The castle was the seat of the counts of the Gruyere, who are first mentioned in 1073. The name is said to come from the word _gruyer_, meaning the officer of woods and forests, but the counts bore the canting arms of a crane (_grue_), which are seen all over the castle and the town. That valiant family ended (in the legitimate line) with Count Michel (d. 1575) whose extravagance and consequent indebtedness compelled him in 1555 to sell his domains to Bern and Fribourg. Bern took the upper Sarine valley (it still keeps Saanen at its head, but in 1798 lost the Pays d'En-Haut to the canton du Leman, which in 1803 became the canton of Vaud). Fribourg took the rest of the county, which it added to Bulle and Albeuve (taken in 1537 from the bishop of Lausanne), and to the lordship of Jaun in the Jaun or Jogne valley (bought in 1502-1504 from its lords), in order to form the present administrative district of Gruyere, which is not co-extensive with the historical county of that name. See the materials collected by J. J. Hisely and published in successive vols. of the _Memoires et documents de la suisse romande ... introa. a l'hist._ (1851); Histoire (2 vols., 1855-1857); and Monuments de l'histoire (2 vols., 1867-1869); K. V. von Bonstetten, _Briefe uber ein schweiz. Hirtenland_ (1781) (Eng. trans., 1784); J. Reichlen, _La Gruyere illustree_ (1890), seq.; H. Raemy, _La Gruyere_ (1867); and _Les Alpes fribourgeoises_, by many authors (Lausanne, 1908). (W. A. B. C.)