges de Bossonnens, « Quelques faits intéressants »
  7. Les vestiges de Bossonnens, « L'époque féodale »
  8. Les vestiges de Bossonnens, « Le sentier didactique »
  9. Office fédéral de la protection de la population, « Révision Inventaire PBC 2021 : Liste cantonale Canton de FR » (état au 1.1.2026)

Other villages near Château de Bossonnens

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