Germany · 12th century
The Rudelsburg is a ruined hill castle located on the east bank of the river Saale above Saaleck, a village in the borough of Naumburg in the county of Burgenlandkreis in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The Rudelsburg was built in the Middle Ages by the Bishop of Naumburg and served to secure trade routes such as the Via Regia through the Saale Valley.
The Rudelsburg was a point of conflict between the bishops of Naumburg and the Margraves of Meissen belonging to the House of Wettin. The castle occasionally served various noble families as a residence, until it was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War and thereafter fell into disrepair. In the early 19th century the Rudelsburg became a popular tourist destination thanks to the romanticisation of mountains and the rise of hiking as a pastime. From 1855 onwards it achieved national renown as the annual meeting place of the Kösener Senioren-Convents-Verband, the oldest union of student fraternities with delegates from all German-speaking countries. The Rudelsburg still maintains a particular attraction for visitors and lies on the Romanesque Road (Ger:Straße der Romanik), a tourist route.
Text adapted from “Rudelsburg” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Rudelsburg ranks #2,093 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #164 of the 711 mapped in Germany. Founded 1171, it is older than 79% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 756 atlas entries founded in the 12th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 3,806 times in the last 60 days, more than 82% of the atlas. 5 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Germany compares in the castle statistics.
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