Set in a serene landscape in the south-western Steigerwald in Middle Franconia, Bavaria, Frankenberg Castle crowns the Herrschaftsberg. With its medieval towers, flanked by steep vineyards, the castle rises above a gently rolling hilly landscape. In addition to a 30-hectare wine-growing area, which makes Frankenberg one of the largest wineries in the region, the 130-hectare castle grounds include forests, arable land, orchards, and the Meierei, a historical dairy farm at the foot of the hill. With a history going back to at least 1254 and the rule of the renowned knight dynasty of von Hutten for more than 250 years, the monument is a substantial testimony to Franconian chivalric life.
The Frankenberg estate stood at the centre of 16th and 17th century religious conflicts. The religious border separating Protestant from Catholic lands still today runs through the estate. With Ulrich von Hutten as the noble family’s most notable member, Frankenberg makes the spirit of the Reformation, Renaissance humanist ideals and German culture tangible. Ulrich was a poet, scholar, and publisher, and the first imperial knight, but later made a name for himself as an avid reformer, and friend and ally to Martin Luther. From then on, he zealously opposed both the Pope and the Emperor and thus contributed significantly to the religious denominational schism.
References:Doune Castle was originally built in the thirteenth century, then probably damaged in the Scottish Wars of Independence, before being rebuilt in its present form in the late 14th century by Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany (c. 1340–1420), the son of King Robert II of Scots, and Regent of Scotland from 1388 until his death. Duke Robert"s stronghold has survived relatively unchanged and complete, and the whole castle was traditionally thought of as the result of a single period of construction at this time. The castle passed to the crown in 1425, when Albany"s son was executed, and was used as a royal hunting lodge and dower house.
In the later 16th century, Doune became the property of the Earls of Moray. The castle saw military action during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and Glencairn"s rising in the mid-17th century, and during the Jacobite risings of the late 17th century and 18th century.