Modeneck Castle

Meistersel Castle is a ruined castle near Ramberg on the outskirts of the

Palatinate Forest The Palatinate Forest (; ), sometimes also called the Palatine Forest, is a List of landscapes in Rhineland-Palatinate, low-mountain region in southwestern Germany, located in the Palatinate (region), Palatinate in the state of Rhineland-Palatina ...

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It is located on a 492-metre-high hilltop that towers above the

Modenbach The Modenbach is a stream, just under {{convert, 30, km long, and a right-hand tributary of the Speyerbach in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Course The Modenbach rises in the Palatine Forest east of the Palatine Watershed at a heigh ...

valley near the Three Beeches pass (''

Drei Buchen Drei Buchen is a hill pass in the central Palatine Forest in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It lies in the estate of the village of Ramberg (Pfalz), Ramberg at a height of 403 metres above Normalhöhennull, sea level (NHN). The Lan ...

'') on the road from Ramberg to

Edenkoben Edenkoben () is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It lies approximately halfway between Landau and Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Edenkoben is one of the towns situated along the German Wine R ...

. Meistersel Castle is one of the oldest castles in the Palatinate. Its name is derived from the words ''Meister'' ("master") and ''Saal'' ("hall") and hence the term ''Meister des Saales'' or master of the hall/chamberlain. It is likely that it was a seat for ''

ministeriales The ''ministeriales'' (singular: ''ministerialis'') were a legally unfree but socially elite class of knights, administrators, and officials in the High Middle Ages in the Holy Roman Empire, drawn from a mix of servile origins, free commoners, and ...

'' of the

imperial castle An imperial castle or ''Reichsburg'' was a castle built by order of (or acquired by) the King of the Romans or the Holy Roman Emperor on land that was owned by the crown ''(Reichsgut)''. While in the early middle ages, in Francia, as well as in ...

of Trifels. Its other name, ''Modeneck'', comes from the name of the nearby stream. Landmarks in Germany Castles in Rhineland-Palatinate Ruined castles in Germany {{RhinelandPalatinate-struct-stub