Castle Frankenstein

Burg Frankenstein is a hilltop castle about 5 km south of Darmstadt in Germany. As the name suggests, some believe the castle and its folklore have been influential upon Mary Shelley, though this theory lacks evidences.

The castle was built before 1250 by Konrad Reiz von Breuberg, who made it into a territory subject only to the Emperor and henceforth adopted the family name "Frankenstein". In 1292 Count William II of Katzenelnbogen forced to open the castle [http://www.graf-von-katzenelnbogen.de/ The History of the County of Katzenelnbogen and the First Riesling of the World] . Although it was at one time a sizeable fortress, today only two towers and a chapel remain. Because of territorial and religious disputes between the Catholic Frankensteins and the Lutheran landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt, the family in 1662 eventually sold their possessions around the castle to the landgraves and retired to their possessions in the Wetterau.

The German alchemist and natural philosopher Johann Conrad Dippel (1673-1734) was born and lived at Castle Frankenstein. He is known to have sometimes added 'Frankensteinensis' to his signature, indicating his birth place, not any relation to the Frankenstein family. The folklore of the region accuses him of body snatching, a crime not unknown amongst anatomists, and claims that he attempted to bring the dead to life, though how much these stories have been retro-actively influenced by the Frankenstein myths is hard to say. None of these legends can be proven to exist before Shelley's novel was released. Some are even anachronistic, such as the claim that Dippel was experimenting with Nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin had not yet been discovered in Dippel's time.

The Shelleys were known to have travelled through the region on their way to visit Lord Byron in Geneva, where Mary Shelley would create her Magnum opus during a scary story telling session on a stormy night. Some believe that she must have visited the castle and heard the local folklore, but she actually passed by the castle at night and therefore would not have been able to see it. That the castle or Dippel influenced Shelley is most likely modern legend. There's no historical evidence that Shelley even knew of the historical nature of the castle or Dippel's activities.

Notes and references

Literature

* Art. "Frankenstein", in: Hessen, hg. v. Georg W. Sante, Stuttgart 1960 (= Handbuch der historischen Stätten Deutschlands, 4. Bd.), S. 117
* Nieder-Beerbach, in: Georg Dehio, Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler: Hessen, bearb. v. Magnus Backes, 1966, S. 622

External links

* [http://www.burg-frankenstein.de/ Website der Burg-Frankenstein]
* [http://www.burgfrankenstein.info/ Website zu historischen Fakten der Burg]
* [http://www.halloween-burgfrankenstein.de/ Halloween Burg-Frankenstein]
* [http://www.freyes-lager.de/ Freyes Lager, Verein für Mittelalterliche Geschichte]
* [http://www.gruft-der-vampire.de/ruinenland/frankenstein1.htm Sagen und Legenden zur Burg Frankenstein]