Liebenstein Castle (german: Burg Liebenstein) is a castle in

Liebenstein Liebenstein is a village and a former municipality in the district Ilm-Kreis, in Thuringia, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Euro ...

in the

Ilm-Kreis Ilm-Kreis is a district in Thuringia, Germany. It is bounded by (from the north and clockwise) the city of Erfurt, the districts of Weimarer Land, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt and Hildburghausen, the city of Suhl, and the districts of Schmalkalden-Meinin ...

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and lar ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It was originally built in the 12th century by the counts of Käfernburg; the castellans were the counts' ''

ministeriales The ''ministeriales'' (singular: ''ministerialis'') were a class of people raised up from serfdom and placed in positions of power and responsibility in the High Middle Ages in the Holy Roman Empire. The word and its German translations, ''Minist ...

'', the lords of Liebenstein. The castle was extensively reconstructed in the 16th century, and subsequently used as a quarry for building-stone.

References

* Dehio, Georg, 2003: ''Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Ausgabe für Thüringen''. Munich:

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 ...

. Castles in Thuringia Buildings and structures in Ilm-Kreis {{Thuringia-struct-stub