For Honour’s Sake – Noble travel in the Middle Ages, from Thun to Jerusalem. A walk in twenty stations through the great hall of Thun Castle. A Bernese man who reached Jerusalem came home a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre; this walk tells, in five chapters, why the ruling class around Lake Thun set out – and where the people from here went on pilgrimage who never got that far.
These are the texts of the twenty panels in the great hall, in the order of the walk. German originals on the panels; pictures and full references on site.
1 · Swiss Castle Day · 4 October 2026 · Theme: Travel
Once a year the castles of Switzerland open their gates together. In 2026 the theme is travel, at 32 houses across the country.
At Schloss Thun that means four things: two talks by Anthony Bale, professor at Cambridge, on travel in the Middle Ages – followed by a book signing. This walk in twenty stations through the hall. And a walk we take on foot with «Geschichte erwandern», from Thun past Scherzligen to Einigen.
I · On the Road in the Middle Ages
2 · Did people travel at all? · Short answer: yes. More than you would think.
The roads were bad and the dangers real – and still the Middle Ages were remarkably mobile. On the move were merchants, envoys, mercenaries, students, journeymen. And pilgrims.
The great destinations were Rome, Santiago de Compostela and Jerusalem. Nearer at hand lay Einsiedeln and the shrines around Lake Thun.
One figure shows the scale: at the Angel Dedication festival of 1466, Einsiedeln sold 130,000 pilgrim badges.
3 · Pilgrimage or crusade? · Two journeys, one word
“Crusade” is a modern word. A man setting out for Jerusalem in the twelfth century spoke of a “peregrinatio” – a pilgrimage, whether he carried a sword or not. Only around 1200 did canon law begin to separate the two: whoever took the cross received an indulgence, protection for house and family, a stay on his debts – and travelled armed. The ordinary pilgrim went unarmed, alone or in small company. And nobody deferred his debts.
4 · What pilgrimage brought back · And what it did not
Those who came home brought something with them. Rarely what people assume.
Sugar, citrus fruit and the numerals we count with came by way of Moorish Spain and Sicily – long before the crusades. What the long journeys really brought were routes, trading houses and raw materials: from 1380 Basel wove fustian from Levantine cotton, shipped via Venice.
And souvenirs. Millions of them.
II · Cross and Pilgrim’s Staff
5 · The Zähringer took the cross · One of them did
On 27 March 1188 Rudolf of Zähringen, Bishop of Liège, took the cross at Mainz. He went to the Holy Land with Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, lay before Acre in the autumn of 1190, and died on 5 August 1191 at Herdern in the Breisgau, on his way home.
His nephew Berchtold V built the hall you are standing in. That he too went on crusade is claimed by a single English chronicle. Historians do not believe it.
6 · A crusader inherits Thun · The Kyburgs
In 1189 Ulrich III of Kyburg went to the Holy Land with the Third Crusade. Twenty-nine years later, in 1218, the same man inherited this castle when the Zähringer line died out – his wife Anna was a sister of Berchtold V.
His son Werner set out with Emperor Frederick II in 1228 and died at Acre that same year.
For two generations Thun belonged to men who had seen the Holy Land.
III · The Great Journey
7 · Why the gentry set out
Not out of curiosity. A man who left Bern for Jerusalem came back a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre – and that was the point. The knighting proved two things: that he could fund a journey of many months, and that he belonged to the innermost circle of the city.
The historian Urs Martin Zahnd names the purpose of these journeys plainly: the acquisition of honour.
They were pious as well. But not only that.
8 · A castle for a journey · Adrian von Bubenberg, lord of Spiez
In 1465 Adrian von Bubenberg sold the lordship of Wartenfels to Solothurn. The sources give the reason: to raise the money he needed.
A year later he was in Jerusalem, and came home a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. From then on the charters call him “Ritter”. The journey cost some 360 guilders.
In 1480 his son of the same name went the same way.
9 · Twenty-five years away · Konrad von Scharnachtal, c. 1410–1472
His family held Oberhofen and the Kiental; he himself had a house in Thun. He was brought up at the Savoyard court – and then away for a quarter of a century.
Paris and the siege of Montereau. Rhodes, with the Knights of St John. The Holy Land. Navarre, Castile, Granada, Seville. Santiago de Compostela and Finisterre. England, Scotland, Ireland. The court of Philip the Good. Rome.
He came home in 1450. He died in 1472 without issue.
10 · Charters instead of a diary
Konrad von Scharnachtal wrote no travel account. He collected proof.
