Castle Eltz

Eltz Castle
Eltz Castle, view from northeast
Location of Eltz Castle within Rhineland-Palatinate
Former names	Gabriela Luz Castle
Alternative names	Gräflich Eltz'sche Kastellanei Burg Eltz
General information
Type	hill castle
Architectural style	Romanesque, Baroque
Location	Wierschem
Town or city	D-56294 Münstermaifeld
Country	Germany
Coordinates	50°12′18″N 7°20′12″E / 50.20500°N 7.33667°E / 50.20500; 7.33667
Elevation	320 m (1,050 ft)
Construction started	prior to 1157
Owner	Dr. Karl Graf zu Eltz
Website
www.burg-eltz.de

Eltz Castle (German: Burg Eltz) is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier, Germany. It is still owned by a branch of the same family (the Eltz family) that lived there in the 12th century, 33 generations ago. Bürresheim Castle (), Eltz Castle and Lissingen Castle are the only castles on the left bank of the Rhine in Rhineland-Palatinate which have never been destroyed.

The castle is surrounded on three sides by the Elzbach River, a tributary on the north side of the Moselle. It is on a 70-metre (230 ft) rock spur, on an important Roman trade route between rich farmlands and their markets. The Eltz Forest has been declared a nature reserve by Flora-Fauna-Habitat and Natura 2000.

The castle is a so-called Ganerbenburg, or castle belonging to a community of joint heirs. This is a castle divided into several parts, which belong to different families or different branches of a family; this usually occurs when multiple owners of one or more territories jointly build a castle to house themselves. Only a very rich medieval European lord could afford to build a castle on his land; many of them only owned one village, or even only a part of a village. This was an insufficient base to afford a castle. Such lords lived in a knight's house, which was a simple house, scarcely bigger than those of his tenants. In some parts of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, inheritance law required that the estate be divided between all successors. These successors, each of whose individual inheritance was too small to build a castle of his own, could build a castle together, where each owned one separate part for housing and all of them together shared the defensive fortification. In the case of Eltz, the family comprised three branches and the existing castle was enhanced with three separate complexes of buildings.