Hohenlimburg Castle: Medieval Fortress and County Seat in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page9 sections
History
Hohenlimburg Castle is a medieval hilltop fortress in Germany, built by the Counts of Altena-Isenberg around or shortly after 1240. Rising above the Lennetal in North Rhine-Westphalia, it became the political center and administrative seat of the medieval County of Limburg, a territorial lordship distinct from the modern Belgian and Dutch regions of the same name.
Foundation and the County of Limburg
Count Dietrich I of Altena-Isenberg ordered the castle’s construction, and during the thirteenth century it developed into the residence of his family’s principal line. The castle was first mentioned in 1242. The creation of the county was connected with a peace treaty concluded on 1 May 1243 involving the heir of Friedrich von Isenberg, an executed nobleman. Hohenlimburg then served as the nucleus of the new county and as the seat from which its political affairs were administered.
Conquest and divided lordship
Count Eberhard I of the Mark conquered Hohenlimburg in 1288. In 1300, the knight Sobbo de Svirte captured the castle, but later returned it to the Counts of the Mark. Count Dietrich III of Limburg regained possession in 1304.
A feud between the Counts of Limburg-Broich and the Counts of Neuenahr brought another major change. Forces from the Limburg-Broich line and its allies besieged and captured Limburg in 1459. From 1460, the Limburg-Broich and Neuenahr families shared possession. The Limburg-Broich share passed to Count Wirich V of Daun-Falkenstein between 1509 and 1542, while the Counts of Neuenahr ruled alone from 1542 until 1589. From 1592 until 1807 or 1808, Hohenlimburg and the county belonged to the Counts of Bentheim-Tecklenburg.
War and transformation into a residence
Electoral Cologne troops conquered Hohenlimburg in 1584 and occupied the castle until 1610. During the Thirty Years’ War, the major European conflict of 1618 to 1648, imperial troops commanded by Major General Lothar Dietrich von Bönninghausen besieged the castle in 1633. They used it as a military quarter until 1636, when withdrawing troops set fire to the outer bailey and its buildings, including the medieval half-tower.
During the seventeenth century, Hohenlimburg gradually changed from a mainly defensive stronghold into a residence intended increasingly for representation. Major alterations took place around the middle of the sixteenth century and during the first half of the eighteenth century. Under Count Moritz Casimir I of Bentheim-Tecklenburg, the family residence was transferred from Rheda to Hohenlimburg between 1729 and 1756. This move brought an expansion of the castle and the creation of late-Baroque gardens.
Hohenlimburg nevertheless retained a military role. It was still counted among the fortresses in the Prussian sphere of influence during the Seven Years’ War, the European conflict of 1756 to 1763. French troops occupied the castle, and in 1762 forces of the Duke of Brunswick-Hanover subjected it to cannon fire.
The Bentheim-Tecklenburg residence and museum
Between 1816 or 1817 and 1830, Hohenlimburg served as the principal residence of the princes of Bentheim-Tecklenburg. The family residence later returned to Rheda, while Hohenlimburg remained in the family’s possession. An older tower containing the archive was destroyed by lightning in 1811, an event later connected with the discovery of the intentionally mummified right hand known as the Black Hand.
The Museum Hohenlimburg was founded in 1927 by the Association for Local and Regional History of Hohenlimburg. Its collection was transferred to the castle in 1947, and the museum opened there in 1949. After six years under the local history association, responsibility passed to the city of Hohenlimburg. Under museum director Wilhelm Bleicher, appointed in 1975, the institution became more prominent and recorded more than 23,000 visitors in 1986.
The museum declined from the 1980s onward, with exhibits lost or dismantled, including the Hohenlimburg town model. From 2006, renovation and cultural initiatives led by Maximilian Prince of Bentheim-Tecklenburg and Albrecht Wrede sought to revive the complex. The Fürstensaal was prepared for use as a registry office, a museum shop was established, and cooperation with other institutions expanded. The castle’s long-term operation was reorganized through Schloss Hohenlimburg gemeinnützige GmbH, founded on 27 January 2005 and operating as a nonprofit company since that year. Further planning in 2015 gave greater space to temporary exhibitions and envisioned a stronger role for the castle as an event venue.
The German Cold Rolling Museum opened at Hohenlimburg in 1988. Cold rolling is a metalworking process that reduces the thickness of metal at or near room temperature while improving its surface and mechanical properties. The museum’s association ended its agreement with Schloss Hohenlimburg gemeinnützige GmbH in 2016, and the exhibits were transferred to the Hagen Open-Air Museum in 2017. A new exhibition opened in Haus Letmathe in April 2024.
Hohenlimburg is described as one of the few hilltop fortresses in Westphalia to retain much of its original medieval form. Its wall-walk was named Westphalia-Lippe’s Monument of the Month in August 2005. The castle is currently owned by Maximilian Prince of Bentheim-Tecklenburg, while restoration of the castle garden has continued since 2000 with support from associations and foundations.
Remains
Fortress layout and medieval fabric
The castle occupies a mountain spur above the Lennetal, at the entrance to the valley leading toward the Sauerland. The complex lies within the Stoppelberg landscape-protection area and consists of an outer bailey and a main castle. Its principal elements include the palas, the main residential and representational building of a medieval castle, gatehouses, curtain walls, a bergfried, or strong non-residential tower used chiefly for defense and refuge, and a surviving wall-walk, the passage along the top of a defensive wall.
The main medieval fabric dates from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Residential and working buildings added between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries reflect the castle’s later development as a princely residence. The outer bailey formerly contained a medieval half-tower, which was destroyed when imperial troops set fire to the buildings during their withdrawal in 1636. The Alten Palas later housed the German Cold Rolling Museum before its exhibits moved elsewhere in 2017.
Garden and historic landscape
The Schlossgarten Hohenlimburg is a historical garden laid out in 1730 on the western slope below the castle. Count Moritz Casimir I of Bentheim-Tecklenburg had it designed in the manner of a French Baroque garden. The restored grounds combine ornamental and productive areas with a small vineyard and an orchard meadow. Garden restoration has continued since 2000.
Objects and exhibitions
The Black Hand, an intentionally mummified right hand, is displayed in an exhibition in the castle tower. Radiocarbon dating places it in the sixteenth century, with an estimated date of 1546 plus or minus 60 years. It probably belonged to an adult man. All terminal finger bones and part of the wrist bones are missing, and a remnant of cord around the thumb may indicate that it once carried a label.
No hacking marks, cuts, diseases, or ulcers were identified on the hand, a condition considered more consistent with that of a victim than a perpetrator. It was found in the old tower archive after the tower was destroyed by lightning in 1811. Its original purpose remains uncertain. It may have been a severed hand used as evidence in a murder case or a symbol associated with a peace agreement concluded after a feud. Such legal agreements are known in connection with Limburg during the late Middle Ages. A later legend claims that Count Dietrich of Isenberg-Limburg ordered his son’s hand cut off after the son struck his mother.
Several cannon are displayed in the outer bailey. Investigations identified them as naval artillery manufactured in France and Sweden. Two date from the period of the French Revolution, while another was probably made in Sweden during the seventeenth century. Between 1996 and 2000, the cannon were restored and placed on new carriages based on the Gribeauval system of 1808, an eighteenth-century French method for standardizing field artillery and its carriages.
