Burg Hermannstein: A Hilltop Fortress above Wetzlar in Germany
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- Medieval
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- Holy Roman Empire
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- Military
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- Castle
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History
Burg Hermannstein, also known as Hermanstein, is a hilltop fortress in Germany above the Hermannstein district of Wetzlar in central Hesse. The upper castle was built toward the end of the fourteenth century by order of Landgrave Hermann II of Hesse to protect the Hohen Straße and the Hessian frontier above the Lahn valley. A lower castle followed in the fifteenth century, creating a complex shaped in part by the form of French donjons, strong principal towers that also served as residences.
Foundation during the Wetzlar conflict
The castle arose from a struggle over Wetzlar. In 1376, Count Johann IV of Solms-Burgsolms took control of the city during a period of unrest. Although Emperor Charles IV had commissioned him to restore the former council, Johann instead tried to assume lordship over Wetzlar. Hermann II responded by deciding to build a fortress outside the city on territory held by Solms.
The precise start of construction is uncertain. Hermannstein was still unfinished in 1377, though work may already have been far advanced. In July of that year, the Hessian rentmaster, the official responsible for territorial revenues and accounts, recorded deliveries of lime and stone to the building site. Opponents of Hermann II attempted to interrupt the work but failed to stop construction.
The principal craftsmen were probably the carpenter Gumprecht and the stonemason Tilemann. Tilemann may have been the same person as Tyle von Frankenberg, who worked at Wetzlar Cathedral between 1360 and 1374. Financial problems had interrupted the cathedral project, and Tile von Frankenberg is said to have subsequently worked at Hermannstein. Dietrich von Buchenau, the first recorded castle man in 1378, probably supervised the completion of the fortress. Castle men were feudal retainers responsible for guarding or administering a castle.
Hessian administration and pledged ownership
A peace treaty between Johann IV of Solms and Hermann II in 1379 transferred the territory containing Hermannstein to Hesse. The Solms family received permission to establish a jointly administered village below the castle, with Hesse and Solms each holding half, although this arrangement was probably never put into practice.
The landgrave initially administered Hermannstein through castle men. Kuno von Rodenhausen followed Dietrich von Buchenau in 1381, and Gumprecht von Hohenfels held the office in 1386. Hermann II and his successors later used the castle as security during financial difficulties. A pledge temporarily transferred control of property as security for a debt. Hermannstein was pledged in turn to Gottfried von Girmes and Gernand Rau von Holzhausen, together with the village and associated rights.
Further changes followed in the fifteenth century. In 1437, while Henne Wais von Fauerbach held the castle as a pledge, an attempt was made to capture Hermannstein and burn it. Henne accused Count Bernhard of Solms-Braunfels of organizing the attack but could not prove the charge. In 1438, he asked Landgrave Ludwig I to grant the castle as a fief to Volgerecht von Schwalbach. A fief was a lordship or property granted in return for service or loyalty. Johann von Schwalbach was lord of Hermannstein in 1444, and Simon Schütz administered it as bailiff, an official responsible for a territorial or lordly district, in 1448.
Daniel von Mudersbach took Hermannstein as a pledge for 200 gulden in 1455. In 1466, Landgrave Heinrich III pledged it to Daniel’s son, the bailiff Ludwig von Mudersbach, and his wife Liese. The agreement involved 200 Rhenish gulden recorded in a debt instrument and a further 700 gulden paid in cash.
Rebuilding under the Schenck zu Schweinsberg family
In 1481, Johann Schenk zu Schweinsberg acquired the dilapidated castle and its associated rights from Mudersbach’s widow, with Heinrich III’s approval, for 900 gulden. Heinrich then granted Hermannstein to Schenk as a fief for an additional 4,000 gulden, subject to its reversion to the landgrave. Johann and his wife, Margaretha von Schlitz, called von Görtz, made the castle their residence. Their descendants later formed the Hermannstein branch of the Schenck zu Schweinsberg family.
Landgrave Wilhelm III stated in 1486 that Hermannstein had become entirely dilapidated and required repair. He also recognized the considerable expenditure already made by the marshal Johann Schenk, who had spent 1,200 gulden and received authorization to invest another 800 gulden. Some of this rebuilding created the lower castle, adding a second major part to the complex.
The reconstruction was contested by Count Otto of Solms-Braunfels, who held a fief involving half of Hermannstein and sought to obtain the entire castle. Mediation by Elector Philipp of the Palatinate settled the dispute in 1489. Otto’s claim to half of Hermannstein was accepted, but he immediately granted that share to Johann Schenk zu Schweinsberg as a subfief, meaning a fief granted onward by its original holder.
Decline and modern ownership
The date when the barons moved from the castle to the adjoining estate courtyard is unknown. A copper engraving by Daniel Meisner from 1631 still shows Hermannstein in good condition. In 1696, Baron Carl-Wilhelm von Curti, also known as Sir Charles William Curtius, 2nd Baronet, married Anna Helena Schenk zu Schweinsberg at the castle. A record from 1717 may already concern the estate courtyard rather than the fortress itself.
