Klettgau — The Land Between Sulz and Schaffhausen

Klettgau lies between the Upper Rhine, the Randen hills and the approaches to Schaffhausen. The Counts of Sulz hold the landgravial dignity, but their rights are scattered among villages, town courts and older sacred estates. A wagon may cross three jurisdictions before reaching market, and a lord’s seal is worth little where the neighbouring city refuses to honour it. The ruined castle of Balm is still a warning of how swiftly a dispute over rights can become a war.

• Realm: Klettgau landgraviate, within the Empire
• Principal lords: Counts of Sulz; neighbouring Schaffhausen, Constance and holders of smaller jurisdictions dispute particular rights
• Important places: Grießen, Lauchringen, Wutöschingen, the Randen routes and the ruins of Balm near Lottstetten
• Landscape: fertile farmland, vineyards, woodland and river-bound approaches to the Upper Rhine
• People: farmers, vintners, carters, craftspeople, forest workers and clerks; older local obligations differ from village to village
• Speech: Alemannic German; Latin in some formal records and learned correspondence
• Current dispute: the aftermath of Balm’s destruction in 1449 and conflicting demands for tolls, justice and control of roads

The Land and Its Roads

Fields and vineyards spread across the Klettgau between wooded ridges and the Upper Rhine. The roads through Grießen and the neighbouring villages carry grain, wine, timber and travellers bound for Schaffhausen or the river crossings. These are working settlements, not the outskirts of a single great capital. The border between the counts’ authority and the privileges of towns, sacred estates and minor lords can run through one pasture or follow a stream for only a short distance. A carrier needs to know who maintains the next bridge and whose officers can demand a toll.

Who Holds Power?

The Counts of Sulz acquired their claim to the landgraviate through the Habsburg-Laufenburg inheritance in 1408 and secured their position amid disputes with powerful neighbours. Their landgravial courts cannot simply overrule every village, lord or city. Schaffhausen seeks to prevent the counts from extending their reach across the routes leading to its markets; the wider powers of Constance, Austria and the sacred estate at Rheinau have interests here too.

The Sulz family also holds the hereditary office associated with the Imperial Court at Rottweil. A litigant with money for scribes may seek judgment there, but carrying the resulting writ home is another matter. Klettgau’s local bailiffs and neighbouring town officers know whose witnesses they will trust and whose claims they intend to contest.

Balm: The Castle That Was Broken

Near Lottstetten stand the remains of Balm Castle, once a Sulz stronghold. In 1449, forces from Schaffhausen destroyed it amid bitter conflict over rights and power in the border country. The ruin still matters. Tenants once bound to supply labour or grain to its garrison want to know whether their obligations died with the walls. The counts’ officers insist that a burned castle does not cancel a debt, while Schaffhausen watches for any attempt to rebuild the stronghold.

A mason hired to retrieve cut stone from the site is accused of taking a sealed chest instead. The keeper of a neighbouring estate says its contents could prove an older boundary claim; the count’s men say the chest is theirs. For travellers, the question is not simply who possesses it but where its testimony can be heard without starting another feud.

What the Villages Whisper

Children are warned not to shelter in Balm’s broken chambers after dark. Some say a white-clad woman walks the collapsed stair, counting those who did not return from the fighting. A shepherd has seen a light there on a clear night, while the men who tend the nearby woods say smugglers have been using old paths through the ruins. No two people who have tried to catch the figure agree on what happened next. Those who know the paths have little wish to make another journey alone.

Elsewhere the dangers are more certain. Late snow can close the wooded tracks on the Randen heights; a flooded ford turns the journey to market into a long detour. A village may pay a guide to lead strangers around a disputed boundary simply to keep the local peace.

What Is Happening Right Now?

Schaffhausen’s agents are asking who paid to clear the path to Balm; the count’s steward wants the work to continue. A trader’s wagons have been delayed because two toll keepers claim authority over the same crossing, and the village reeve has refused to supply spare animals until they settle the levy. Farther south, a tenant family has recovered an old charter from a locked chest and seeks a witness who can read its damaged seal. None of these quarrels will wait for the next Imperial diet. A party can help a household reach court, carry the charter safely, uncover the identity of the night visitor or take service with one of the rival authorities.

Historical Sources

The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland’s Klettgau entry describes the landgraviate and the divided rights of its neighbours. Its Counts of Sulz entry documents their inheritance, the destruction of Balm in 1449 and their later territorial acquisitions. The accounts also distinguish the Counts of Sulz’s later territorial acquisitions from their earlier Klettgau holdings.