Clingenburg Castle (Ruin)

The Clingenburg is a Staufer hilltop castle built by Conradus Colbo from the House of Schenken von Limpurg on the right bank of the Main river in the municipality of Klingenberg am Main in the Miltenberg district in Bavaria, Germany. The extensive ruins of the Clingenburg rise about 40 meters above the core of the town of Klingenberg on the western edge of the Spessart. Between the town and the Clingenburg lies a terraced vineyard, where the Klingenberger Rotwein (red wine) grows on its steep slopes. The Franconian Red Wine Hiking Trail passes the castle ruins, leading about 500 meters upstream to an observation tower rebuilt in the 1990s.

The Schenken von Limpurg

Conradus Colbo, one of the Schenken von Limpurg and cupbearer to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, built the Clingenburg around the year 1100 in place of the small Old Castle in the Clinge below the former early medieval Hainburg. In 1177, this name first appeared in a document issued in Venice, in which Conradus Colbo referred to himself as Conradus prinzerna de Clingenburg. The neighboring castles in Collenberg and Stadtprozelten also belonged to the influential Schenken von Limpurg. In the mid-13th century, three Schenken still lived at Clingenburg: Albert, who later joined the Teutonic Order; Walter, who moved to the Nuremberg-Hersbruck area after his marriage to Elisabeth von Königstein-Reicheneck; and Conrad with his wife Guda. Shortly before his death in 1246 in Augsburg, Conrad also attended the wedding of Conrad IV of Hohenstaufen to Elisabeth von Wittelsbach.

The Bickenbacher

Conrad's widow, Guda von Clingenburg, brought the entire property around Klingenberg into her second marriage with Conrad von Bickenbach from Burg Bickenbach, today Schloss Alsbach on the Bergstraße. He was a nobleman and minnesinger loyal to the Pope and anti-Staufer, in contrast to the Schenken. This marriage founded the new House of Bickenbach, from which many influential men and women, such as canons, abbesses, a prince-abbot, and a master of the Teutonic Order, emerged over the following 250 years. The Bickenbacher married into many influential families in the Rhine-Main region. For example, the ancestress of the House of Dalberg was a Bickenbacher, as was the mother of the Archbishop of Mainz, Dietrich von Erbach. Despite extensive kinship, the House of Bickenbach died out with the death of Ronrad VIII in 1486 or Monrad VII in 1497 (differing sources). For some of the Bickenbacher, the Church of St. Michaelis in the village of Grubingen, which was later abandoned around 1630, served as their burial place.

Archbishopric of Mainz

After the extinction of the Bickenbach family, the Archbishopric of Mainz initially acquired parts of the uninhabited castle and its surroundings. By 1500, the castle, town, and lordship of Clingenburg were entirely in the possession of Mainz. The Archbishopric appointed the bailiff Johann Leonhard Kottwitz von Aulenbach as administrator, but he soon moved into the town castle he had built and left the Clingenburg to decay. The legend that the castle was destroyed by French troops cannot be substantiated.