The

rock castle A rock castle (german: Felsenburg) is a type of medieval castle that directly incorporates natural rock outcrops into its defences to such an extent that the rock formations define the structure of the castle. Topographically, rock castles are c ...

of Neudahn, in the southwestern Palatine Forest in the German state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

, is located at the northern end of an elongated ridge near the town of

Dahn Dahn is a municipality in the Südwestpfalz district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated in the Palatinate Forest, approximately 15 km southeast of Pirmasens, and 25 km west of Landau. It is part of the ''Verbandsgemeind ...

. The heart of the castle is situated on one of the

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

rock outcrops that are typical of the

Dahner Felsenland The Dahner Felsenland, also referred to as the Dahn Rockland, is a landscape in the county of Südwestpfalz in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is located in the middle section of the Wasgau, which in turn forms the southern ...

region.

Geography

Neudahn lies 2 kilometres northwest of Dahn, right of the River

Lauter Lauter may refer to: People * Lauter (surname) Places *Lauter, Saxony, town in the district of Aue-Schwarzenberg, Saxony, Germany * Lauter, Bavaria, village in the district of Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany Rivers * Lauter (Baunach), tributary to th ...

, which is known here in its upper reaches as the ''Wieslauter''. The castle stands atop the Kauertberg hill, about 90 metres above the valley floor. The main castle rock is 310 metres above sea level, that of the lower ward reaches 290 metres. Immediately below the castle the Moosbach stream, which is impounded in a small ''

woog A ''woog'' (from ''wâc'', a Middle High German hydronym) is the local name for a body of still water in parts of southwest Germany. A ''woog'' may be of natural origin or manmade. Distribution of the name The name is used for waterbodies in ...

'' used to feed an old mill, empties into the Wieslauter.

History

The name "Neudahn" ("New Dahn") is rather confusing, because the castle is older than Grafendahn Castle in the nearby group of three

castles of Dahn The castles of Dahn (german: Dahner Burgengruppe, literally "Dahn castle group"), near the little town of Dahn in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, consist of three rock castles: * Altdahn * Grafendahn * Tanstein Geography The so-ca ...

, albeit more recent than Altdahn ("Old Dahn"). Its location enabled it to protect and block the old road running through the Wieslauter valley, the course of which is now used by the B 427 federal highway and the Wieslauter Railway. The castle was probably built just before 1240 by order of the

Bishop of Speyer The Bishop of Speyer is the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer, which is a suffragan see of the Archdiocese of Bamberg.Conrad IV of Dahn. The governing ''

ministerialis 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, ''Minis ...

'' was Henry of Dahn, who is also recorded as Henry Mursel of Kropsberg. He was probably granted the castle from the outset as a heritable ''

fief A fief (; la, feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an Lord, overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a for ...

. His second name, like other later heirs, indicates clearly that there were family ties with the

South Palatinate The Palatinate (german: Pfalz; Palatine German: ''Palz'') is a region of Germany. In the Middle Ages it was known as the Rhenish Palatinate (''Rheinpfalz'') and Lower Palatinate (''Unterpfalz''), which strictly speaking designated only the wes ...

– Kropsburg and

Burrweiler Burrweiler is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. References

Municipalities in Rhineland-Palatinate Südliche Weinstraße {{SüdlicheWeinstraße-geo-stub ...

. The castles is first mentioned on 3 May 1285 as ''Burg Than'', an assessment of the estate mentioned in the deed indicating that it must refer to Neudahn.Grathoff 2003, p. 4 (s.

Literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

) p Within a hundred years of the castle being built, the Mursel family died out, and its possession passed to the related Altdahn line. Probably razed during the Four Lords' War of 1438 and then rebuilt, the site was again badly damaged during the

German Peasants' War The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt (german: Deutscher Bauernkrieg) was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of intense oppositio ...

in 1525. Because, King

Henry II of France Henry II (french: Henri II; 31 March 1519 – 10 July 1559) was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I and Duchess Claude of Brittany, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder bro ...

stayed overnight at the castle in 1552, it must have been thoroughly renovated before then. After the last lord of Dahn, Ludwig II died in 1603 in his castle at Burrweiler, Neudahn was returned to the

Prince-Bishopric of Speyer The Prince-Bishopric of Speyer, formerly known as Spires in English, (German: ''Hochstift Speyer, Fürstbistum Speyer, Bistum Speyer'') was an ecclesiastical principality in what are today the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Würt ...