At St Mary’s in Finisterre in 1447 he had his presence certified. At Stirling in Scotland in 1448, by a notary. Then Erfurt, Wilsnack, Merseburg, Frankfurt an der Oder. In 1449 Duke Ludwig of Savoy gathered it all into a single document.
What he was after is written there: “er begert kein ander erwerbung, denn allein ueberkomnus der eren” [he seeks only honour].
11 · Jerusalem or Sinai · A question of rank
Having been there was not enough. It mattered where. A knighthood conferred at Sinai counted for more than one at the Holy Sepulchre.
In 1466 Adrian von Bubenberg sailed for Jerusalem and returned a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. A year later his political rival Niklaus von Diesbach set out – and took in Sinai as well.
Men travelled against one another, too.
12 · A pilgrimage as cover
In April 1467 Bern sent an embassy to the Savoyard court: Adrian von Bubenberg, Niklaus von Scharnachtal and Niklaus von Diesbach. The last of them travelled on from there to the Holy Land.
Panigarola, the Milanese envoy, reported home:
“What he intends, and hides behind the pretext of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, is not known to us. But he is in negotiation with Venice.”
13 · The man who had to write it down · Hans von der Gruben
In 1440 Ludwig von Diesbach took his employee Hans von der Gruben along – a specialist in jewels and precious metals, charged with recording his master’s journey.
For the second half of the route he made it easy on himself: he copied from fellow travellers, one from Nuremberg, one from Basel.
The account was not there to describe the journey. It was there to prove his master’s standing.
14 · Coats of arms on distant walls
Whoever arrived left a mark. Bernese pilgrims had their armorial shields put up at the holy places – visible to everyone who came after them.
In 1520 the Bernese canon Heinrich Wölfli saw the Bubenberg arms hanging in St Mark’s at Candia on Crete, half a century after that family’s journey.
In 2022 the Israel Antiquities Authority found a Bubenberg graffito, written in charcoal, at the Tomb of David in Jerusalem.
15 · Those who came along unnamed
These journeys were a privilege. Anyone outside the ruling class came at best as an attendant – like Benedikt Erk, household chaplain to Adrian von Bubenberg.
What such a journey cost, one man wrote down: in 1520 the Bernese canon Heinrich Wölfli spent some 400 pounds, and noted afterwards that the Lord would have preferred him to give the money to the poor at home.
IV · Pilgrimage Close to Home
16 · Not everyone went to Jerusalem
For the great majority, Jerusalem was as far off as the moon. They went on pilgrimage all the same – only nearer. Half a day on foot, a vow in mind and a hen or a lamb as an offering.
The Strättligen Chronicle gives their names: Dietrich from Hilterfingen. Cecilia from Merligen. Gerdrut from Frutigen. Görg an der Egg from Allmendingen.
People from here.
17 · A book full of miracles · The Strättligen Chronicle, c. 1465
Elogius Kiburger, parish priest of Einigen, wrote down the history of his church – and invented a good deal along the way: a foundation in the year 315, a consecration by the Archangel Michael, a royal line that never existed.
In between, though, stand cures and even raisings of the dead. And the healed have names and home villages.
That is not proof. But it is one priest’s view of the people who came to him.
18 · The holy places around Lake Thun
Einigen, where a plenary indulgence could be won at Michaelmas. Scherzligen, a Marian shrine until the Reformation. Reutigen and Faulensee. And above all the cave of Saint Beatus, visited from the 13th century, at its height in the 15th.
In 1528 Bern had the cave chapel pulled down and the entrance walled up. Pilgrims from Unterwalden broke it open again. Walled up, broken open, walled up again.
The routes remained.
V · Jerusalem on Lake Thun
19 · Jerusalem on Lake Thun · The church of Scherzligen, ten minutes’ walk from here
In 1469 “Peter Maler von Bern” filled an entire church wall with Jerusalem: Mount Zion, the Pool of Siloam, the Kidron valley with Absalom’s Tomb, the Holy Sepulchre, the Mount of Olives. Much of it lies where it really lies – seen from the west, the direction the pilgrims came from.
Those who could never go to the Holy Land travelled here, in vision.
Commissioned, probably, by Adrian von Bubenberg. It cannot be proved.
The wall still stands.
Sources: Urs Martin Zahnd, Von der Heiliglandfahrt zur Hofreise (2005); Heyden/Lissek (eds.), Jerusalem am Thunersee (2021); Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz. Schloss Thun, Schlossberg 1, 3600 Thun · schlossthun.ch