Frankenstein Castle, Palatinate

Frankenstein Castle
Near Frankenstein in Germany
Frankenstein Castle
Layout of Frankenstein Castle
Type	Medieval fortification
Site information
Owner	Rhineland-Palatinate
Site history
Built	1100 (1100)

Frankenstein Castle is a medieval fortification on a spur above the village of Frankenstein, Rhineland-Palatinate in the Palatinate Forest in Germany. Its name derives from the local House of Frankenstein.

The name first appeared in a document of 1146 mentioning the free nobleman (Edelfrei) Helenger of Frankenstein. But the beginning of the castle is assumed to be at an earlier date because the erection of a defensive tower around 1100 is reported in various documents.

The tower belonged to nearby Limburg Abbey in charge of security on the road to Speyer, Dürkheim and Worms. In 1205, the monastery commissioned the counts of Leiningen with this task. The counts had the tower expanded to a castle in the beginning of the 13th. century.

From 1204 to 1231, documents mention the knights Marquard, Friedrich and Helenger von Frankenstein as administrators in charge of the castle. Around 1390 Frankenstein Castle became a joint heritage castle when Limburg Abbey pledged half of the castle to the Lords of Einselthum. A part of this pledge was taken over by the counts of Nassau -Saarbrücken and Leiningen-Hardenburg in the beginning of the 15th. century.

In the second half of the 15th. century the castle was damaged in the struggles between Prince-elector Frederick I and Count Palatine Ludwig I of Zweibrücken. The castle suffered further damage, presumably in 1512, when the Count of Nassau conquered it on orders of emperor Maximilian I. During the German Peasants' War the castle was destroyed and was considered uninhabitable as of 1560. Nevertheless it served military purposes because of its strategic position.