Germany · Restored
Ebernburg Castle
Burg Ebernburg
Ebernburg Castle is a hilltop castle above the town of Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Built in the 14th century for the counts of Sponheim and later owned and expanded by the Sickingen family, it was burned in 1523, rebuilt in 1542, and later restored and altered in the 19th and 20th centuries.
First raised
1338
Its prime
1542
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1542
What Ebernburg Castle looked like in its prime.
Perched on a rocky spur above the Nahe valley, the castle presents as a compact medieval stronghold sited on the southeastern edge of the Ebernburg district. The rebuilt mid-16th-century structure consists of stone curtain walls and rebuilt masonry forms hugging the spur, with defensive platforms for heavy artillery added in the late 15th century. From below the slope the castle reads as a fortified residence set above the town, its rebuilt roofs and service buildings added later.
Its story
The story of Ebernburg Castle.
Counts Ruprecht and Johann of Sponheim-Kreuznach built the Ebernburg in 1338, this much is certain, on its hilltop above what is now Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg. In 1448 the entire estate came to the Sickingen family, first as a pledge and later as a fief, and they held it until ceding it back to the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1750 and 1771.
The castle was the ancestral seat of the lords of Sickingen and the birthplace of Franz von Sickingen, the famous landsknecht captain and protector of Ulrich von Hutten, to whom a monument was erected on the slope near the ruins in 1889. Burned in 1523, the castle was rebuilt in 1542.
In 1838 the castle came to Karl Günther, landowner and mayor of Feilbingert, who rebuilt it in its original style and added a residence, farm buildings and an inn. In 1914 the Günther family sold it, with all its contents, to the Ebernburg Foundation, established for that purpose.
Step inside
3 places to explore in 1542.
The record describes 3 distinct spots at Ebernburg Castle, including 1 interior: castle chapel. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Ebernburg Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1542, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate this castle →Castle Siege
Play Castle Siege at Ebernburg Castle.
A strategy game played on Ebernburg Castle’s real ground plan: the same surveyed walls shown in the archive below. Post your finite garrison on the battlements between assaults, then hold out as rams, siege towers, trebuchets and sappers arrive in ever-worse waves.
Sign in free to see the garrison muster. One castle costs 150 Clan Coins and is yours forever.
Sign in to take command →Whose castle
Clans who held Ebernburg Castle.
The families that held Ebernburg Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Sponheim
Counts Ruprecht and Johann of Sponheim-Kreuznach built the castle in 1338.
Sickingen
Held by the Sickingen family from 1448, as pledge and then fief, until ceded back to the Palatinate in 1750–71.
From the archive
Ebernburg Castle on paper: the measured plan and period views.
The survey plan and photographs below are the ground truth this page's reconstructions are checked against, drawn and photographed while the castle was still a working garrison. Every image is public-domain or openly licensed, with its source named.
Fig. 539 Ebernburg
1912 · Otto Piper, Burgenkunde (1912)
Public domain