. From then on the castle was used by the episcopal ''

Amtmann __NOTOC__ The ''Amtmann'' or ''Ammann'' (in Switzerland) was an official in German-speaking countries of Europe and in some of the Nordic countries from the time of the Middle Ages whose office was akin to that of a bailiff. He was the most seni ...

'' as his headquarters until French troops finally destroyed it in 1689 at the start of the

War of the Palatine Succession The Nine Years' War (1688–1697), often called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg, was a conflict between France and a European coalition which mainly included the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarc ...

. Today the castle appears to visitors largely as it did in the renovation and extension phase in the period after 1525 and after the last destruction. Safety and restoration measures took place in the 1970s. The site is managed by the ''Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz, Direktion Burgen, Schlösser, Altertümer'', and, together with

Berwartstein Castle Berwartstein Castle (German: Burg Berwartstein) is a castle in the Wasgau, the southern part of the Palatinate Forest in the state Rhineland-Palatinate in southwestern Germany. It was one of the rock castles that were part of defences of the P ...

, 10 kilometres away, is one of the best preserved castles in the southern Palatine Forest.

Site

Left of the place where the original gates were located, in the southeast, are the remains of a tower, 7 metres in diameter. From this tower, parts of a thick

defensive wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates ...

runs westwards, before bending north. On the steep northern and northeastern side of the hillside the wall has entirely disappeared. It led to the

flanking tower A flanking tower is a fortified tower that is sited on the outside of a defensive wall or other fortified structure and thus forms a flank. From the defensive platform and embrasures the section of wall between them (the curtain wall) could be s ...

at the northern end of the site. Of the oldest – late

Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty ...

– castle on the vertically hewn, central rock outcrop, which is just under 20 metres high, the only surviving features are a

cistern A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by t ...

at the western end and the southern wall of the small ''

palas A ''palas'' () is a German term for the imposing or prestigious building of a medieval ''Pfalz'' or castle that contained the great hall. Such buildings appeared during the Romanesque period (11th to 13th century) and, according to Thompson, ...

'' with its window and door openings. At the northwestern end of the main rock outcrop in the south was a

late medieval The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renai ...

domestic building and, west of that, a

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

. A formerly plastered newel tower from the same period on the northwestern edge of the rock outcrop leads up to the

upper ward The inner bailey or inner ward of a castle is the strongly fortified enclosure at the heart of a medieval castle.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 22. It is protected by the outer w ...

. The actual entrance into the ground floor is, as on many castles, probably not authentic and may have been made for modern visitors, which the date 1975 over the entrance suggests. It also lies outside the inner gate. The historic entrance is inside the gate to the left and at a higher level. The dominant image of the castle is the two four-storey, roughly 24 metre-high,

battery tower A battery tower was a defensive tower built into the outermost defences of many castles, usually in the 16th century or later, after the advent of firearms. Its name is derived from the word battery, a group of several cannon. These, usually ro ...

s on the opposite side. They date to the first half of the 16th century. The west tower measures about 7 metres in height, the east tower, about 10 metres. The thickness of the walls is about 3 metres. Two

embrasure An embrasure (or crenel or crenelle; sometimes called gunhole in the domain of gunpowder-era architecture) is the opening in a battlement between two raised solid portions (merlons). Alternatively, an embrasure can be a space hollowed out ...

s (so-called ''Maulscharten'') on the southern battery tower have been ornately carved into the shape of lions' faces.Braun 1997, pp. 471. On the continuation of the hill to the east-southeast the site was protected by a wedge-shaped

bastion A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fi ...

that was also a recognition feature of Neudahn. Its shape was intended to prevent shells from striking the castle frontally. It protected the upper ward on the more gentle slope of the hill on that side. The bastion and the weapon towers show that, in the late Middle Ages, considerable modifications to the castle were carried out and the lords of the castle took account of the introduction of firearms and cannon.

References

Literature

* * Eckhard Braun: ''Pfälzische Burgen und Feuerwaffen.'' Meyer, Hauenstein, 1997, p. 467–482, . * Stefan Grathoff: ''Die Dahner Burgen. Alt-Dahn – Grafendahn – Tanstein.'' Führungsheft 21st edn. Burgen, Schlösser, Altertümer Rheinland Pfalz. Schnell und Steiner, Regensburg, 2003. . * Alexander Thon (ed.): ''... wie eine gebannte, unnahbare Zauberburg. Burgen in der Südpfalz''. 2nd improved edition. Schnell und Steiner, Regensburg, 2005, pp. 112–117, .

External links

{{Commons category, Burg Neudahn, Neudahn Castle
Artist's impression
by Wolfgang Braun Rock castles Castles in Rhineland-Palatinate Dahn