Tierberg Castle

Tierberg Castle is a Staufer-era knight's castle in the Hohenlohe region, located in the district of Steinkirchen, part of the present-day municipality of Braunsbach in the Schwäbisch Hall district of Baden-Württemberg.

The hilltop castle stands on a west-southwest spur created by two converging stream valleys, on the nearly 7 km wide plateau between the Kocher River to the west and the Jagst River to the east. Half a kilometer southwest of the shield wall castle and about 130 m lower, the Hirschbach, flowing from the west through the Heerklinge, empties into the southwest-flowing Weilersbach, which in turn reaches the Kocher a kilometer further down the valley. 4.5 km north of Tierberg Castle stands Stetten Castle, also a shield wall castle, in a similar location directly on the eastern Kocher valley escarpment.

In 1220, the noble free lords of Langenburg had Tierberg Castle built by one of their ministeriales, the knight Arnold von Tierbach. The fortification served to secure or control two nearby long-distance trade routes. The builder of the castle named himself after the castle and was documented in 1226 as Arnold von Tierberg.

Between 1232 and 1235, the lordship of Langenburg came into the possession of the Hohenlohe family. As a result, the knights of Tierberg became Hohenlohe vassals. When they later migrated, a Feldner family from Hall became the owners of the castle in 1300. In 1374, the lordship of Tierberg, including the castle, passed into the direct possession of the Lords of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

Due to financial difficulties, the reigning lord Ulrich von Hohenlohe sold the castle and its lordship in 1387 for a pittance to two lords of Stetten. This led to a family dispute within the House of Hohenlohe. Gottfried III von Hohenlohe, the brother of the head of the family, sued the Stetten family in 1398 for the return of the castle and payment of compensation for unauthorized use. The lawsuit ended in 1402 with a settlement; this included the conclusion of a new purchase agreement, which granted the Hohenlohe family a right of repurchase, as well as the payment of an additional purchase price. In the following period, the Stetten family expanded the satellite castle, strategically located near their ancestral castle, into a hunting lodge and enlarged the complex. 72 years after the purchase by the Stetten family, in 1474, the descendants of the sellers, the Lords of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who had by then risen to the rank of counts, demanded the repurchase at the old price, citing the contractually agreed right of repurchase. The Stetten family resisted this request and demanded at least adequate compensation for the construction costs they had incurred. Thereupon, in 1475, armed troops of the Hohenlohe family forcibly expelled the Stetten family from the castle.

This led to a 20-year bloody feud between the two noble houses, culminating in 1488 with a siege and partial conquest of Stetten Castle by the Hohenlohe family. Both adversaries sought support from more powerful authorities. This dispute thus developed into a constitutional conflict between the Emperor and the Imperial Princes over power in the Empire. This so-called Tierberg Feud is considered a co-trigger of the Imperial Reform; it was only settled judicially in 1495.

After 1475, the castle remained in the possession of the later princely House of Hohenlohe-Langenburg for five hundred years. It continued to use the complex as a hunting lodge and expanded and rebuilt it for this purpose. Large hunts were occasionally held here.

In 1974, the Hohenlohe-Langenburg family sold the castle to civilian buyers due to financial difficulties.