The site of the fortification was the confluence of the Gelbach and the Lahn rivers. As a result, the castle is designed as a lowland type, which is unusual for this region.
In 1243 the castle was first mentioned in the will of Countess Mechthild of Sayn who left it to the Archbishopric of Cologne. The archbishop enfeoffed the fortress shortly thereafter to the noble family of Langenau, cousins of the counts of Laurenburg and thus of the House of Nassau. The family kept the castle as a joint inheritance or Ganerbschaft for centuries.
The original fortress was turned into a water castle on the construction of a dyke. Today, of the 13th century fortification, only the square Romanesque stylebergfried is left. The remaining fortifications, an enceinte and an eight-metre-high shield wall with two flanking towers, show elements of Gothic architecture and appeared in the 14th or 15th centuries. Presumably by the middle of the 14th century, when the Langenaus built New Langenau Castle as their main residence, the castle no longer served as a noble seat, but primarily as a base from which to manage the estate.
In 1613 the Langenau family died out. The castle changed ownership several times in the years that followed. In the 17th century, a large timber-framed domestic building was built. In 1696 the mercantile and industrialist family of Marioth purchased the site as their residence and had it converted into a schloss in 1698.
In 1847, Countess Giech, a daughter of Prussian reform minister, vom und zum Stein, became the new occupant. She had the schloss converted in 1851 into a hospital and home for children of the poor.
Gallery
Enceinte and gate tower (2009)
Interior of the gate tower (2009)
Mediaeval bergfried (2009)
Literature
Alexander Thon, Stefan Ulrich, Jens Friedhoff: „Mit starken eisernen Ketten und Riegeln beschlossen ...“. Burgen an der Lahn. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg, 2008, ISBN978-3-7954-2000-0, pp.88–93.
Nassau Castle, located in Nassau, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, was the original seat of the House of Nassau. The ruins of the castle are situated on a rock outcropping about 120 m (390 ft) above the Lahn River. The House of Nassau was an aristocratic dynasty among whose descendants are the present-day monarchy of the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Enceinte is a French term that refers to the "main defensive enclosure of a fortification". For a castle, this is the main defensive line of wall towers and curtain walls enclosing the position. For a settlement, it would refer to the main town wall with its associated gatehouses, towers, and walls.
Bergfried is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries and in countries under German influence. Friar describes it as a "free-standing, fighting-tower". Its defensive function is to some extent similar to that of a keep in English or French castles. However, the characteristic difference between a bergfried and a keep is that a bergfried was typically not designed for permanent habitation.
Klopp Castle is a castle in the town of Bingen am Rhein in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. In the nineteenth century, the bergfried from the original medieval fortified castle was restored and a new building added which houses the town's administration.
The Wolfsburg is medieval lowland and water castle in North Germany that was first mentioned in the records in 1302, but has since been turned into a Renaissance schloss or palace. It is located in eastern Lower Saxony in the town of Wolfsburg named after it and in whose possession it has been since 1961. The Wolfsburg developed from a tower house on the River Aller into a water castle with the character of a fortification. In the 17th century it was turned into a representative, but nevertheless defensible palace that was the northernmost example of the Weser Renaissance style. Its founder and builder was the noble family of von Bartensleben. After their line died out in 1742 the Wolfsburg was inherited by the counts of Schulenburg.
Stein Castle is a Saxon castle located southeast of Zwickau in the village of Stein in the municipality of Hartenstein on the rocky banks of the Zwickauer Mulde in the east German state of Saxony.
Gräfenstein Castle is a ruined rock castle about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) east of the village of Merzalben in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is in the county of Südwestpfalz within the Palatine Forest and is often called Merzalber Schloss. It is built on a rock plateau 12 metres (39 ft) high at an elevation of 447 metres (1,467 ft) above sea level.
Altenstein Castle is a ruined castle in Altenstein in the district of Haßberge in Lower Franconia, Germany. The family seat of the lords of Stein zu Altenstein, which died out in the 19th century, is located 40 kilometres north of the city of Bamberg and, since the end of the 20th century, has been managed by the district of Haßberge. The castle was renovated around the turn of the millennium.
"Zwinger" is a German word for outer ward or outer bailey. It represents an open kill zone area between two defensive walls that is used for defensive purposes. Zwingers were built in the post-classical and early modern periods to improve the defence of castles and town walls. The term is usually left untranslated, but is sometimes rendered as "outer courtyard", presumably referring to the subsequent role of a Zwinger as a castle's defences became redundant and it was converted into a palace or schloss; however, this belies its original purpose as a form of killing ground for the defence. The word is linked with zwingen, "to force", perhaps because the Zwinger forced an enemy to negotiate it before assaulting the main defensive line. Essenwein states that the "main purpose of this feature was so that the besieging force could not reach the actual castle wall very easily with battering rams or belfries, but had to stop at the lower, outer wall; also that two ranks of archers, behind and above one another, could fire upon the approaching enemy".
The ruins of Alt-Trauchburg Castle, also called the Alttrauchburg or Trauchburg, lie above the Weitnau hamlet of Kleinweiler in the county of Oberallgäu in Swabia. Large parts of the original stone walls of the high- to post-medieval castle remain. The ruins are some of the best preserved in the Allgäu region of Germany.
Grenzau Castle is a ruined spur castle at 250 m above sea level (NN) near Höhr-Grenzhausen in the county of Westerwaldkreis in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is the only castle in Germany with a triangular bergfried.
Wellheim Castle is a former fortification in Upper Bavaria. The ruins of the old rock castle stand dominantly on Jurassic rocks above the market town of Wellheim in the ancient Danube valley. It was abandoned in the 18th century and partially demolished.
The ruins of Sayn Castle, the 12th century family castle of the counts of Sayn and Sayn-Wittgenstein, are in Sayn, part of the borough of Bendorf on the Rhine, between Koblenz and Neuwied in the county of Mayen-Koblenz in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Vilsegg Castle is a former fortification in the Austrian state of Tyrol that stands about a kilometre northwest of the little town of Vils, between Pfronten and Füssen, a few hundred metres away from the Austro-German border.
Hohenfreyberg Castle, together with Eisenberg Castle directly opposite, forms a castle group in the southern Allgäu that is visible from a long way off. It is located about four kilometres north of Pfronten in the county of Ostallgäu. The late mediaeval hilltop castle was abandoned during the Thirty Years’ War and set on fire. From 1995 to 2006 the former aristocratic seat was comprehensively made safe and conserved as part of a closely observed "example of renovation".
Nassenfels Castle stands at the edge of the market village of Nassenfels in the county of Eichstätt in Upper Bavaria. The former water castle is still lived in and may only be viewed from the outside.
The Holter Burg is the oldest castle site in the municipality of Bissendorf near Osnabrück in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is the ruin of a hill castle. It was the third hill castle in Osnabrück Land along with the Iburg and the Wittekindsburg near Rulle.
The Brömserburg is located near the banks of the Rhine in the town of Rüdesheim am Rhein in Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the German state of Hesse. Its original structure was probably one of the first stone castles in the Rhine Gorge, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Old Wolfstein Castle, is a ruined hillside castle on the eastern slopes of the Königsberg at the narrowest point in the Lauter valley near Wolfstein in the county of Kusel in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Landsberg Castle is a ruined hillside castle on the hill of Moschellandsberg near the town of Obermoschel in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It may be hired out for private events.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
