Schloss Braunsbach

Schloss Braunsbach stands in the village of the same name in Hohenlohe, a region of rolling hills and farmland in central Baden-Württemberg. The complex began as a medieval castle before Albrecht von Crailsheim ordered a new 16th-century residence on the same site. The layout is almost square, with a round tower linking the south and west wings added after 1567. The palace chapel became the parish church of St Bonifatius in 1607, when a second choir and wider nave were built. The unusual arrangement places two small choirs side by side, each too small for communion so a 16th-century Bonifatius retable once stood between them. The tower was raised and a noble gallery installed above the new choir. Craftsmen from Schwäbisch Hall carved the Crailsheim family’s epitaph in the late 16th century. Inside, a Renaissance altar with carved scenes of baptism and the Lord’s Supper dominates the nave. The octagonal pulpit from the early 1600s rests on a fan-shaped bracket, its panels painted with masks and shells. The west gallery shows life-size figures of the prophets, apostles and Saint James the Elder, pilgrim staff in hand. The organ case dates from 1737, though its pipes were renewed in the 18th and 20th centuries.