Hohenneuffen

Hohenneuffen Castle is a large ruined castle in the northern foothills of the Swabian Alb, above the town of Neuffen in the district of Esslingen in Baden-Württemberg.

The medieval castle is situated on a large late Jurassic rock on the edge of the Swabian Alb at an elevation of 743 m (2437 ft) in a strategically advantageous location on the slopes of the mountain range.

There is evidence for a pre-historic, iron age settlement on Hohenneuffen. It functioned as an outpost for the oppidum at Heidengraben during the late La Tène period in the first century BCE.

The pre-Germanic name Neuffen is derived from the proto-Celtic adjective nobos, meaning holy or sacred, implying that the mountain had a religious rather than a military function 2000 years ago.

The castle was built between 1100 and 1120 by Mangold von Sulmetingen who later changed his name to include the element von Neuffen. The first documentary evidence dates from 1198. At that time the castle was still in possession of the family von Neuffen, a member of which was the Minnesänger Gottfried von Neifen. The castle went into the possession of the Lords of Weinsberg at the end of the 13th century who sold it on to the Counts of Württemberg in 1301. The castle proved its defensive worth in 1312 when, during the Reichskrieg, an internal conflict within the Holy Roman Empire following the election of Henry VII as Holy Roman Emperor, it could not be conquered.

The expansion of Hohenneuffen Castle into a fortress began in the 14th century. However, the most important alterations to the castle structure were conducted by Duke Ulrich of Württemberg in the first half of the 16th century. Barbicans, round towers, bastions, a building for the commanding officer, casemates, stables, an armoury as well as two cisterns were built. Essentially, these fortification did not change for the next two hundred years. While the fortress had to surrender to troops from the Swabian League in 1519, it withstood the insurgent peasants' attempt to take it during the German Peasants' War of 1524/25.

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