Burgstall Kammerstein

The Burgstall Kammerstein stands on a 420-metre ridge of the Heidenberg above the village of Kammerstein in Mittelfranken. Built in the 12th century by Ramung I of Kammerstein, a ministerial of Emperor Frederick II, it first appears in records in 1181. Between 1220 and 1230 the fortress was enlarged to protect Schwabach and three imperial roads crossing the Heidenberg. Ramung signed charters in 1235 as Ramungus de Kamerstain miles olim de Svabahc, showing his knightly rank and former ties to Schwabach. After Ramung’s line died out in 1260, King Albrecht I pledged the castle in 1299 to Count Emich I of Nassau and his wife Anna, daughter of the Nuremberg burgrave. In 1348 Emperor Charles IV enfeoffed Emich’s sons, Johann and Emich II, with the castle and its lands. Their mother Anna lived there as her widow’s seat from 1349 until her death between 1355 and 1357. After Emich II’s death in 1359, Johann sold the entire Franconian holding in 1364 to Albrecht of Zollern-Nürnberg. The castle was partly rebuilt after its destruction in 1461, but the administrative seat moved to Schwabach. It served briefly as a hunting lodge before being ruined again in 1523. During the Thirty Years War the remnants were levelled and used as a quarry. By 1782 only the lightning-damaged bergfried obstructed quarry work, so the Ansbach government ordered its demolition. Today faint traces remain, and the village’s coat of arms still recalls the vanished ministerial family.