A marsh or marshland castle () is a type of lowland castle that is situated in

marsh In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...

y or

bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and musk ...

gy countryside. It uses the natural inaccessibility of the terrain to its defensive advantage. In contrast to a

moated castle A water castle, sometimes water-castle, is a castle which incorporates a natural or artificial body of water into its defences.Forde-Johnston (1979), p. 163. It can be entirely surrounded by water-filled moats (moated castle) or natural waterbo ...

, with a marsh castle, an area of marsh or bog was used or incorporated as an obstacle to the approach. Marsh castles were mostly built on mounds within these landscapes, in a similar way to a Wallburg. In some places, however, an adjacent area of marsh or bog was simply used for protection on one or more sides and the castle itself was built on solid land, as was the case with the first castle in Danzig (modern Gdansk), for example. Most castles of this type were built in the lowlands of rivers flowing into the

East East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...

and

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

between

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

and Mecklenburg. Marsh castles are historically one of the oldest types of castle and were built as early as the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...

by the

Slavic peoples The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, Southeast ...

in the aforementioned areas. The distinction between them and

s is fluid. According to Swiss historians, a marsh castle can be defined in the broadest sense as a complex whose outer defences are built up by exploiting natural obstacles, such as meandering river courses, marshes and bogs, as protection or which are built on mounds entirely within these obstacles. Thus a marsh castle can also be described as a moated castle protected by a natural waterbody. Examples of well-known marsh castles in Germany include: * Weferlingen Castle, a ruined castle in Oebisfelde in the state of

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...

. * Oebisfelde Castle, the oldest surviving marsh castle in Germany, also situated in Oebisfelde-Weferlingen in Saxony-Anhalt. * Storkow Castle, in Storkow the state of

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

. * Calvörde Castle, in Calvörde in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. * Süpplingenburg Castle, where Lothair III, Duke of Saxony, later Emperor of the

Roman-German Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

grew up. * Predecessor castle to Harburger Schloss * The fortified village of Altenburg in

Hanau Hanau () is a city in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its railway Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ma ...

was designated by Karl August von Cohausen as a marsh castle.Von Cohausen, August von Cohausen (1884). ''Der römische Grenzwall in Deutschland. Militärische und technische Beschreibung desselben.'' Hauptband. Kreidel, Wiesbaden
p. 64

References

{{Fortifications Castles by type