Burg Zullenstein: A Roman River Fortification and Medieval Castle in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire, Roman
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page11 sections
History
Burg Zullenstein is a former lowland river castle in Germany, near Nordheim in Biblis, whose site includes a fourth-century Roman fortified installation and the remains of a medieval castle. The place was also known as Burg Stein, Kellerei Stein, Schlossberg, and Schlossbuckel. Its position near the Weschnitz mouth connected a defended landing place with the Rhine and later supported a port, trading settlement, and territorial administrative center.
The Roman river installation
During the second half of the third century, the Romans diverted the Weschnitz through the dunes near Lorsch and cut a canal westward toward the Rhine. By damming the river, they could move stone blocks weighing as much as 30 tonnes from the quarries at Felsberg in the Odenwald and Auerbach to Roman forts as far away as Trier. A treaty with the Alamannic king Macrian secured Roman quarrying and transport rights.
In the fourth century, probably under Emperor Valentinian I, the Romans built a multistory burgus, a fortified tower or small fort controlling a river route, at the new mouth of the Weschnitz. A fortified landing facility was later established on the opposite bank, in territory inhabited by the Alamanni. The place became known as Zullestein, a name possibly connected with a Celtic river deity.
Zullestein and Lorsch Abbey
On 26 May 836, Louis the German granted his estates at Biblis, Wattenheim, and Zullestein to Count Werner, also called Werinher. In 846, Werner donated all three places to Lorsch Abbey, a major Benedictine monastery in the Rhineland. Zullestein subsequently grew as a port, trading center, and settlement, a development reflected by later pottery finds.
In 995, Otto III renamed the place Stein and granted it market rights at the recommendation of Samuel of Worms. The associated usage rights passed to Lorsch Abbey. Stein then became the seat of a Kellerei, a territorial office that managed estates and collected revenue, and served as the administrative center for the surrounding area.
The medieval castle and the authorities of Worms
In 1068, Stein came under the authority of the bishops of Worms, who built a new castle. Its inhabitants owed tithes to St. Andrew’s collegiate foundation. A dispute over a Lorsch Abbey estate in Worms was settled in May 1160, when a Worms citizen named Werner agreed to pay the monastery an annual lease.
Construction of a round keep began in 1232. In 1255, the knight Jacob held Burg Stein and, together with Simon von Gundheim, became involved in a major conflict against the citizens of Worms. The castle and its associated administrative territory continued to pass between competing ecclesiastical and secular authorities.
The Kellerei and late medieval jurisdiction
The administration called the Kellerei vom Stein changed hands during the fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Half was pledged to Count Walram of Sponheim in 1363, while the Electoral Palatinate held half by 1380. Ruprecht I of the Palatinate established a shared condominium interest in 1385. On 8 January 1387, half of the Kellerei, including the administrative districts of Lampertheim, Hofheim, and Nordheim, was pledged to the Electoral Palatinate.
On 17 January 1463, the governor and commander of the Teutonic Order at Ibersheim sold meadows on the right bank of the Rhine to ten citizens of Nordheim. During the rule of Frederick I, the Victorious, from 1450 to 1476, Burg Stein formed part of a landscape affected by efforts to suppress robber-knight activity among lesser nobles along the Rhine. Towers at Burg Stein and Ibersheim exchanged flag signals across the treetops, in a context linked with attacks on merchant vessels. Heinrich von Mauderich, the first Electoral Palatine lessee of Ibersheim after the Thirty Years’ War, was later associated with an illegal customs station in the area between about 1651 and 1661.
Hessian occupation and the Thirty Years’ War
In 1504, Landgrave William II of Hesse conquered Burg Stein during the Palatine-Bavarian feud. The campaign followed an imperial ban imposed by Maximilian I on Ruprecht, son of the Palatine count Philip the Upright, and William was commissioned to enforce it. Hesse retained the castle until 1517. Thönges Wolff von Todenwarth served as its Hessian Keller from 1507 and as its Amtmann, the local official governing an administrative office or district, from 1510 to 1518.
