The Nürburg is a ruined

hilltop castle A hilltop castle is a type of hill castle that was built on the summit of a hill or mountain. In the latter case it may be termed a mountaintop castle. The term is derived from the German, ''Gipfelburg'', which is one of a number of terms used ...

in the German

Eifel Mountains The Eifel (; , ) is a low mountain range in western Germany, eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Com ...

near the village of

Nürburg Nürburg () is a town in the German district of Ahrweiler, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is also the name of the local castle, Nürburg Castle, which was built in the High Middle Ages. The castle is made of basalt which usually has ...

south of

Adenau Adenau () is a town in the High Eifel in Germany. It is known as the ''Johanniterstadt'' because the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg), Order of Saint John was based there in the Middle Ages. The town's coat of arms combines the black ...

in the district of

Ahrweiler Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler () is a spa town in the German Bundesland of Rhineland-Palatinate that serves as the capital of the Ahrweiler district. The A61 motorway connects the town with cities like Cologne and Mainz. Formed by the merging of the ...

in the state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) 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 sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

. It stands within the famous North Loop, or Nordschleife, of the

Nürburgring The () is a 150,000-person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Grand Prix motor racing, Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long configuration, built in the 1920s ...

racing course at an altitude of on a

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

cone. It may be visited for a fee.

History

The site was first mentioned in the records in 1166 as ''Noureberg'' or ''Mons Nore'', but it is probable that it was already used as a signal station in Roman times to protect the important Roman road that ran through the Eifel. The actual instigator of the Nürburg was Count

Ulrich Ulrich () is a Germanic given name derived from Old High German ''Uodalrich'', ''Odalric''. It is composed of the elements ''Othala rune, uodal-'' meaning "heritage" and ''-rih'' meaning "king, ruler". Attested from the 8th century as the name of Al ...

, who is named in a document from 1169, although his father,

Dietrich I of Are Dietrich () is an ancient German name meaning "ruler of the people", but also "keeper of the keys" or "lockpick" (either the tool or the profession). Given name * Dietrich, Count of Oldenburg (c. 1398–1440) * Thierry of Alsace (; 1099–1168), ...

, had already started the construction of a

refuge castle A refuge castleCreighton, Oliver (2015). ''Early European Castles''. Bloomsbury. or refuge fort (, also ''Fluchtburg'', ''Volksburg'', ''Bauernburg'' or ''Vryburg'') is a castle-like defensive location, usually surrounded by Rampart (fortification ...

on the mountain. Ulrich's descendants called themselves the lords of Nürburg and Are and were

vassal A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain ...

s (''Lehnsmänner'') of the

bishops of Cologne The Archbishop of Cologne governs the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne in western North Rhine-Westphalia. Historically, the archbishop was ''ex officio'' one of the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire and ruled the Electorate of Cologne ...

and the

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 dynast ...

emperor. In 1290, ownership of the castle was transferred to the

Electorate of Cologne The Electorate of Cologne (), sometimes referred to as Electoral Cologne (), was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that existed from the 10th to the early 19th century. It consisted of the Hochstift—the temporal posses ...

, because there were no more descendants of the lords of Nürburg. The

archbishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

appointed a

bailiff A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. There are different kinds, and their offices and scope of duties vary. Another official sometimes referred to as a '' ...

(''

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 A bailiff is a ...

''), who from then on was to represent their interests. The construction of the castle was carried out in three stages. After the construction of the rectangular inner ward or ''kernburg'', the ''

zwinger A () is an open kill zone area between two defensive walls that is used for defensive purposes. s were built in the medieval and early modern periods to improve the defence of castles and town walls. The term is usually left untranslated, ...

'' walls were built between 1340 and 1369 under the bailiff, Johann von Schleiden, as a second defensive ring. In the 15th century a third wall was erected to protect the hitherto freely-accessible castellan's buildings that have not survived. As early as the 16th century the castle fell into a very poor condition, a situation which the officiating bailiffs complained about. As a result, restoration work was carried out several times. In 1633, during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

, the Nürburg was captured by the Swedes under General Baudissin, who plundered and damaged it. In 1674, Imperial troops occupied the castle. In 1689, French soldiers finally destroyed the place. The surviving keep, or ''

bergfried ''Bergfried'' (plural: ''bergfriede''; English: ''belfry''; French: ''tour-beffroi''; Italian: ''torrione''; Castilian: ''torre del homenaje'') is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries an ...

'', was initially used as a prison, but was no longer fit for that purpose after 1752. The castle was abandoned and used as a stone quarry. In 1818

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

had the ''bergfried'' restored because, with its height of , it would be able to act as a trigonometric point. In the course of this work the

outer ward 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 bu ...

was demolished. Today only the remnants of the

enceinte Enceinte (from Latin ''incinctus'' "girdled, surrounded") is a French term that refers to the "main defensive enclosure of a fortification". For a castle, this is the main defensive line of wall towers and curtain walls enclosing the positio ...

testify to its existence. In 1949, ownership of the ruins was transferred to Rhineland-Palatinate's State Department for Conservation, who entrusted it to the Management of State Castles of Rhineland-Palatinate (''Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlösser Rheinland-Pfalz'', today the ''Burgen, Schlösser Altertümer Rheinland-Pfalz''). The latter had work carried out several times (last in 1988/89) in order to expose elements of the building that had been filled in, as well as to carry out safety and restoration work.

Sources

* Werner Bornheim gen. Schilling: ''Ruine Nürburg''. Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Burgen, Schlösser, Altertümer Rheinland-Pfalz, Koblenz 2003 (= Führer der Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlösser Rheinland-Pfalz, Heft 14).

External links

Die Nürburg bei der Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nurburg Castles in Rhineland-Palatinate Castles in the Eifel