Steinhart Castle (Ruin)

The castle ruin Steinhart, also called Altes Schloss (Old Castle), is a castle ruin on a hill above the district Steinhart of the municipality Hainsfarth in the district Donau-Ries in Bavaria.

In the 12th century, Marquard Spet de Steinenhart, who was mentioned as a witness in a document in 1120, presumably built the hilltop castle above the village of Steinhart, and in 1130 a "Bertholdus Späth, nobilis de Steinhart" was mentioned. Further mentions of the Spete occurred in 1167 with Heinrich Spet and Bertold Spet from 1180 to 1183, and from 1282 the Lords of Spet called themselves Spete von Steinhart (the "Späten von Steinhart").

In 1282, the Spet's property was divided into two lines, with one part going to Faimingen an der Donau, a present-day district of the city of Lauingen.

Presumably, the "Old Castle" was destroyed in the war over the Eichstätt fiefs and not rebuilt. On the castle hill of the abandoned castle with a ring-shaped moat, the Burgstall Steinhart, also called Judenbuck, the Jewish Cemetery has been located since the 18th century.

After Herman Spet received permission in 1328 to build a new fortress in Steinhart, the new Steinhart Castle, today also called "Altes Schloss" (Old Castle), was built strategically more favorably above the Burgstall.

After 1339, the castle changed owners and came into the possession of the Counts of Oettingen, who sold the property to the Gundelsheim family in 1359.

After the castle was already in poor structural condition in 1532, it changed owners and was presumably destroyed in 1634 during the Thirty Years' War. Since 1971, the ruin has been in private ownership.

Of the former rectangular castle complex with an outer bailey on a trapezoidal ground plan, significant remains of the enclosing walls with bossed ashlar masonry with marginal drafts at the corners are still preserved.