story
A first hilltop castle and a settlement may originally have existed at a different location, namely in the area around the Evangelical Old Johannes Church (so-called fortified church) in Ebernburg.
The first documented mentions of the name "Ebernburc" come from 1206, although, according to Böcher, it is not clear whether the name refers to the castle or the place. However, Böcher considers it unlikely that the place is older than the castle. In 1338 - that's for sure - Raugraf Ruprecht and Count Johann von Sponheim-Kreuznach built the castle. In 1448 the entire Ebernburg estate came into the pledge, later fiefdom, of the Sickinger, who only ceded it to the Palatinate in 1750 and 1771. Under Schweickhardt von Sickingen and his son Franz, the castle was expanded in 1482 and armed with artillery; In particular, there were several heavy artillery pieces, the sharp ones.
The Ebernburg received the nickname "Hostel of Justice" from the humanist Ulrich von Hutten, a friend of Franz von Sickingen, in a pamphlet on the bull Exsurge Domine, which Pope Leo X. had issued against the reformer Martin Luther. [1] This referred indirectly to the fact that Franz von Sickingen had offered Luther asylum at the Ebernburg when he was on his way to the Diet in Worms (1521). However, Luther did not accept the offer, but fled, declared outlawed by the Worms Reichstag on May 16, 1521, under the code name Junker Jörg to the Wartburg. Other reformers, on the other hand, who were also persecuted as followers of Luther or who had lost their jobs, accepted Sickingen's offer.