Freudenburg Castle (Ruin)

Freudenburg is a castle ruin on a western mountain spur of the Eiderberg at the end of Burg- and Balduinstraße within the town of Freudenburg in the Trier-Saarburg district, Rhineland-Palatinate.

The castle complex stands on the tip of a bow-shaped rock tongue, which is separated from the village by an artificially created moat. This represents the only access to the castle. The complex, forming an isosceles triangle, presents an imposing picture with its outer walls standing in three stories above the rock edge.

The hilltop castle was built from 1330 to 1337 by King John of Bohemia, Count of Luxembourg, to secure the 440-meter-high Eiderberg as part of a larger castle protection system between Trier and Luxembourg, and was later sold to his uncle, the Archbishop and Elector of Trier, Baldwin of Luxembourg. After the castle fell into disrepair in the 15th century, it came into the possession of the Imperial Abbey of St. Maximin in Trier in 1589 and was restored under Abbot Reiner Biewer. In 1646, it was occupied and destroyed by Elector Philipp Christoph von Sötern in a dispute between the abbey and the Electorate of Trier. In the course of secularization, the ruin came into the possession of the "Vereinigte Hospizien" (United Hospices), which sold it to the municipality of Freudenburg in 1861. Securing work took place in 1908 and 1980.

Of the Gothic castle complex, the 16-meter-wide and 51-meter-long neck ditch, which separated the castle from the castle courtyard, and the castle gate are still preserved. Furthermore, there are still remains of a three-story rubble stone building, a palas southeast of the castle courtyard (residential buildings with large halls and carved door and window lintels with Gothic tracery) and minor remains of a round keep. Although the courtyard walls are no longer preserved, the existing wall details with beam holes and chimney flues, as well as stair landings, cellar ditch, and well shaft allow for a good reconstruction of the original structure.