The ruins of Sayn Castle (german: Burg Sayn), the 12th century family castle of the

counts of Sayn Sayn was a small German county of the Holy Roman Empire which, during the Middle Ages, existed within what is today Rheinland-Pfalz. There have been two Counties of Sayn. The first emerged in 1139 and became closely associated with the County of ...

and

Sayn-Wittgenstein Sayn-Wittgenstein was a county of medieval Germany, located in the Sauerland of eastern North Rhine-Westphalia. History Sayn-Wittgenstein was created when Count Salentin of Sayn-Homburg, a member of the House of Sponheim, married the heiress C ...

, are in

Sayn Sayn was a small German county of the Holy Roman Empire which, during the Middle Ages, existed within what is today Rheinland-Pfalz. There have been two Counties of Sayn. The first emerged in 1139 and became closely associated with the County ...

, part of the borough of

Bendorf Bendorf () is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the right bank of the Rhine, approx. north of Koblenz. Structure of the town The town consists of the following districts: *Bendorf *Sayn *Mülhofen *St ...

on the

Rhine The Rhine ; french: Rhin ; nl, Rijn ; wa, Rén ; li, Rien; rm, label=Sursilvan, Rein, rm, label=Sutsilvan and Surmiran, Ragn, rm, label=Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader and Puter, Rain; it, Reno ; gsw, Rhi(n), including in Alsatian dialect, Al ...

, between

Koblenz Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman military post by Drusus around 8 B.C. Its na ...

and

Neuwied Neuwied () is a town in the north of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, capital of the District of Neuwied. Neuwied lies on the east bank of the Rhine, 12 km northwest of Koblenz, on the railway from Frankfurt am Main to Cologne. Th ...

in the county of

Mayen-Koblenz Mayen-Koblenz is a district (''Kreis'') in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from north clockwise) Ahrweiler, Neuwied, Westerwaldkreis, district-free Koblenz, Rhein-Lahn, Rhein-Hunsrück, Cochem-Zell, and Vulka ...

in the German state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) 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 ...

Location

The

ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...

of the

spur castle A spur castle is a type of medieval fortification that is sited on a spur of a hill or mountain for defensive purposes. Ideally, it would be protected on three sides by steep hillsides; the only vulnerable side being that where the spur joins the ...

lie on the Kehrberg, a

hill ridge A ridge or a mountain ridge is a geographical feature consisting of a chain of mountains or hills that form a continuous elevated crest for an extended distance. The sides of the ridge slope away from the narrow top on either side. The line ...

about 110 metres long and 40 metres wide, in the foothills of the

Westerwald The Westerwald (; literally 'Western forest') is a low mountain range on the right bank of the river Rhine in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhenish Massif ( or Rhenish ...

, between the valleys of the Brexbach and

Saynbach The Sayn (frequently also called the Saynbach) is a small river, just under long, in the south of the Westerwald hill region of Germany. It rises near Himburg in the Upper Westerwald and empties into the River Rhine in Bendorf (between the tow ...

. Below the ruins, the village of Sayn stretches away to the south. At the foot of the castle hill is Schloss Sayn, a Baroque building dating to 1757. Between the ''

schloss ''Schloss'' (; pl. ''Schlösser''), formerly written ''Schloß'', is the German term for a building similar to a château, palace, or manor house. Related terms appear in several Germanic languages. In the Scandinavian languages, the cognate ...

'' and Sayn Castle there are two former

castellan A castellan is the title used in Medieval Europe for an appointed official, a governor of a castle and its surrounding territory referred to as the castellany. The title of ''governor'' is retained in the English prison system, as a remnant o ...

residences: the 15th century ''Mittlere Burghaus'', which is joined to the castle by a wall, and the 14th century ''Von Steinschen Sitz'' (''Stein Castle'') of the lords of Stein from Nassau. Further east along the ridge there is the predecessor of Sayn Castle, the ''Alte Burg'' (“Old Castle”) from the 10th or 11th century, of which only a few remnants have survived. Sayn Castle may be reached on the B 413 federal highway and ''

Landesstraße ''Landesstraßen'' (singular: ''Landesstraße'') are roads in Germany and Austria that are, as a rule, the responsibility of the respective German or Austrian federal state. The term may therefore be translated as "state road". They are roads ...

'' L 306 which branches off in Sayn. At the castle is a large car park and another one just in front of the castle wall.

