Castle Map

Castle

Salzburg Castle (Bad Neustadt)

Germany · 10th century

Founded
1000
Heritage status
architectural heritage monument in Bavaria
Location
Bad Neustadt an der Saale
Coordinates
50.32056°, 10.23°
Links
Wikimedia Commons
Open on the map →Wikipedia ↗
Salzburg Castle (Bad Neustadt) in Germany
Photo: Behringer B · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Description

Salzburg Castle (German: Burg Salzburg) stands on the edge of a plateau above the town of Bad Neustadt an der Saale in Lower Franconia in southern Germany. The large Ganerbenburg (jointly inherited castle) is still partly occupied today and not all areas are accessible to the public.

The castle was built about a kilometre east of Bad Neustadt on the western end of the plateau above Neuhaus and is separated from the land in front of it by a roughly 160-metre-long neck ditch. Until the 19th century the whole hillside was cleared and was used as early as the High Middle Ages for viticulture. The present, thickly wooded ridge on which the castle stands is also the site of the extensive Franconian Clinic (Rhön-Klinikum AG), which dominates the landscape.

By the Carolingian era, the Salzgau around Neustadt was already very important. Eginhard says that Charlemagne went in his palace at Saltz in 790. An imperial palace (Pfalz) was even built here; it was given to the Bishopric of Wurzburg in 1000 A.D. by Emperor Otto III. This palace was probably on the site of the present village of Salz or in its immediate vicinity. A castle was built on the nearby Veitsberg hill, probably in Ottonian times during the period of the Hungarian invasions, to protect the local populace.

A fortified enclosure of unknown date may have been located on the site of the present castle of Salzburg. These fortifications, too, may have been upgraded in the first half of the 10th century into a refuge castle in the face of attacks by the Magyars.

The first record of the Salzburg occurs in a copy of a deed by Emperor Louis the Pious dated around 1160. The original document is missing and could have been inadvertently and mistakenly amended by its scribe, Friar Eberhard of Fulda Abbey, to show the place of publication (Actum-Zeile or Ausstellungsort) as the Salzburg or Salzberg: "Act(um) in Salzb. Curia regia".

The copy of this early medieval document clearly suggests that the royal palace of Salz was actually located on the castle hill and older research invariably locates this royal court on the site of the more recent castle. Later on, the Veitsberg near Salz was generally reckoned to be the location of the palace while, today, historians favour the village of Salz or its immediate surroundings as the likely site.

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

In the rankings

Salzburg Castle (Bad Neustadt) ranks #5,951 of 9,902 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #579 of the 927 mapped in Germany. Founded 1000, it is older than 91% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 206 atlas entries founded in the 10th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,124 times in the last 60 days, more than 59% of the atlas. 5 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. It is one of the 46 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Thuringia. See how Germany compares in the castle statistics.

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