Burgstall Walleshausen: A High Medieval Motte Castle in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page10 sections
History
Burgstall Walleshausen is the earthwork remains of a High Medieval hilltop castle in Geltendorf, Germany. Built by the Lords of Walleshausen, it occupied a spur above the valley and used a motte-and-bailey design, with the principal stronghold raised on an artificial mound. The site lies about 700 metres northeast of the parish church of Walleshausen, on the eastern edge of the valley, at roughly 580 metres above sea level.
The Lords of Walleshausen
A charter from 1192 names Konrad of Wegelinshusin and his son Friedrich among nobles summoned to Landsberg am Lech for a hearing involving Wessobrunn Abbey, a medieval Benedictine monastery in Bavaria, and Heinrich of Stoffen, the local bailiff. A bailiff was an official who could represent and protect an ecclesiastical institution or exercise delegated judicial and administrative authority. The extensive earthworks at Burgstall Walleshausen are confidently identified as the residence of the Lords of Walleshausen.
The social position of the castle’s lords remains uncertain. They may have belonged to an edelfrei family, meaning nobles regarded as free from direct subordination to another lord, or to a ministerial family, whose members originally served more powerful ecclesiastical or secular lords as dependent officials and warriors. The castle’s considerable size and elevated position make an edelfrei origin probable. Such families could later enter service agreements with feudal lords or submit to stronger dynasties.
Later references and preservation
In 1391, the tournament-qualified Judmann family was recorded at Walleshausen and Petzenhofen. It cannot be determined whether the castle above the Paar valley was still in use at that time. Only slight indications of an older predecessor castle can be seen at Burgstall Walleshausen. The high banks of the baileys may represent an earlier fortification, although that interpretation remains uncertain. A separate apparently early medieval ringwall about 700 metres to the north may have been one of the smaller defensive sites established in the region against Hungarian incursions.
The site has received little scholarly attention, although its earthworks remain clearly legible. Together with the castle sites at Kissing and Althegnenberg, it is regarded as one of the most clearly recognizable motte castles in the Augsburg region. The Bavarian State Office for Monument Protection lists it as a medieval motte castle with a central fortified area and baileys. After 2000, a timber-haulage road built in front of the motte obscured part of the southwestern bailey ditch, damaged part of its bank, and destroyed several geologically important beds of naturally cemented conglomerate along the ditch edge.
Remains
Central castle and defensive earthworks
The motte
The central castle stands in the southeast and consists of a truncated conical motte, the raised earthen mound that carried the principal stronghold. It rises about ten metres above the surrounding ground and has a rectangular plateau reached only by its steep sides. The mound resembles the approximately contemporary castle site at the edge of Kissing. The motte and its surrounding earthworks are preserved chiefly as banks and ditches rather than standing buildings.
The ditches
A neck ditch, cut across the narrow connection between the castle and the ridge, separates the motte and both baileys from higher ground. It reaches five metres in depth. To the west, a steep slope and a hillside ditch added protection. That western ditch is up to two metres deep, while the plateaus of the baileys at this point lie about ten metres below its bottom.
Baileys and subsidiary defenses
The western and northern baileys
Two baileys, enclosed subsidiary areas used for functions outside the principal stronghold, extend west and north of the motte. High earth banks were piled along the inner edges of their ditches. The southwestern bailey follows the slope edge and is separated from the northern bailey and the motte by an angular inner ditch. Part of its southwestern ditch and bank was altered by the timber-haulage road constructed after 2000.
The northeastern earthwork
An earthwork about five metres high in the northeast indicates the former position of a tower. It forms part of the broader defensive arrangement of banks, baileys, and ditches that survives around the central mound. The site’s position only 25 to 30 metres above the valley floor, combined with the steep western slope and the cut across the ridge, shaped the physical organization of the castle.
