Otzberg Castle

Otzberg Castle (German: Veste Otzberg) in the German state of Hesse is a medieval castle on the summit of the Otzberg in the Odenwald forest at a height of 367 m above NN. On its northern slopes is the village of Hering, which grew out of the lower ward or castellan's settlement. The history of castle and village is therefore closely interwoven.

The region around the Otzberg probably belonged to the territory that King Pippin gifted in 766 A.D. to Fulda Abbey, together with Groß-Umstadt.

Otzberg Castle was probably built in the late 12th/early 13th century.

At this time, Abbot Marquard I of Fulda secured the abbey estates and built castles that were visible from a long way as a sign of his influence.

...Here is a site for a castle… He transferred the castle to Conrad of Hohenstaufen, brother of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, as vogt. Conrad was Count Palatine of the Rhine.

The castrum Othesberg was first mentioned in the records in 1231. In this document the Archbishop of Mainz, Siegfried III, also the overseer of Fulda Abbey, guaranteed to Count Palatine Otto II the arrangement agreed in the previous year, the details of which are unknown.

In 1244 the castellanos de odesbrech are mentioned for the first time: the castellans or Burgmannen of Otzberg Castle. The fortifications must have been sufficiently developed that five castellans and their servants were able to occupy it. The castellans built houses in the village of Hering, so-called "castellan's houses" or Burgmannenhäuser. Of these only parts of the house owned by Gans of Otzberg have survived.

In the early 14th century, the resources of Fulda Abbey ran out so, in 1332, Prince-Abbot Henry VI of Hohenberg enfeoffed Otzberg Castle and the Fulda part of Umstadt for 4,600 pounds of Heller to Werner of Anevelt and Engelhard of Franckenstein, who invested 200 pounds in improving the castle.

In 1374 Fulda redeemed the estate again, but in the same year enfeoffed Otsperg die burg ("Otzberg the castle"), Heringes die stat darundir ("Hering the town below it") and half of Umstadt for 23,875 guilders to Ulrich of Hanau. Ulrich spent 400 guilders on improvements to the castle.

In 1390 the abbey sold the three properties to the Count Palatine Rupert II. Their value in that transaction was 33,000 guilders. In 1504 the Bavarian Feud partly involved Otzberg.

Text adapted from “Otzberg Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Otzberg Castle ranks #4,822 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #368 of the 505 mapped in Germany. Founded 1231, it is older than 74% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 861 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Frankfurt, 36 km away. See how Germany compares in the castle statistics.

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