Naumburg

This castle is a schloss, meaning it is designed more as a personal residence as it is for defence and control of a region. However, a schloss can do the latter just as a burg if necessary.

Right, a view looking over the outer wall to the main building. Note that the wall is woefully inadequate for any type of defense in the medieval world.

Below, the main entrance with the castle name on one of the gate pillars.  These photos were taken during the summer of 1978.

The castle was first mentioned in 1035 as the castello Nuwenburg.  In 1086, Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV gave the castle to Rudiger Huzman, the Bishop of Speyer. Huzman’s successor, Gunther von Henneberg passed the property over to the Benedictine order in 1149.  The monks, under the leadership of clergy in Limburg, were interconnected to noble families in the Wetterau region, giving it significant status to become the holding place of a number of church relics, including a piece of wood claiming to be from the cross on which Christ was crucified.

By the 13th century, the castle was under the lords of Hanau, who interceded a number of times to protect the property during various small wars in the region. Nevertheless, the castle was destroyed during the Landshut War of Succession, 1504-05. It was rebuilt immediately after but by a different order of monks, who apparently exercised little oversight as locals began to complain that the monks in Naumburg began engaging in a wide range of licentious acts.

By the mid-1500s and into the 1600s, the castle became a winery and was eventually used by the owners as a deposit to secure a loan from the lords of Hesse-Kassel.  In the 1740s, the Prince George of Hesse-Kassel tore down the old monastery and built a hunting lodge on the site, completing it by 1752.  When Hesse fell in 1866 to the Prussians during the War of the Austrian Succession, the property passed to the town of Erbstadt in 1882.  Afterwards, it passed through a series of private investors, eventually becoming first a retirement home, and then a conference center for a Pentecostal Church group. As of 2010, it is once more in private hands and visitors are allowed.

Above left, a view into the courtyard of the castle. 

Above, a view of the castle from without.  Naumburg sites on a slight eminence just north of the town of Nidderau. 

Since it was rebuilt as a hunting lodge, with the originial structure being torn down, Naumburg does not represent a good example of a medieval site.