On my last post about my Viking River Cruise I promised to tell you more about the Hostile Brothers and their two castles in Kamp Bornhofen.
There are a couple of stories about these two castles, built closer together than any other two castles on the Rhine. They all have to do with family feuding. There is even a large stone wall, called the Streitmauer, that separates the two.
One story tells of two sons of a Count. The first was von Sterrenberg and the second was von Liebenstein. The castle on the left above is Burg Sterrenberg and the castle on the right is Burg Liebenstein.
The two brothers were so greedy that they decided to cheat their blind sister out of her inheritance. They devised a way to make her believe she was getting an equal share when in reality she was only receiving a small portion of what she was due.
She used her inheritance to build the monastery in Kamp Bornhofen. As for the brothers, their greed brought them nothing but trouble and they ended up building the wall that separates the two castles. After they had wasted all of their money, they decided to try and reconcile, but one accidentally shot the other with an arrow, thus adding more misfortune to their sad story.
My favorite is this story, about a knight called Werner of Sterrenberg. He had two sons, Henry the elder and Konrad the younger. Werner favorited Henry, due to the fact that while giving birth to Konrad, Werner’s wife died and he never got over her loss.
Some time later, a young noble named Angela was brought to live in Castle Sterrenberg with the three men. As they all grew older, Konrad became smitten with Angela and began to court her. Werner of course wanted the eldest Henry to court her, although Henry was too timid to do so on his own. Soon things became heated with Konrad threatening Henry and Angela was put in the middle of it all.
About this time a ship arrived along the Rhine and the master was seeking young men to go on a crusade. Werner forbade Henry to go but allowed Konrad to go without a second thought. Konrad met with Angela before leaving and asked her if she would wait for him to return, to which she agreed.
Konrad left for the crusade and Werner again encouraged Henry to court Angela. She resisted, saying she was waiting for Konrad’s return. Werner finally accepted the fact that Angela’s true love was Konrad, and he had a second castle built for the young couple in love.
And it came to pass that Konrad finally did return, however he returned with an exotic maiden at his side. She was a dark haired lady from Greece that had saved his life and he married her out of respect of her saving grace.
Konrad never dreamed that Angela would have kept her word and waited for him all these years.
When Konrad arrived he also noticed a black flag flying above Burg Sterrenberg so he knew that his father had passed and that Angela and his brother Henry must be married by now.
When Konrad stepped onto the drawbridge of his father’s castle, he immediately took out his sword as a form of respect to honor his father. His brother Henry misunderstood his intention and took his sword out to attack his brother. Henry was jealous of Konrad’s travels, his new bride and all the years of courting Angela only to fail at winning her affections.
Angela, who had been waiting for Konrad’s return was overcome with grief at the site of Konrad’s new bride, the brothers fighting and went to intervene, where she was almost killed in the melee that ensued.
Finally all realized the mistake and the two brothers put away their swords.
Together, alone they went with their father’s body to his final resting spot.
They then each returned to their respective castles.
Henry to Burg Sterrenberg and Konrad to Burg Liebenstein.
As for Angela, she became a nun at the Monastery in Kamp Bornhofen below the two Hostile Brothers, where she eventually died.
And Konrad built the famous Quarrel Wall to keep the brothers from killing themselves.
Today the castles house hotels and restaurants and afford outstanding views of the Rhine below. If only their walls could talk and tell the true tale of the reason for two castles so closely built on the Rhine.
This is not a sponsored post. This is my experience from my trip with Viking River Cruises. Email me to find out how you can save $100 when you book your first cruise with Viking through their referral program.
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