Pfalzgrafenstein Castle: A Medieval Island Fortress and Rhine Toll Station
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Electoral Palatinate, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page12 sections
History
Pfalzgrafenstein Castle is a medieval island fortress and toll castle on Falkenau, a rocky island in the Rhine beside Kaub, Germany. King Ludwig IV of Bavaria, known as Ludwig the Bavarian, built its original tower in 1326 and 1327 to secure and increase river-toll revenue. The castle formed part of the Kaub toll station and remains one of the few largely undestroyed and little-altered castles in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley.
Origins and the Rhine toll
Ludwig’s predecessor, Ludwig II of Bavaria, purchased Gutenfels Castle, Kaub, and their associated rights from the lords of Falkenstein in 1277. Ludwig IV resumed operation of the toll station in 1320 and kept the Rhine toll for himself. Because ships could not dock properly at the island, tolls were collected at a customs house in Kaub, while the new tower watched and controlled traffic through the adjacent channel.
The castle threatened the toll interests of the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne. Their nearby interests included the Mouse Tower at Bingen and Stolzenfels Castle near Koblenz. Pope John XXII repeatedly urged the archbishops to oppose the Kaub toll. Ludwig had already been excommunicated during disputes over toll collection, but no action was taken against Pfalzgrafenstein itself.
A defensive wall was added around 1339 to 1342, probably in response to the conflict with the Church. In 1339, Ludwig gave the castle to his nephew, Count Rudolph II, the Elector Palatine. This title belonged to a high-ranking territorial prince of the Holy Roman Empire who took part in choosing the emperor.
Law, inheritance, and siege
A legal record from 1473 recognized Pfalzgrafenstein as a place where the Palatine bailiff could imprison defendants and conduct trials, including capital cases under the authority of the Elector Palatine. In 1477, Count Palatine Philip of Wittelsbach pledged the castle to the counts of Katzenelnbogen. The pledge became entangled in a 44-year inheritance dispute after Philipp I, the last male descendant of that family, died in 1479. The dispute continued until 1523.
In 1504, during the War of the Succession of Landshut, a dynastic conflict within the Holy Roman Empire, Pfalzgrafenstein, Kaub, and nearby Gutenfels Castle resisted a 39-day siege by Landgrave William II of Hesse. The castle escaped damage, and the Hessian forces withdrew after suffering substantial losses in personnel and artillery.
Firearms and wartime occupation
Elector Friedrich IV modernized the defenses in 1606 and 1607. He added an upstream gun bastion, interior arcades, and the outer wall in its later form. These changes allowed contemporary firearms to be used and made Pfalzgrafenstein the first Middle Rhine castle adapted to this technology.
Spanish forces under General Spinola occupied the castle in 1620 during the Thirty Years’ War, a major European religious and political conflict that lasted from 1618 to 1648. They took it without a fight after a short exchange of gunfire at Kaub, and the garrison was permitted to withdraw. In December 1631, Hessian forces besieged Pfalzgrafenstein and Gutenfels with 400 men. The Spanish capitulated in January 1632.
During the War of the Spanish Succession, an international conflict over the Spanish monarchy from 1701 to 1714, Pfalzgrafenstein held prisoners of war. A distinctive Baroque tower cap was added in 1714. A fire followed by renovation in 1756 helped create the castle’s present appearance.
From toll station to museum
French Revolutionary forces removed the guns from Pfalzgrafenstein and Gutenfels in 1793. After the French departure, a garrison of invalid soldiers returned to the castles and remained until it was disbanded. The Electoral Palatinate relinquished Pfalzgrafenstein in 1803. It then came under the House of Nassau and, after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Duchy of Nassau.
During the campaign against Napoleon, Prussian and Russian forces under Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher used the island for a Rhine crossing. On 1 January 1814, Russian engineers built a pontoon bridge. Over several days, an army of about 60,000 soldiers, 20,000 horses, and about 200 guns crossed while pursuing Napoleon’s forces after the French defeat at Leipzig.
