Burg Zillenhart: An Abandoned Hilltop Castle in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page4 sections
History
Origins and the Lords of Zillenhart
Burg Zillenhart is an abandoned hilltop castle site in Germany, located within the deserted settlement of Zillenhart in the municipality of Schlat. Probably established around 1100, it became the ancestral seat of the Lords of Zillenhart, who had earlier served as ministeriales, dependent members of the lower nobility holding military or administrative roles for the Counts of Helfenstein.
The castle is first documented in 1241 through Syfried of Zillenhart, who was identified as a Helfenstein vassal. A later member of the family, Seuridus de Zullhard, also known as Seifried von Zillenhard, served as a mercenary in Tuscany. His name appears on a Visconti pay list from 1354, a record of military personnel and payments issued by the ruling Visconti family of Milan.
The Chapel, Settlement, and Destruction
Around 1350, Seifried probably founded a chapel below the ancestral castle, near the old trade route between Kirchheim unter Teck and Süßen toward Göppingen. He dedicated it to Saint Gotthardt, a medieval Christian saint whose veneration was contemporary with the chapel’s foundation. The settlement that later developed around the chapel took the name St. Gotthardt.
By 1604, the castle had been destroyed. The site is now understood through its surviving terrain rather than standing buildings. An information board was installed there in 2012, and in 2020 the University of Tübingen and the Göppingen district archaeological service examined the remains using geophysical prospection, non-destructive physical surveys that detect buried archaeological traces.
Remains
The former castle occupied the crest of a rise known as the Schlossbuckel, at 425.6 metres above sea level and approximately 700 metres southwest of the church of Ursenwang. The ground drops steeply toward the west and southwest, while the surviving layout is defined by a central castle mound, a surrounding ditch, and an outer rampart.
The mound measures approximately 30 to 40 metres across. Its enclosing ditch reaches up to 4 metres in depth, and the rampart rises as much as 1.5 metres above the surrounding ground. Together, these earthworks mark the former defensive arrangement of the castle. A castle plateau also survives, with the information board standing on it. The physical remains therefore consist chiefly of the mound and reshaped ground that preserve the site’s former position and extent.
