En un regard
Le château en bref
Aglasterhausen Castle, in the Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis, belongs to those vanished castles whose history is known only through archives and archaeology. It is thought to have been built at the end of the 12th century by the lords of Aglasterhausen, mentioned in charters of the Bishopric of Speyer in 1224, 1226 and 1227. It was a simple tower castle: a massive residential tower of about 11.5 × 12 m with walls 2 m thick, surrounded by an enclosed ward of about 20 × 22 m closed by an outer wall just over one metre thick and protected on the hill side by a neck ditch. First mentioned in 1421 as "burgel und weiler", it then belonged to the Asbach branch of the Helmstatt family, which sold it to the lords of Hirschhorn; from 1422 they placed it under the feudal overlordship of the Counts Palatine of the Rhine. It was probably burned in 1525 during the Peasants' War. Its foundations, uncovered in 1959, were destroyed after the excavation.