Neuchatel Castle (Switzerland)

Between the lake and Seyon River is a rocky promontory. The lake, a waterway and trade route, the Seyon a river that begins in the Val de Ruz and Évêché Basel. This landscape called out for a castle! Built in the late 10th century, he founded the city and named it after herself.

Novum Castellum, after the twelfth century Castrum Novum, Neocomun in greek scholar in the sixteenth century, Nuefchastel, Neufchastel, Neufchatel in common language and then gradually Neuchatel since the mid-eighteenth century.

In German, Nienburg evolved to Nuvenburch, Nuewenburg and then in 1725, Neuchâtel.

Rodolphe III, King of Burgundy, gave his wife Novum Castellum in 1011 as a gift. On this occasion, he had an act written on parchment on which the city's name appears for the first time.

As the seat of power, the castle hosted lords, and sometimes their mothers, even widows or daughters, some of which were true Stateswomen (Countess Isabelle fought for the freedom of Neuchatel, at the end of the fourteenth century, Marie de Bourbon merged the county of Neuchâtel and the lordship of Valangin at the end of the sixteenth century).

Neuchatel was under the influence of the Habsburgs, Burgundy and then, finally, the French for several centuries, until it passed into the hands of the king of Prussia in 1707.

The September 12, 1814, Neuchâtel became a Swiss canton while remaining equally a principality of the king of Prussia. This ambiguous situation has caused some very heated internal tension.

On 1 March 1848 the Republicans Neuchâtel reported from Le Locle, La Chaux-de-Fonds, the Val-de-Travers and Béroche under Fritz Courvoisier orders and took over the castle, the installation of an interim government, chaired by Alexis -Marie Piaget. Neuchatel became a Republic and, at the same time, a Canton fully recognized.

The remains of the castle-related power. The five councilors of State - the cantonal Executive- work there and the 115 members of the Great Council - the cantonal legislative - hold their meetings within its walls. The cantonal courts - the Civil Court and the Court of Appeals - hold their hearings there in premises adjacent to numerous cantonal administrative services.