Hohenjustingen Castle

Justingen Castle, also known as Hohenjustingen, is a castle ruin above Hütten, a district of the city of Schelklingen on the southern edge of the Swabian Alb. The castle of Justingen, built on the same site, was the ancestral seat of the noble free lords of Justingen.

The first documented mention of a noble family from Justingen dates back to 1090. Anselm von Justingen and Heinrich von Neuffen were commissioned in 1211 to bring the young Staufer Frederick II from Sicily to Germany, as he had been elected king by the German princes after they had renounced the Welf king Otto IV of Brunswick.

Anselm, who rose to marshal under Emperor Frederick, sided with Henry in the conflict between Frederick and his son, King Henry (VII), as did the Lords of Neuffen. Frederick II then besieged the castles of his son's supporters in 1235. After the emperor had won, Justingen Castle was destroyed in 1236 by the Bishop of Constance. Henry's supporters were outlawed and he himself was imprisoned until his death in 1242. In 2012, a Staufer stele was erected in front of St. Oswald's Church in Justingen in memory of Anselm von Justingen.

After the noble family of Justingen died out in 1343, the rebuilt castle came by inheritance to the Lords of Stöffeln near Gönningen, in 1494 by sale to the Lords of Stotzingen, who immediately resold the lordship and Justingen Castle in 1497 to Hans Kaspar von Bubenhofen. Hans Marx von Bubenhofen, son of Hans Kaspar, sold the castle and lordship in 1530 to Ludwig ("Lutz") von Freyberg zu Öpfingen, who left it to his son Georg Ludwig von Freyberg the Elder.

Michael Ludwig von Freyberg (born around 1525, died Justingen before December 20, 1582), one of the two sons of Georg Ludwig the Elder, to whom the lordship of Justingen had fallen by lot in the division of inheritance with his brother Ferdinand (born around 1525, died Öpfingen after April 19, 1583), married Felicitas Landschad von Steinach (near Neckarsteinach in the Odenwald) before 1574. In 1567, the couple built the Renaissance castle of Justingen in place of the medieval castle. On April 5 and 6, 1589, Georg Ludwig von Freyberg the Younger, grandson of Georg Ludwig the Elder and son of Michael Ludwig, and his second wife Barbara von Eberstein held a grand wedding at Justingen Castle; the two wedding sermons were delivered in the presence of Duke Ludwig (the Pious) of Württemberg by the Württemberg court preacher Lucas Osiander the Elder. These sermons were published in print.

The Barons of Freyberg were followers of the teachings of Kaspar Schwenckfeld, who was expelled from Ulm a.D. in 1539, and granted the reformer asylum at Justingen Castle for several years in the 1540s. Justingen Castle developed into a center of Schwenckfeldianism in the second half of the 16th century. Thus, the Barons of Freyberg brought, among others, the brothers Adam, Johann, and Nikolaus Heyden to Justingen Castle and in 1573 made the expelled Schwenckfelder Daniel Friedrich from Strasbourg their steward and pastor of Justingen. Finally, in 1751, the lordship and Justingen Castle passed by purchase to Duke Carl Eugen of Württemberg, who established a merino sheep breeding farm on the castle estates.

In 1834, the castle was sold to the municipality of Hütten and demolished: since then, the remains of the former castle complex have been decaying. Today, only parts of the imposing cellar vaults and the surrounding walls, as well as an information board on the castle grounds with a copy of the building inscription that was above the castle portal, commemorate the once extensive castle complex.