Plankenfels Castle

Plankenfels Castle is situated on a dolomite rock above the left side of the upper Wiesent valley, on the western edge of the village of the same name in the district of Bayreuth, Upper Franconia.

The castle consists of two main buildings connected by an intermediate structure with a gabled roof.

The Lords of Plankenfels were first mentioned in a document with Konrad von Plankenfels in 1255. It can be assumed that the castle probably already existed at that time.

The construction of the castle must be seen in connection with the older Plankenstein Castle located nearby. Plankenstein Castle, presumably the first castle of this noble family, was already owned by the Bishop of Bamberg in 1260. How Plankenstein Castle came into the possession of the Bishop of Bamberg is completely unclear. Plankenfels Castle was apparently built as a replacement for the ancestral seat.

Plankenfels Castle was first directly mentioned in a document in 1403. At that time, it was held as a fief by the Burgraves of Nuremberg and owned by Jörg von Plankenfels.

With the extinction of the Lords of Plankenfels around 1486, the castle seems to have passed as a fief to the Lords of Wichsenstein. The Lords of Wichsenstein were first mentioned as owners of the castle in a document in 1505. During the Peasants' War in 1525, the castle was almost completely destroyed. In 1549, Ernst von Wichsenstein sold the remaining buildings to Ernst von Rüssenbach. Under the Lords of Rüssenbach, the reconstruction was completed in 1554/1556.

After the extinction of the Lords of Rüssenbach, the castle came as a male fief to Hans Gilg von Laineck in 1573. From 1629, the Lords of Lüschwitz zu Glashütten were the owners of the castle. Gerhard Christoph von Lüschwitz sold the lordship with the castle – now referred to as a knight's estate – to the Lords of Schlammersdorf in 1649. The enfeoffment of the Lords of Schlammersdorf with the lordship took place in 1656. In 1786, Plankenfels became the free property of the Lords of Schlammersdorf.

In the same year, the knight's estate came into the possession of Baroness Johanna Sophia Christine von Egloffstein through purchase. Since 1881, the complex has been in bourgeois ownership.