Abenberg Castle

Abenberg Castle stands above the eponymous Middle Franconian town of Abenberg in the Bavarian district of Roth. The hilltop castle is occasionally referred to as the Crown of the Rangau.

In the 11th century, the Abenberg family emerged. Under Count Adalbert II (before 1040 to after 1059), the first castle was largely built of wood. Under Count Rapoto (1122–1172), it was replaced between 1130 and 1140 by one of Bavaria's most imposing stone castles (40 × 40 meters). The Abenberg noble family, whose last count Friedrich II was praised by Tannhäuser in the 13th century for his promotion of poetry, died out around 1200.

In 1236, the town and castle came into the possession of the Hohenzollerns, the then burgraves of Nuremberg (see also Konrad IV), through marriage, after the male line of the Abenbergs had died out with Count Friedrich II. From 1230–1250, the Nurembergers replaced the Salian-era building with a partial new construction, which they hardly used. For this, the curtain wall was demolished and the main castle was expanded to double its size. The front was thickened and the fortified castle gate was erected at the southeast corner. The curtain wall built at that time is the oldest preserved part of the castle.

In 1296, the castle was sold to the Prince-Bishopric of Eichstätt, which established an administrative office there and reinforced the weakly fortified northwest corner with a square tower.

In the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, a series of renovations took place. From 1496, the east front was provided with new administrative buildings. New utility buildings were constructed inside the castle. Subsequently, the castle fell into disrepair. In 1799, St. Otmar's Chapel collapsed.

In 1806, through secularization, the Kingdom of Bavaria came into possession of the castle and sold it for demolition. It was not until 1875 that the Munich art dealer K. J. Zwerschina acquired Abenberg Castle and saved it from total destruction. He rebuilt some towers, such as the 33-meter-high Luginsland. The next owner, the Kammersänger Anton Schott, continued Zwerschina's work between 1881 and 1913. After that, however, the castle again fell into disrepair.

The town of Abenberg acquired half of the castle in 1982 and the rest in 1984. To finance the renovation and maintenance, on March 8, 1986, together with the district of Roth and the administrative district of Middle Franconia, it founded the Abenberg Castle Special Purpose Association, which took over the castle as owner. The goal was to preserve the monument and culturally revitalize it. An operating concept in the form of a museum and a catering establishment was developed.

In the same year, extensive renovation work began, which lasted until the mid-1990s, followed by further expansion and conversion work, which concluded in 2001 with the opening of the Lace Museum. During the work, excavations took place from 1988 to 1992, providing information about the building's historical stages.