Ruine Engelburg: A Medieval Hilltop Castle in Stuttgart
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page7 sections
History
Ruine Engelburg is the remains of a medieval hilltop castle in Stuttgart, Germany, built between 1260 and 1280. It is associated with the earlier settlement of Biberburg, which was mentioned in 708 in connection with Gotfrid, an Alamannian duke who ruled the Alamanni, a Germanic population of parts of southwestern Central Europe.
Biberburg and the early medieval settlement
The ruins probably occupy the site of the Biberburg mentioned around 700. In 708, Gotfrid transferred Biberburg, described as a settlement, to the Church of St Gall after the priest and shepherd Magulfus requested a wax donation for that religious community, which was associated with Saint Gall. The same account also mentions a settlement called Neugart in connection with Biberburg.
Medieval castle and destruction
A new castle was constructed on the site between 1260 and 1280, probably by the Lords of Blankenstein. The name Engelburg may have derived from Engelbold of the Kaltental family, a local noble family. Engelbold later introduced the Reformation in Mühlhausen around 1567. This sixteenth-century movement brought major changes and divisions within Western Christianity, including the establishment of Protestant churches.
During the imperial war of 1311–1312, a conflict between the imperial cities and Count Eberhard the Illustrious of Württemberg, forces from Esslingen destroyed the castle. It was subsequently rebuilt. The castle probably survived the Thirty Years’ War, fought from 1618 to 1648, without damage. It remained intact in the 1680s, but began to decay at the start of the eighteenth century and may have been destroyed by French forces during the Nine Years’ War.
Decline and later alteration
By the modern period, the castle had become a ruin. Its neck ditch, a defensive ditch cut across the narrow approach to a hilltop fortification, was filled in during the 1950s. The site is now represented by the foundations of the former aristocratic castle.
Remains
Hilltop castle foundations
The remains stand on a hill above Stuttgart’s Mühlhausen district, north of Mönchfeldstraße. The former castle was a small complex covering about 480 square metres. Only its foundations are visible today, while the castle walls had a substantial thickness of between 1.8 and 2.2 metres. The former neck ditch separated the hilltop position from the surrounding ground before it was filled in during the 1950s.
Palas wall sections
The castle’s palas, its principal residential and representative building, was still represented by substantial wall sections in copper engravings made by Christian Friedrich Sattler in 1757. Sattler was an eighteenth-century German historian and engraver. These images preserve evidence of the residential building’s condition before the later decay reduced the visible remains to foundations.