Pfalzgrafenstein remained a toll station until 1867. Toll collection ended after Nassau was annexed by Prussia in 1866 and both banks of the Rhine came under Prussian control. The castle continued to serve river traffic as a beacon and signal station into the twentieth century, including use as a signal station until the 1960s.
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century engineering works substantially altered the Rhine channel. Later improvements, including work in the 1970s, moved the main navigable channel to the left of the castle rather than close to Kaub. This reduced the former strategic control exercised by Pfalzgrafenstein together with Kaub and Gutenfels.
The castle became property of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1946 and has been administered by the state since 1949. Restoration between 1967 and 1975 repaired the roof, restored the original gate, reopened blocked arrow loops, and repainted the Baroque color scheme. Later conservation restored a historically documented color scheme that was visible from 2007. Pfalzgrafenstein now functions as a public museum. It forms part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2002, and is protected cultural property under the Hague Convention, the international framework for safeguarding cultural property during armed conflict.
Remains
Island fortress layout
Pfalzgrafenstein occupies the rocky Falkenau island in a comparatively narrow, rock-confined section of the Rhine. The island lies about 110 metres from the right bank and 160 metres from the left bank, while the channel beside the castle can reach nine metres in depth. The fortress has an elongated plan about 50 metres long and 21 metres wide. Its compact form, upstream point, and layered defenses reflect the need to withstand river currents, moving ice, and armed traffic on the waterway.
Central tower
The original central tower is pentagonal and rises about 36 metres, or approximately 37 metres including its roof. It has six storeys and measures about 9.5 by 8.5 metres at its base. The pointed side faces upstream and was designed to break waves and ice. The third and fifth floors have vaulted ceilings, while the other floors have flat ceilings, and the entrance is located on the third floor.
Ring wall and defensive galleries
An elongated six-sided ring wall surrounds the tower. The outer wall is about 12 metres high and up to 2.60 metres thick, with two defensive galleries or battlement levels. Its upstream corner forms a massive stone point that was strengthened with iron clamps after repeated damage from moving ice. A covered wall-walk, later defensive galleries, and two rows of loopholes run along the walls. The galleries contain openings for firearms, while projecting lookout structures added in 1658 flank the walls. Low inner walls provided another layer of protection.
Gun platform and entrance
The upstream point incorporates a gun platform. The addition made in 1606 and 1607 has two levels, with the lower one used as a powder and ammunition store and the upper one as an artillery platform. The entrance has a wooden portcullis, a vertically sliding defensive gate sheathed in iron, set against the inner wall. Its lifting mechanism was placed at the upper gallery. Two loopholes, narrow openings through which defenders could use weapons, were set at ground level on the side facing the gate.
Interior rooms and prison
The upper floor contained two rooms, a kitchen, and a fireplace for the commandant and his family. Guards occupied the first floor, while a prison chamber was located on the second. The dungeon consisted of a wooden raft at the bottom of a well. Prisoners were lowered into it by rope and held until ransom was paid. During severe flooding, the prison could be submerged, and food was delivered through a hatch opened once a day.
A cooking fire stood beside the western wall. On the opposite side, a projecting oriel served as a latrine. The museum interiors contain furniture from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and household objects made of clay and tin. A seventeenth-century pizza oven survives on the second floor.
River-facing form and later fabric
Before the Rhine was engineered, most shipping passed through the channel between the island and Kaub because the dangerous rapid known as the Wilde Gefähr lay farther upstream in the opposite channel. Catapults and guns were therefore concentrated toward the former right-hand waterway. The upstream defensive point and the narrow island plan give the castle the appearance of a ship set against the Rhine current. Victor Hugo described it as “a stone ship, eternally floating on the Rhine, eternally anchored before the Palatinate town.”
The preserved fortress combines its medieval tower and wall system with the later galleries, firearm defenses, Baroque roof, gate, and conservation work. Dendrochronology, the dating of timber through its annual growth rings, has provided exact chronological dates for parts of the complex.