Between 1550 and 1650, the Starkenburg administrative district built a defensive earthwork ditch between Burg Stein and Bensheim. The castle was then drawn into the Thirty Years’ War, the European conflict of 1618 to 1648 that combined religious, dynastic, and territorial struggles. On 21 August 1621, Spanish forces under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba captured Burg Stein. The force included 2,000 cavalry, 4,000 infantry, and four guns, and compelled the garrison of Frederick V of the Palatinate, commanded by Colonel Hans Michael Elias von Obentraut, to withdraw.
When Swedish forces under Gustav II Adolf approached in 1631, Spanish troops serving the Imperial Catholic League set the castle on fire. Before this destruction, Matthäus Merian the Elder made a drawing of the fortress, a pontoon bridge over the Rhine, and two bridgeheads. His engraving was published in 1645.
Demolition, land division, and rediscovery
In 1657, Elector Charles I Louis of the Palatinate and Archbishop Johann Philipp of Mainz decided to demolish the castle. During the devastation of the Palatinate in 1688 and 1689, the round tower, which had stood for more than four centuries, was removed. Stone robbing carried parts of the above-ground buildings to Nordheim and Ibersheim.
On 26 August 1705, Prince-Bishop Franz Ludwig of Pfalz-Neuburg and Elector Johann Wilhelm ended the 1387 pledge. The Kellerei Stein, together with Lampertheim, passed from the Electoral Palatinate to the Bishopric of Worms. The Lampertheim administrative office continued to use the official name “Kellerei Stein” until the end of the eighteenth century.
In 1785, citizens of Nordheim bought the castle land at auction from the Worms episcopal government. The estate had been divided into 30 numbered parcels. The purchasers later sold 10 Morgen and 195 Klafter around the former castle to the Grand Duke of Hesse.
The foundations were rediscovered on 25 September 1957 during the sixth oil-drilling operation at Wattenheim. The drilling ended on 12 March 1958 at a depth of 2,415 metres in the Pechelbronn strata of the Oligocene. State archaeologists from the Darmstadt branch excavated the remains at Schlossbuckel from 8 July 1970 to 1972 under Werner Jorns. After 1980, responsibility for caring for the excavation site passed to the municipality of Biblis. Studies published in 1974, 1989, and 2001, including Sven-Hinrich Siemers’s dissertation, further examined the castle’s history.
In 2001, the oldest Salbuch, an administrative book of land and revenue, from the former Kellerei Stein was found in the Worms City Archive. Biblis joined the Bergstrasse-Odenwald Geopark in 2005, and the geopark assumed responsibility for maintaining the archaeological installation. Burg Stein and the surrounding archaeological monuments are protected cultural monuments under the Hessian Monument Protection Act. Excavation, probing, targeted collection of finds, and alterations to the remains require official approval, while accidental discoveries must be reported to the monument authorities.
Remains
The site lies about 500 metres from the present Rhine bank, south of the Weschnitz mouth. Its physical setting comprises the former Weschnitz waterway, the Rhine, and the landing area used for transport and defense. The archaeological remains are concentrated at Schlossbuckel, where the surviving foundations and excavation remains represent the principal physical evidence of Burg Stein.
Roman fortification and landing
The Roman installation stood at the new mouth of the Weschnitz on a ground plan measuring 21.3 by 15 metres. It was a multistory burgus, combining a fortified tower or small fort with control of a river route. The installation was associated with a 42-metre-long shipping landing, linking the defensive structure with the waterway and the movement of stone and other goods.
Medieval castle and river defenses
The medieval castle included a round keep begun from 1232 onward. Merian’s pre-destruction view shows the fortress together with a pontoon bridge across the Rhine and two bridgeheads. Between 1550 and 1650, a defensive earthwork ditch extended between Burg Stein and Bensheim, adding a landward defensive element to the castle’s river-based position.
Reused building materials and excavation remains
Stone from the above-ground structures was reused as building material after the castle’s destruction. Red-sandstone blocks bearing the masons’ marks “M” or “W” were incorporated into sheep shelters at Nordheim and Ibersheim. The foundations exposed by excavation between 1970 and 1972, together with the archaeological installation at Schlossbuckel, preserve the principal physical remains of the Roman and medieval occupation.
