The Kugelburg castle ruins, also called Kugelnberg or Kugelinberch after their ancestral lords, was a hilltop castle on the Kugelberg south of the market town of Goldbach in the Aschaffenburg district in the Bavarian Spessart. The castle ruins are an archaeological monument according to the Bavarian monument list, which was created on the basis of the Bavarian monument protection law of October 1, 1973.
The Kugelnbergers can be traced back to around 1187; they were in the service of the Electorate of Mainz and the Bishopric of Würzburg, maneuvered between the Counts of Rieneck and were probably followers of the Staufer kings. The origin of the Kugelnbergers is uncertain, and the seal used and coat of arms reconstructions cannot be linked to local aristocratic classes or ministerials. Kittel sees the Kugelnbergers as a branch of the nobles of Höstebach, who probably had their ancestral seat in the (today) neighboring town next to the church, when Strubo de Hostebach continued to use this name and no longer appear in documents after 1295, almost at the same time as the Kugelnbergers. The Kugelnbergers were probably entrusted with the administration of the castle and its expansion and subsequently named themselves after the castle itself. They were the founders of the nearby Schmerlenbach monastery (1218 by the Würzburg canon Gottfried von Kugelnberg) and owned many properties around their castle. The parish church in Goldbach was their own church. Already extinct again by around 1254 or no longer mentioned in documents, they are associated with the probably related Waldenberg family. Their disappearance took place at the height of the conflict between the Electorate of Mainz and Rieneck in the Aschaffenburg-Untermain area. The castle was almost at the centre of the conflict, which included the Landesehre castle (presumably on the Gräfenberg) and the Burgstall Klosterberg castle (probably the Waldenberg castle on the Klosterberg) to the north and just one kilometre opposite, as well as the Waleberg castle to the south and up the Main and the Mainz valley castle Castrum Vivarium just a few metres east of the Kugelberg castle. After the disappearance of its owners and in the midst of the Mainz-Rieneck conflict, it is now assumed that the castle was probably destroyed again by the Electorate of Mainz towards the end of the 13th century, or at the latest in the 14th century, in order to prevent a possible threat to Aschaffenburg and to have free access to the Spessart.
Towards the end of the 19th century there was an observation tower built by the owner of the Untergartenhof on the Kugelberg, which no longer exists.
Source: Wikipedia
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