Runkel Castle

As the hill had already attracted the attention of the Celts, it is probable they gave it its name: “Run – kall”, the Celtic word for “rock mountain”.

In 1159, a Sigfridus de Runkel was mentioned in the documents but the castle was built a little earlier by a man with the same name, probably on the orders of the Holy Roman Emperor, perhaps Frederick Barbarossa, to protect the strategic pass between Weilburg and the southern side of the region.

Dietrich III von Runkel enlarged his Herrschaft in 1376 to the Zehnten (tithing districts) of Schupbach and Aumenau and built a more modern castle next to the original building.

In 1543 Philipp Melanchthon, the Protestant reformer, visited the castle as the guest of Count Johann IV von Wied-Runkel (died 1581), the nephew of the Archbishop of Cologne Hermann of Wied.

During the Thirty Years War, in 1634, the Croats under the command of an Imperial General, Graf von Isolani, burned the city and castle of Runkel.

In the eighteenth century, the castle often changed its name and banners as the armies of various countries moved back and forth across the valley of the Lahn.

Under the Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine (German, Rheinbundakte), the Principality lost its independence in 1806 and went to the newly created Duchy of Nassau on the other side of the Lahn River.

In the beginning, for several years, Prince Karl Ludwig Friedrich Alexander von Wied, demoted to a minor nobleman, was the administrator of the new District of Runkel for his superiors, the Dukes of Nassau.

Runkel castle houses a museum, a chapel, an archive and the private wing of the owner's great uncle Metfried, Prince of Wied.

Standing around the mighty ruins of the palace, the keep and another former residential buildings form the appearance of a shield wall on the Lahn side.

In 778, on the orders of the Emperor Charlemagne, a knight went to the Pyrenees to fight against the Moors but he was captured at the Roncevaux Pass and sold into slavery.

In addition to the heritage preservation, the castle has received the status of “Protected” in the case of war under the Hague Convention.