It towers high above the market town and the River Wiesent and may have been the inspiration for Richard Wagner's grail castle in his opera, Parsifal.

At that time, Emperor Henry IV had Bishop Burchard II of Halberstadt, who had become embroiled in the Saxon Rebellion, incarcerated there, a fact which suggests it was already a strong fortress.

The Bavarian state sold the castle in 1875 to Pauline Rabeneck, a landowning widow from the Manor (Rittergut) of Aspach near Uffenheim.

In 1890 Baron Edgar of Sohlern purchased the castle and had it remodelled in the Neogothic style.

[1] It houses a medieval museum which may be visited for a small entrance fee and there is a beer garden and terrace with good views over the Wiesent valley and village of Gößweinstein.