Description

Whilst the southern, western and northern flanks of Sayn drop steeply into the valley, the flat hill ridge on the eastern side, from where the castle is accessed, is protected by a deep and wide artificial

neck ditch A neck ditch (german: Halsgraben), sometimes called a throat ditch,
at www.roadstoruins.com. Accessed on 3 Jan 2012. is a dry

. In order to provide additional protection a mighty shield wall with a

wall walk A ''chemin de ronde'' (French, "round path"' or "patrol path"; ), also called an allure, alure or, more prosaically, a wall-walk, is a raised protected walkway behind a castle battlement. In early fortifications, high castle walls were difficul ...

was built above the moat. In the northeastern area of the site stands a well preserved, roughly 20-metre-high ''

bergfried ''Bergfried'' (plural: ''bergfriede''; English: ''belfry''; French: ''tour-beffroi''; Spanish: ''torre del homenaje'') is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries and in countries under German ...

'', which dominates the appearance of Sayn Castle. The construction period of the ''bergfried'', whose walls are 2.4 metres thick in the middle, dates to the late 12th century. A wall running south from the ''bergfried'', also guarded by an allure, divides the

inner bailey The inner bailey or inner ward of a castle is the strongly fortified enclosure at the heart of a medieval castle.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 22. It is protected by the outer w ...

into two courtyards. Excavations in recent times have revealed that the ''

palas A ''palas'' () is a German term for the imposing or prestigious building of a medieval '' Pfalz'' or castle that contained the great hall. Such buildings appeared during the Romanesque period (11th to 13th century) and, according to Thompson, ...

'' originally stood on the south side of the smaller eastern courtyard, but was later moved to the western spur of the site. Today nothing is left apart from a 25-metre-deep

castle well A castle well was a water well built to supply drinking water to a castle. It was often the most costly and time-consuming element in the building of a castle, and its construction time could span decades. The well – as well as any available cis ...

and an octagonal

staircase tower A staircase tower or stair tower (german: Treppenturm, also ''Stiegenturm'' or ''Wendelstein'') is a tower-like wing of a building with a circular or polygonal plan that contains a stairwell, usually a helical staircase. History Only a few ex ...

. These excavations also uncovered the

foundation wall In engineering, a foundation is the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, transferring loads from the structure to the ground. Foundations are generally considered either shallow or deep. Foundation engineering is the applic ...

s of a castle chapel at the southwestern corner in the form of a

simultaneum A shared church (german: Simultankirche), simultaneum mixtum, a term first coined in 16th-century Germany, is a church in which public worship is conducted by adherents of two or more religious groups. Such churches became common in the German-sp ...

with three

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

s and its well preserved, ornately decorated floor dating to about 1200. In front of the southern

enceinte Enceinte (from Latin incinctus: girdled, surrounded) is a French term that refers to the "main defensive enclosure of a fortification". For a castle, this is the main defensive line of wall towers and curtain walls enclosing the position. For ...

is a 90-metre-long and 20-metre-wide ''

zwinger "" () is a German word for outer ward or outer bailey. It represents an open kill zone area between two defensive walls that is used for defensive purposes. s were built in the post-classical and early modern periods to improve the defence of ...

'', guarded to the east by a small

defensive tower A fortified tower (also defensive tower or castle tower or, in context, just tower) is one of the defensive structures used in fortifications, such as castles, along with curtain walls. Castle towers can have a variety of different shapes and ful ...

and to the west by a

barbican A barbican (from fro, barbacane) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Europe In the Middle ...

. Here there is also a smaller gateway ''zwinger'' and, further down the hillside, the ''Mittlere Burghaus'' ("Middle Castle House"), which is joined to the inner ward by a wall. The excavations, carried out by the State Conservation Department, also exposed the original access track to the inner ward along the southern flank through the gate ''zwinger'', which may now be used again.

References

Literature

* Dehio: ''Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland''. Munich, 1984, pp. 92–93 * Udo Liessem: ''Zur Baugeschichte von Sayn Castle.'' In: Alexander Fürst zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (ed.): ''Sayn - Ort and Fürstenhaus.'' o.O., o.J. (Bendorf-Sayn, 1979) * Alexander Thon, Stefan Ulrich: ''„... wie ein Monarch mitten in seinem Hofstaate thront“. Burgen am unteren Mittelrhein''. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg, 2010, , pp. 142–147.

External links

Sayn Castle

Photographs of Sayn Castle

Artist's impression of the castle in medieval times
{{Authority control Buildings and structures completed in the 12th century Heritage sites in Rhineland-Palatinate Castles in Rhineland-Palatinate