Like most of the castles in the Rhineland-Palatinate, Landeck Castle was built in approximately 1200. It served probably the function of protecting the nearby Klingenmünster monastery. The first documental reference to Landeck Castle was made in 1237.
In the period around 1500 there were castle administrators from the Kurpfalz, the bishop of Speyer and the counts of Zweibrücken. At the end of the 15th century extensive work was done at Landeck Castle. During the Peasants’ War in 1525 it was damaged, but obviously quickly repaired.
In 1570 there was again a change in ownership. After the dying out of the Zweibrücken-Bitch lineage their share of the castle went to the Kurpfalz. It was not until 1709 that the Electors succeded in owning the entire property of Landeck Castle, when the Speyer bishopric gave up the remaining quarter by exchange. The Kurpfalz remained the only owner until the French Revolution. In the 1960’s the castle was extensively restored.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.