House £s? Garaen 
THE CASTLE OF BRUNECK THE CASTLE OF VORST 
boundaries of the 
Empire, the ter¬ 
ritory of the Alps 
was inhabited by 
several tribes, 
chief among 
whom was a race of 
Etruscan origin 
called the Rha;- 
tians. Overcome 
by the Imperial 
Army they still 
remained in the 
territory and were 
joined by other 
peoples who had 
come to settle on 
either side of the 
mountain passes. 
The first of these 
was the Alimanni. 
Then came the 
Baiuvarii, a Teu¬ 
tonic race which 
established itself 
as early as the year 
600 throughout 
what is now Ger¬ 
man Tyrol. They 
mixed with the races already there, as well as 
with the Romanized Rhcetians, while the 
Lombards came up from the south into the 
valley of the Adige. The country was divided 
for administrative purposes intodistricts called 
grafschaften. At the head of each was a count 
whose rank and 
office grew to be 
hereditary. 1 n the 
clement andfertile 
Vintschgau these 
counts became 
rich and powerful. 
T hey soon ob¬ 
tained the lord- 
ship of all the ter¬ 
ritory south of the 
main ridge of the 
Alps, and in the 
X II Century they 
emerged conspic¬ 
uously into the 
history of Europe. 
Near the end of 
the XIII Century 
Count Meinhard 
II acquired the 
castles and the 
lew tracts of land 
remaining to the 
smaller nobles 
and consolidated 
the country within 
boundaries which 
have since been 
unchanged. The establishment of the feudal 
system in theTyrolwas thuspractically effected, 
a regime in which the traditions ol the east, the 
north and the south were confusedly merged. 
The Tyrolese burg or castle was originally 
a group of buildings which was both a dwelling 
THE COURTYARD OF VORST 
2 5 
