adjoining it commands a splendid view to the north. There, too, on the parapet-wall, may be seen the hoof-marks of the horse of the robber-knight, Ekkelein von Gailingen, whose story we have already narrated (p. 43). Here for a moment let us pause, consider our position, and endeavour to make out from the conflicting theories of the archæologists something of the original arrangement of the castles and of the significance of the buildings and towers that yet remain.
Stretching to the east of the rock on which the Castle stands is a wide plain, now the scene of busy industrial enterprise, but in old days no doubt a mere district of swamp and forest. Westwards the rock rises by three shelves to the summit. The entrance to the Castle, it is surmised, was originally on the east side, at the foot of the lower plateau and through a tower which no longer exists.
Opposite this hypothetical gate-tower stood the Five-cornered tower. The lower part dates, we have seen, from no earlier than the eleventh century. It is referred to as Alt-Nürnberg (old Nuremberg) in the Middle Ages. The title of “Five-cornered” is really somewhat a misnomer, for an examination of the interior of the lower portion of the tower reveals the fact that it is quadrangular. The pentagonal appearance of the exterior is due to the fragment of a smaller tower which once leant against it, and probably formed the apex of a wing running out from the old castle of the Burggrafs. The Burggräfliche Burg stood below, according to Mummenhof, south-west and west of this point. It was burnt down in 1420, and the ruined remains of it are supposed to be traceable in the eminence, now overgrown by turf and trees, through which a sort of ravine, closed in on either side by built-up walls, has just brought us from the town to the Vestner Thor. The Burggrafs’ Castle would appear to have been so situated as to protect the approach to the Imperial Castle (Kaiserburg). The exact extent of the former we cannot now determine. Meisterlin refers to it as parvum fortalitium—a little fort. We may, however, be certain that it reached from the Five-cornered tower to the Walpurgiskapelle. For this little chapel, east of the open space called the Freiung, is repeatedly spoken of as being on the property of the Burggrafs. Besides their castle proper, which was held at first as a fief of the Empire, and afterwards came to be regarded as their hereditary, independent property, the Burggrafs were also entrusted with the keeping of a tower which commanded the entrance to the Castle rock on the country side, perhaps near the site of the present Vestner Thor. The custodia portæ may have been attached to the tower, the lower portion of which remains to this day, and is called the Bailiff’s Dwelling (Burgamtmannswohnung). The exact relationship of the Burggraf to the town on the one hand, and to the Empire on the other, is, as we have already observed, somewhat obscure. Originally, it would appear, he was merely an Imperial officer, administering Imperial estates, and looking after Imperial interests. In later days he came to possess great power, but this was due not to his position as castellan or castle governor as such, but to the vast private property his position had enabled him to amass and to keep.
As the scope and ambitions of the Burggrafs increased, and as the smallness of their castle at Nuremberg, and the constant friction with the townspeople, who were able to annoy them in many ways, became more irksome, they gave up living at Nuremberg, and finally were content to sell their rights and possessions there to the town. Besides the custodia portæ of the Burggrafs, which together with their castle passed by purchase into the hands of the town (1427), there were various other similar guard towers, such as the one which formerly occupied the present site of the Luginsland, or the Hasenburg at the so-called Himmels Thor, or a third which once stood near the Deep Well on the second plateau of the Castle rock. But we do not know how many of these there were, or where they stood, much less at what date they were built. All we do know is that they, as well as the Burggrafs’ possessions, were purchased in succession by the town, into whose hands by degrees came the whole property of the Castle rock.
Above the ruins of the “little fort” of the Burggrafs rises the first plateau of the Castle rock. It is surrounded by a wall, strengthened on the south side (l) by a square tower against which leans the Walpurgiskapelle.
The path to the Kaiserburg leads under the wall of the plateau, and is entirely commanded by it and by the quadrangular tower, the lower part of which alone remains and is known by the name of Burgamtmannswohnung (r). The path goes straight to this tower, and at the foot of it is the entrance to the first plateau. Then along the edge of this plateau the way winds southwards (l), entirely commanded again by the wall of the second plateau, at the foot of which there probably used to be a trench. Over this a bridge led to the gate of the second plateau. The trench has been long since filled in, but the huge round tower which guarded the gate still remains and is the Vestner Thurm (r).[23] The Vestner Thurm or Sinwel Thurm (sinwel = round), or, as it is called in a charter of the year 1313, the “Turm in der Mitte,” is the only round tower of the Burg. It was built in the days of early Gothic, with a sloping base, and of roughly flattened stones with a smooth edge. It was partly restored and altered in 1561, when it was made a few feet higher and its round roof was added. It is worth paying the small gratuity required for ascending to the top. The view obtained of the city below is magnificent. The Vestner Thurm, like the whole Imperial castle, passed at length into the care of the town, which kept its Tower watch here as early as the fourteenth century.[24]
