Moosham Castle

Moosham stands above the Lungau valley and was an administrative seat of the archbishops of Salzburg, which is what put it at the centre of the Zauberer-Jackl-Prozesse - the Salzburg witch trials between 1675 and 1690, in which around a hundred and forty people were executed, most of them young, poor and homeless, many of them children and adolescents, tried on charges of sorcery attached to a supposed sorcerer named Jackl who was never found. The castle held the court and the cells. In the nineteenth century Count Wilczek bought and restored it and fitted it with collections. Tours cover the halls, the collections and the trial history, and a good deal of ghost-story marketing has attached itself to the place, which sits awkwardly with what actually happened here.

History

Perhaps built on the foundations of a Roman fort, the castle is first recorded in a deed of 1191; the prince-archbishops of Salzburg took it around 1285, it was the seat of an archiepiscopal burgrave from the 14th century, Leonhard von Keutschach rebuilt and enlarged it from 1495, and in 1520 it became an administrative seat of the Lungau, besieged in the Peasants' War of 1524-1525. Archbishop Wolf Dietrich Raitenau stopped here in October 1611 as he fled Salzburg, shortly before his capture, and between 1675 and 1690 the castle was the centre of the Zauberer-Jackl witch trials, in which 139 people were executed, nearly all of them beggars and most of them children and young people (Wikipedia, Moosham Castle).

What you'll find

• The trial court and cells - where the Salzburg witch trials were conducted.
• A restored nineteenth-century interior - Wilczek's furnishing and collections.
• The Lungau position - the castle above the valley and the old road.
• Guided tours - the only way through the halls and the history.

When to go

May to October; closed over winter. Half a day.

Before you go

Guided tours only, mainly in German. The witch trial history involves the execution of children and is presented alongside ghost-tour marketing, which many visitors find jarring.

Nearby

Mauterndorf castle and Tamsweg are close.

Key facts