Windeck Castle

In the 12th century, two complexes existed on the castle hill: Alt-Windeck, a tower castle, and Neu-Windeck, today's Windeck Castle. Both were owned by the Landgraves of Thuringia in 1174. Count Heinrich Raspe III granted the castrum novum as a fief to Count Engelbert I of Berg. Between 1185 and 1188, Landgrave Ludwig III sold the castles to the Archbishop Philipp von Heinsberg of Cologne. After full payment in 1197, they passed to Archbishop Adolf I. In 1247, Duke Heinrich of Brabant enfeoffed Count Adolf IV of Berg with Windeck Castle, who later also acquired Alt-Windeck. Despite an attempted sale to the Electorate of Cologne by Countess Mechthild von Sayn in 1250, which Count Adolf of Berg opposed, Windeck Castle was later transferred to the Electorate, with the Lords of Elberfeld receiving castle fiefs in return. In 1388, Wilhelm Stael von Holstein was the bailiff responsible for the castle.