Friedewald Castle (Ruin)

Early settlement of the castle grounds is presumed, as Friedewald was situated at the intersection of two old trade routes: the Geleitstraße through the Kurzen Hessen and a route between Bremen and Nuremberg. During excavations in the castle courtyard in 1983, a shard from the 11th or 12th century was discovered, along with the foundations of an initial stone building from the 13th or 14th century. This area belonged to Hersfeld Abbey by the 10th century at the latest. In 1302, the Friedewald office was first mentioned when the abbot leased the site to the Hessian landgraves, who already obtained escort rights in 1306. The castle developed into an administrative seat and hunting lodge for the landgraves. Landgrave Heinrich III of Hesse-Marburg acquired shares in 1476 and commissioned Hans Jakob von Ettlingen to rebuild it into a transitional form between a High Medieval keep and a Late Medieval bastion with four corner towers.