History

Due to a number of events of great importance for Germany‘s history, the Wartburg was given features such as a national monument: the flowering of the Staufer culture on the Ludowinger court under Landgrave Hermann I (1190-1217) with the verifiable stays by famous minnesingers (Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach) in Eisenach, the life and work of Saint Elizabeth (1211-1228) in Thuringia and on Wartburg castle as well as Martin Luther‘s stay in the castle when he translated the New Testament into German here (1521-22).

Architecture

The castle was mainly constructed in the 12th and 19th centuries. In 1157/58 the great hall (palas) was being constructed. After fire damages the palas arcades were walled up (1317/18) and new, closable windows were installed. Presumably the great hall has only served as a residence since then. The northern castle buildings (knights‘ house, castle bailiff‘s lodge, battlement) mainly date from the second half of the 15th century.

Design

On the two lower storeys, behind the arcade galleries serving as corridors, the interior of the palas consists of a longitudinally rectangular hall each between two approximately square rooms. On the ground floor, the "dining hall" with a beamed ceiling is in the middle, to the north is the "knights‘ hall", to the south "Elizabeth‘s bower" with glass mosaics created in 1902-1906. On the middle floor is the "hall of the minstrels" with a beamed ceiling which is carried by two columns between the Landgrave room (also with a wooden ceiling) in the north and the chapel (supposedly only inserted in 1317/18) in the south.