This document is not preserved in the original, the 16th-century copy is either a faulty translation or a forgery due to the wording contained therein, which was not yet customary around 1200.

[1] The lords of Virneburg, later elevated to the rank of count, are first mentioned in a document by the Archbishop of Trier, Poppo, in 1042 where a certain Bernhardus de Virneburch is recorded.

In 1339, Count Rupert of Virneburg gave part of the castle to the Elector of Trier, Baldwin to pay off a debt.

In 1414, the counts of Virneburg had to hand over the rest of the castle to the Archbishop, Werner of Falkenstein, to whom the county had always been a thorn in the side.

When the French invaded the Eifel, the castle was blown up in 1689, the tower was completely destroyed, its residential buildings went up in flames, and the enceinte was slighted.

On the initiative of the Royal District Court of Adenau, the castle ruin was sold publicly on 19 January 1914 for 1,080 Marks to the Rhenish Society for the Preservation of Monuments and Landscape (Rheinischer Verein für Denkmalpflege und Landschaftsschutz).

Through a gate in the adjacent defensive wall of the inner bailey to the west, one reaches the heart of the castle, which used to be densely packed with buildings apart from a narrow courtyard.

Along the southern zwinger wall, the path led to the surviving gate of the main castle, which was dominated by a mighty bergfried, which has disappeared today.