Trifels Castle () is a reconstructed medieval

castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

at an elevation of near the small town of

Annweiler Annweiler am Trifels (), or Annweiler is a town in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Queich, 12 km west of Landau. Annweiler am Trifels station is on the Landau–Saarbrücken ...

, in the Palatinate region of southwestern

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 high above the

Queich The Queich is a tributary of the Rhine, which rises in the southern part of the Palatinate Forest, and flows through the Upper Rhine valley to its confluence with the Rhine in Germersheim. It is long and is one of the four major drainage system ...

valley within 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 ...

on one peak of a

red sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains, cemented together by another mineral. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed o ...

mountain split into three. Trifels Castle is on the peak of the ''Sonnenberg'', and on both of the other two rock elevations there are castle ruins: Anebos Castle and Scharfenberg Castle (demotically called Münz). Trifels Castle has been gradually restored since the 19th century and today replicas of the

Imperial Regalia The Imperial Regalia, also called Imperial Insignia (in German ''Reichskleinodien'', ''Reichsinsignien'' or ''Reichsschatz''), are regalia of the Holy Roman Emperor. The most important parts are the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, C ...

(''Reichskleinodien'') of the

Holy Roman 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 ...

are on display here. It is—together with

Hambach Castle Hambach Castle () is a castle near the urban district Hambach of Neustadt an der Weinstraße in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is considered a symbol of the German democracy movement because of the Hambacher Fest which was held there in 1832. ...

—one of the most popular tourist destinations in the state of

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 ...

History

The castle in

Rhenish Franconia Rhenish Franconia () or Western Franconia () denotes the western half of the central Kingdom of Germany, German stem duchy of Franconia in the 10th and 11th century, with its residence at the city of Worms, Germany, Worms. The territory located on ...

was first mentioned in a 1081 deed of donation, when it was held by a local noble Diemar, a relative of Archbishop Siegfried I of Mainz. From him Trifels passed to the Imperial

Salian dynasty The Salian dynasty or Salic dynasty () was a dynasty in the High Middle Ages. The dynasty provided four kings of Germany (1024–1125), all of whom went on to be crowned Holy Roman emperors (1027–1125). After the death of the last Ottonia ...

. Emperor

Henry V Henry V may refer to: People * Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026) * Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125) * Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161) * Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (–1227) * Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (1216–1281 ...

in 1113 made it a ''Reichsburg'' (Imperial Castle), rejecting the inheritance claims raised by Archbishop

Adalbert of Mainz Adalbert of Mainz may refer to: *Adalbert I of Mainz Adalbert I von Saarbrücken (died June 23, 1137) was Archbishop-Elector of Mainz from 1111 until his death. He played a key role in opposing Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, during the Investitur ...

. The archbishop, allied with Henry's opponent

Lothair of Supplinburg Lothair III, sometimes numbered Lothair II and also known as Lothair of Supplinburg ( June 1075 – 4 December 1137), was Holy Roman Emperor from 1133 until his death. He was appointed Duke of Saxony in 1106 and elected King of Germany in 1125 be ...

, had to spend several years of imprisonment at Trifels. Upon the death of Emperor Henry V in 1125, his nephew Duke

Frederick II of Swabia Frederick II (, 1090 – 6 April 1147), called the One-Eyed (), was Duke of Swabia from 1105 until his death, the second from the Hohenstaufen dynasty. His younger brother Conrad was elected King of the Romans in 1138. Life Early career Fr ...

made the castle a place of safekeeping for the Imperial Regalia of the

Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynast ...

emperors until in 1220

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen Frederick II (, , , ; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225. He was the son of Emperor Henry VI of the Ho ...

moved them to

Waldburg Castle The Waldburg () is the ancestral castle of the stewards, Imperial Counts and later Imperial Princes from the House of Waldburg. It dates from the 12th century and stands on the march of the municipality Waldburg in the district of Ravensburg, ...

Swabia Swabia ; , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of ...

