Hotel – Restaurant Hornberg Castle

The beginnings of the castle are shrouded in darkness, but it seems to have been founded at the latest in the 11th century. The first documented mention of the castle dates back to the year 1184 when the Counts of Lauffen were identified as the owners. They were already endowed with the nearby town of Hassmersheim, located on the opposite side of the Neckar River, as early as 1011 and had control over Neckar River navigation. In the 1184 document, the brothers Boppo (V) and Konrad von Lauffen agreed that Boppo would have sole ownership of Hornberg Castle in the future, and his brother Konrad received an estate in Grensheim (also Grenzhof) as compensation. Presumably, the Lauffen territory had been divided between Boppo (V) and Konrad after the death of their father Boppo (IV), with Boppo inheriting the southeastern areas and Konrad the northwestern areas. The castle Hornberg, located in the middle of the domain, was divided due to its central location. Hornberg could have been the most strategically important castle in the late phase of the Counts of Lauffen. After the extinction of this family between 1216-1219, the Lords of Duern (Wallduern) gained possession of the castle through marriage to Boppo's (V) daughter Mechthild. In 1259, the Lords of Hornberg sold the castle to the Bishop of Speyer, and in 1263, the brothers of Duern and Count Ludwig II of Ziegenhain relinquished their rights in favor of the Bishop of Speyer. Thus, the Bishopric of Speyer became the owner of Hornberg Castle, along with the villages of Neckarzimmern, Steinbach, and Hassmersheim. The subsequent owners had to be enfeoffed by Speyer. In 1283, a new family, the Pfauen von Hornberg, appeared in the area, later known as Hornecke von Hornberg. However, their ownership of the castle during that time is not documented. In 1330, due to his heavy debt, Bishop Walram of Speyer (1328-1336) was forced to entrust the administration of his bishopric and its possessions to the Archbishop of Trier. His successor, Gerhard von Ehrenberg, quickly cleared the debt with Trier. By 1338, Hornberg Castle and all other possessions returned to the ownership of the Bishopric of Speyer, which held the feudal lordship over the castle and the associated villages of Neckarzimmern and Steinbach until 1803. In 1341, the village of Steinbach was fortified and received town privileges through one of the Lords of Helmstatt, who had the castle and the village as fiefs in the 14th and 15th centuries. The two castles of Hornberg (Duo Castra Horimberch), as they appeared in documents at that time, had special significance as a protective fortress for the Bishopric of Speyer. Until the mid-15th century, they served as the eastern bulwark of the Bishopric. Around 1430, it is recorded that Count Palatine Otto owned half of Hornberg Castle and sold it to Hans von Berlichingen, who probably sold it later. Between 1263 and 1464, there were frequent changes of ownership at Hornberg Castle, sometimes as many as three times a year. The reason for this, in addition to the frequent pledging of the castle, was the fact, starting from the first document about the ownership of the Lauffen brothers, that there were mentions of ownership of half of the castle, meaning different individuals or families had the lower castle with Steinbach and Hassmersheim, or the upper castle with Neckarzimmern, as fiefs.