Donaustauf Castle (german: Burgruine Donaustauf) is a ruined

hill castle A hill castle or mountain castle is a castle built on a natural feature that stands above the surrounding terrain. It is a term derived from the German ''Höhenburg'' used in categorising castle sites by their topographical location. Hill castles ...

located at a height of on a hill spur overlooking the

River Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

by the market village of

Donaustauf Donaustauf is a market town in Bavaria, east of Regensburg at the foothills of the Bavarian Forest. The ruins of a medieval castle, presumably erected between 914 and 930, tower above the small town. Situated nearby on a hill rising from the Da ...

in the

Upper Palatine The Upper Palatinate (german: Oberpfalz, , ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany, and is located in the east of Bavaria. Geography The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and numerous ponds and lakes ...

county of

Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...

in the south German state of

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

. Donaustauf grew up during the Middle Ages under the protection of the mighty fortifications of the castle. Since 6 April 1986 the castle ruins have belonged to Donaustauf and, from 1997, the municipality had the castle made safe and renovated it. Donaustauf Merian 1644

History

The castle is built on the site of a

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

fort of unknown size and importance dating to around 500 BC. Based on excavations in 1981 of the northeast side of the lower

outer bailey An outer bailey or outer ward is the defended outer enclosure of a castle.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 22. It protects the inner bailey and usually contains those ancillary bui ...

it appears to date to the late

Hallstatt period The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Western Europe, Western and Central European Archaeological culture, culture of Late Bronze Age Europe, Bronze Age (Hallstatt A, Hallstatt B) from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and Early Iron Age Europe ...

. Between 914 and 930 AD, Bishop Tuto of Regensburg had a castle built here to defend the area from Hungarian invasion. The castle was recorded as ''castellum quod dicitur Stufo'' between 894 and 930. The name ''stouf'' is

Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

for a cone-shaped rock or hilltop.

Donaustauf Castle Trail

Donaustauf Castle is one of over 40 castles in the Regensburg Land that are linked by a network of footpaths, the so-called 'Castle Trails'. The Donaustauf Castle Trail (''Donaustaufer Burgensteig'') is about 30 kilometres long.Donaustaufer Burgensteig
burgensteige.de

Literature

* Silvia Codreanu-Windauer, Karl-Wilhelm Höllerer: ''Castellum Stufo - Untersuchungen auf dem Donaustaufer Burgberg''. In: ''Das archäologische Jahr in Bayern, 2005''. Konrad Theiss Verlag, 2006, pp. 113 ff * Andreas Boos: ''Burgen im Süden der Oberpfalz – Die früh- und hochmittelalterlichen Befestigungen des Regensburger Umlandes''. Universitätsverlag Regensburg, Regensburg, 1998, , pp. 149–155. *

Georg Dehio Georg Gottfried Julius Dehio (22 November 1850 in Reval (now Tallinn), Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire – 21 March 1932 in Tübingen), was a Baltic German art historian. In 1900, Dehio started the "''Handbuch der deutschen Kunstgesch ...

: ''Bayern V: Regensburg und die Oberpfalz - Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler''. Drexler Jolanda / Hubel Achim (revised),

Deutscher Kunstverlag The Deutscher Kunstverlag (DKV) is an educational publishing house with offices in Berlin and Munich. The publisher specializes in books about art, cultural history, architecture, and historic preservation. History Deutscher Kunstverlag was fo ...

, 1991. * Udo Osterhaus: ''Der Burgberg bei Donaustauf, Landkreis Regensburg, Oberpfalz. Ein frühkeltischer Herrensitz''. In: ''Das archäologische Jahr in Bayern, 1982''. Konrad Theiss Verlag, 1983, pp. 76 ff

External links

Burgruine Donaustauf
on the home page of th
House of Bavarian History
(plans, history, construction, condition)

at burgenseite.de
Burgruine Donaustauf
on the website of the market village of Donaustauf
Artist's impression
by Wolfgang Braun

Footnotes and references

Hill castles Castles in Bavaria Registered historic buildings and monuments in Bavaria Buildings and structures in Regensburg (district)