Nassau Castle

The documented origins of Nassau Castle date back to around 1100. Around 1120, the brothers Ruprecht I and Arnold I of Laurenburg took possession of the castle hill, including its residential tower, and expanded the complex around 1124. As the land belonged to the Diocese of Worms, a long-standing dispute erupted, which was finally settled in 1159 by Archbishop Hillin of Trier. The Laurenburgers renounced their allodial rights and received the castle as a fief, subsequently calling themselves “Counts of Nassau,” first documented in 1160 with Heinrich I. Between 1220 and 1230, Heinrich II, known as “the Rich,” had a late Romanesque palas built. After the division of 1255, when the county was split between Walram II and Otto I, Nassau Castle remained in joint ownership, becoming a ganerbenburg. In the early 14th century, the now reconstructed, 33-meter-high, pentagonal keep was built.