Eckartsburg Castle

The Eckartsburg is often associated with Margrave Ekkehard I of Meissen, who is said to have built it around 998 along the Via Regia, although definitive proof is lacking. The first confirmed mention of the castle appears in a document from King Henry IV in 1066. Between 1112 and 1115, it was briefly enfeoffed to Wiprecht von Groitzsch II. In 1121, the Eckartsburg became the property of the Thuringian Count Ludwig the Springer. The Romanesque complex visible today was built around 1200 by Hermann I, Count Palatine of Saxony and later Landgrave of Thuringia. Under the Ludowingians, the castle was militarily significant and a center of courtly culture. After the Thuringian War of Succession, the castle fell to the Wettins in 1247, who used it as a stronghold. Albrecht the Degenerate, a son of Henry the Illustrious, made Eckartsburg one of his residences.