By 1787, Pastor Görtz described the tower as partly destroyed through deliberate human action rather than ordinary deterioration. Stone from the castle was apparently reused in buildings at Hermannstein over the centuries, and the fortress gradually became a ruin.
Burg Hermannstein was sold to Buderus AG in 1961 and became private property in 1965. It was renovated and inhabited until 2009. Emile and Heidy van Duren purchased it in 2010, and from February 2012 their employees partly occupied and restored the castle. Leonhard and Beatriz LeComte, a couple from the United States, became its owners in 2019.
Remains
Burg Hermannstein occupies the Schwarzenberg as a hilltop fortress divided into an upper castle and a lower castle, also called the middle castle. The ground floor of the upper castle aligns with the second upper floor of the lower building. The upper castle stands on a projecting rock spur separated from the mountain ridge by a deep sunken way, probably the original neck ditch. A neck ditch is a defensive ditch cut across the approach to a projecting spur. The depression now curves around the lower building on the east and descends toward the village, and it was probably raised over time.
The upper castle and residential tower
The upper castle’s main defensive structure is a massive residential tower set on the rock spur. The spur is connected to the ridge only on its northern side, while the ground falls steeply toward the northwest, west, and southwest. Outer defensive walls surround the tower and the castle rock at varying distances and elevations. On the west, these walls join the economic buildings attached to the fortress.
The tower has an irregular four-sided plan and walls averaging 2.50 metres thick at ground-floor level. Three corners are rounded, while the northern corner is bevelled. A massive semicircular projection runs the full height of the northeastern wall, the principal attack side, which has no openings. The tower’s two tall rooms are covered by cross vaults, ceilings formed by the intersection of two barrel vaults. Each room was originally divided into two storeys by a timber floor.
The upper vault forms the defensive platform, above which the wall-walk rises another 3.20 metres. A wall-walk is a passage along the top of a fortification wall. A stair tower is recessed into the eastern corner, and from the final landing below the platform the stair enters the thickness of the northeastern wall. It emerges at the centre of that wall onto the platform, leaving the corner free for one of the small guard turrets set in the three rounded corners.
A narrow passage through the broken fourth corner leads to a latrine carried on two corbels, projecting blocks that support a structure. Above the ground-level entrance on the southeast side is a machicolation, a projecting defensive structure with openings through which defenders could attack people below. A fireplace occupies the opposite wall. Two tall chimneys rise above the wall-walk and are supported beneath by stepped projections.
The tower retained a high hipped roof with small corner turrets until 1780. Its southwest wall contains a large stone mullioned window, divided by vertical stone members, with moulded grooves and rebates. Similar windows occur on the lower storeys. Inside, the pointed cross vaults have simply moulded ribs. The lowest vault rests on an octagonal central pier that changes to a square form at its base and upper support. The upper vault rests on a square-section pier from which the transverse arches and ribs rise smoothly.
The lowest hall has windows set unusually high above the floor. A wall extending almost to the central pier divides one vaulted bay, while a large fireplace hood indicates that this part of the tower served as a kitchen. The first upper floor contains another fireplace in the southeast wall.
The lower castle
The lower castle has no defensive installations of its own. Its defended entrance is a door beside the building, leading into a narrow lower courtyard and protected by a round tower projecting from the retaining wall. The southern entrance opens into a room with four cross vaults without ribs. The vaults rest against the walls on partly rough corbels and centrally on a round column whose base changes from hexagonal to square at the capital.
A surviving installation made from stone slabs lies beneath the rear-right vault. It has been interpreted as a hearth or smoke chamber, identifying the room as a kitchen. Behind it, a pointed-arched doorway leads to vaulted cellars, one of which has an exterior entrance.
A stair beside the entrance first curves around a rounded wall corner and then runs directly to the first upper floor. Much of that floor has collapsed, but its plan remains clear. A corridor built against the rock runs along the rear side. About halfway along it, a narrow barrel-vaulted passage extends toward the front and divides the floor into a large front hall and a rear room that may also have been used as a kitchen.
The front hall was covered by four cross vaults carried on a central round column, with the ribs meeting at the upper supports. A large stone mullioned window with moulded detailing occupied the south wall. An oriel, a projecting windowed bay, extended from the east wall in a half-octagonal form. Its surviving floor slab rests on ribbed corbels supported by male and female heads. The oriel formerly rose through two storeys and had a gabled roof that cut into the high roof of the main building.
A spiral staircase in a polygonal tower began at the rear of the first upper floor. It led to the almost completely destroyed second upper floor and then to the entrance of the residential tower, linking the lower and upper parts of the castle.
Economic buildings and courtyard
At the foot of the castle rock stand elongated timber-framed economic buildings arranged around a rectangular courtyard. Their partly elaborate timber treatment indicates a sixteenth-century date, while the stone ground floor of one wing also appears to belong to that period. One associated building dates to 1483. Together, these structures form the service and agricultural part of the complex below the residential tower and preserve the later expansion of Hermannstein beyond its original upper fortress.