. Trifels Castle is also famous as the site where Richard the Lionheart, King of England was imprisoned after he was captured by Duke Leopold V of Austria near Vienna in December 1192 on his return from the

Third Crusade The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was an attempt led by King Philip II of France, King Richard I of England and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in 1187. F ...

. Handed over to Emperor Henry VI of Hohenstaufen, a period of three weeks of captivity at Trifels from 31 March to 19 April 1193 is well documented. According to one legend, Richard was found by the trobador

Blondel de Nesle Blondel de Nesle () – either Jean I of Nesle (c. 1155 – 1202) or his son Jean II of Nesle (died 1241) – was a French trouvère. The name 'Blondel de Nesle' is attached to twenty-four or twenty-five courtly songs. He was identified in 1942 ...

, who reported the king's location to his friends; in fact, Richard's location was not a secret. Trifels Castle lost its importance with the Interregnum. After the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, the castle was pledged several times. In 1330, it was mortgaged to the Electoral Palatinate. It finally fell to the Dukes of

Palatinate-Simmern and Zweibrücken Palatinate-Simmern and Zweibrücken () was a state of the Holy Roman Empire based in the Simmern and Zweibrücken in modern Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Palatinate-Simmern and Zweibrücken was created in 1410 out of the partition of the Palat ...

in 1410 and decayed after the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

. Deserted and derelict, the ruin served as a stone quarry, as a result of which the late-Romanesque residential building almost completely disappeared and the outer bailey for the most part. From about 1840, the

Wittelsbach The House of Wittelsbach () is a former Bavarian dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including the Electorate of Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, the Electorate of Cologne, County of Holland, Holland, County of Zeeland, ...

kings of

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

had the castle rebuilt. After Ludwig I of Bavaria had reconstruction plans prepared by his court architect August von Voit already in 1851, Georg von Schacky made a reconstruction drawing in 1881 and the Trifels Association (founded in 1860) had carried out structural measures in 1882, in particular the erection of the great well arch, the Munich architect Rudolf Esterer designed a monumental rebuilding project following the model of south Italian Hohenstaufen castles, initiated by the Trifels Association and born by the cultural-political ideology of the Nazi epoch. The Nazi era reconstruction in 1938–1942 and later reconstructions in 1946–1959 (residential building), 1960 (1st castellan's house), 1963–1966 (heightening of the keep), 1972–1978 (safeguarding and enclosing wall) and 1988–1989 (2nd castellan's house) utilized in part the preserved walls from the Middle Ages or those found by archaeological investigations in 1935–1937, but also in many cases rigorously ignored the original medieval findings and created essentially an architectural reinterpretation of the 20th century. The present-day castle is in large parts not true to the medieæval original. It is characterized by a large well tower outside the ring wall, linked to the castle by a bridge. The surrounding rocky landscape is a popular venue for mountaineers.Castles, Palaces and Antiquities of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, published by Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, translated by John M. Desy, 2000

Gallery

Trifels-28-vom Holzlager beim Klettererhaus-2022-gje.jpg, Remote view Trifels-38-2022-gje.jpg, Entrance tower Trifels-44-2022-gje.jpg, Stairway Trifels-50-2022-gje.jpg, Main tower Trifels-58-2022-gje.jpg, Vaulted passage Trifels-64-Rittersaal-2022-gje.jpg, Castle hall Trifels-70-Reichskrone-2022-gje.jpg, Copy of the Imperial Regalia Trifels-68-Reichsapfel-2022-gje.jpg, Copy of the Imperial Regalia Trifels-96-Annweiler-2022-gje.jpg, View towards Annweiler Trifels-78-Scharfenberg-Anebos-2022-gje.jpg, View towards Scharfenberg and Anebos

References

{{Authority control Buildings and structures completed in the 11th century Castles in Rhineland-Palatinate Landmarks in Germany Imperial castles Museums in Rhineland-Palatinate Historic house museums in Germany Rock castles Geography of the Palatinate (region) Rock formations of Rhineland-Palatinate Richard I of England Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor