Burg Blankenhorn: A Medieval Shield-Wall Castle in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page8 sections
History
Origins on the Stromberg Ridge
Burg Blankenhorn is a medieval castle ruin above Eibensbach, a district of Güglingen in Germany, in the Zabergäu region of Baden-Württemberg. It was probably built around 1220–1230 as a shield-wall castle, a fortification concentrating its main defensive strength in a massive wall on its most vulnerable side. The castle was first mentioned in 1241 and was held by the Lords of Neuffen, a family of Staufer ministerials, or service nobles who administered territory and performed military and governmental duties for the Staufer dynasty.
The surrounding lands probably reached the Neuffen family through a Staufer grant around 1200. Nearby Güglingen was still Staufer allodial property in 1180, meaning land held as hereditary property rather than as a fief. Heinrich II of Neuffen is thought to have begun building the castle. Its name probably referred to the Neuffen coat of arms, which displayed three horns.
The site stood above the Rennweg, an old elevated route along the Stromberg ridge. During the High Middle Ages, castles along this route controlled traffic and exercised escort rights. The Lords of Neuffen also tried to form a larger, consolidated lordship around Güglingen, but that effort failed within two generations.
Division of the Neuffen inheritance
After Heinrich II of Neuffen died, Burg Blankenhorn passed to his son Gottfried von Neuffen, a minnesinger, or medieval German poet and singer associated with courtly song. Gottfried divided the property between his children Rudolf and Maria. Maria’s marriage to a Lord of Magenheim transferred half of Blankenhorn to the Magenheim family.
The Magenheim share passed through two inheritances to Burkard von Hohenberg, who sold it to Württemberg in 1321. Rudolf von Neuffen initially pledged his half, together with all of Güglingen, to Konrad von Weinsberg. He later sold it to Gerlach von Breuberg in 1296. Rudolf’s son-in-law, Konrad von Flügelau, reacquired the property and bequeathed it to the Counts of Eberstein in 1313. By 1327, this share had also come to Württemberg, placing the entire castle under Württemberg control.
Decline and dismantling
Württemberg initially pledged Burg Blankenhorn to Mainz. In 1472, the castle became a fief, or property held from a superior lord under specified obligations, of Hermann von Sachsenheim. He allowed the complex to decay despite the conditions attached to his tenure.
The Rennweg gradually lost its importance, reducing the castle’s strategic value. From 1479, the forest master Bartel Luz began dismantling the complex and selling its building timber and bricks. The remaining masonry was later used as a stone quarry. Andreas Kieser’s 1684 forestry land registers, made by the Württemberg surveyor and cartographer, document the ruin.
Remains
Fortifications and layout
Burg Blankenhorn occupies a densely wooded spur projecting northward from the Stromberg at approximately 378.6 metres above sea level, above and south of Eibensbach. Two ditches cut the site off from the mountain massif to the south. The castle had a rectangular plan with its short sides facing north and south. Its southern side was protected by the principal shield wall, which faced the castle ditch and formed the strongest defensive element of the complex.
The southern shield wall is approximately 18 metres high and 3 metres thick. It was built from sandstone bossed ashlar, carefully cut masonry blocks whose outer faces project in a rough, cushion-like form. On the western long side, a simple round-arched portal marked the former entrance into the inner courtyard. On the mountain-facing side of the inner ditch, a sloping escarp wall supported the terrain and created an additional obstacle for attackers.
Residential building
A four-storey palas, the main residential and representative building of a medieval castle, stood in the southern part of the complex against the shield wall. Corbels, or projecting stones that supported beams or floors, and beam holes, the sockets left by removed timber construction, still identify the former storeys. Their heights were approximately 2.20 to 3 metres. Views through the palas windows include the entrance portal in the western wall.
Masonry evidence
Surviving bossed ashlar blocks bear masons’ marks, preserving evidence of the construction of the castle’s principal masonry. The escarp wall belongs to a defensive arrangement described at only a few medieval castles, combining the supported slope with the obstacle formed by the inner ditch.
