Eberstein Stuff

= Castles =

Ruin Eberstein

Ruins of an old castle in the Rhön area. Also has gone under the name of Tannenfels

Near the town of Wickers, district of Fulda, state of Hessen, Germany.

There is a page on a german website about the Rhoen area: See Ruin Eberstein, auto translated

Also German Wikipedia has a page: Ruine Eberstein, auto translated Schloss Eberstein

In Gernsbach, district of Rastatt, state of Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany.

(Schloss = Castle)

German wikipedia has a page about Schloss Eberstein, see Schloss Eberstein, auto translated

Schloss Eberstein is now a restaurant and hotel, with its own website. See http://www.schloss-eberstein.de and http://www.weingut-schloss-eberstein.de

It was named 'Monument of the Month' in January 2008 and efforts were being made to preserve the stone and other artifacts there, including raising money. Memorial Foundation of Baden-Wuerttemberg, auto translated

Alt Eberstein (Alt = Old)

A castle ruin near the town Ebersteinburg, near the city of Baden Baden, state of Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany.

From German wikipedia: Alt Eberstein, auto translated

Graf Eberstein Castle / Gochsheim Castle

A castle in the Kraichtal area of the state Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. Has a coat of arms with two boars and two roses on a shield.

Graf-Eberstein-Schloss, auto translated

There is also an english language page.. they call it Gochsheim Castle

Schloss Eberstein - Genshagen

In a district of the city of Ludwigsfelde, state of Berlin, Germany.

Baroness Rathgundis von Eberstein apparently thinks the Ebersteins hid the Holy Grail in one of their castles, and that Eberstein's coat of arms depicts someone whose arms have been hacked off. On a website that sells her book, this Castle at Genshagen is pictured. Schloss Eberstein Genshagen, auto translated

Schloss Eberstein (Eberstein)

There is a castle in Austria named Castle Eberstein. See the section on Austria, below.

= Coats of Arms =

Roses
The city of Gernsbach: Gernsbach

From the council of Eberhard the Clement:

Ebersteinburg city, with a rose

Rastatt_(district) A district with an Ebersteiner Rose

A version from Dutch Wikipedia... has two Boar and two Roses. (Boar = Eber in German)

, Grafen Eberstein

City of Gochsheim (An Eberstein castle nearby). See: http://www.ngw.nl/int/dld/g/gochshei.htm

Roses with a guys head on a helmet
Close up photos from some church in Gernsbach

More from Gernsbach

Hans Bernhard von Eberstein and a mystery - (Translated version, no pictures)

(also note the two-boars, two-roses design on a shield... with two helmets on the shield)

.. marked Graffen von Eberstein

[http://www.blb-karlsruhe.de/blb/blbhtml/2006/eberstein.php A version with the guy on the helmet, a rose on the shield.. mixed with a helmet with long horns]

Another Eberstein Rose, this one in a church, with a legend attached... saying that Otto von Ebersteinw was sent to see the Pope in Rome, and the pope gave him a piece of jewlery he had worn in a procession on Rose Sunday

, has rose on shield, two helmets, one with a guy, and one with horns.

Woman on Helmet, Fleur de Lis on Shield
- The Frenckliche word at the top of the page refers to the Franconia area of Germany.

The Louis Ferdinand Freiherr von Eberstein books have versions with the woman sitting on a helmet, and the three-fleur-de-lis design in a shield.

A shield with the three-fleur-de-lis on the bottom

Woman on helmet, fleur de lis shield, from a website about the village Brand on the Rhön

There are some old versions of this Coats of Arms, going back to the 1400s, on wikimedia commons. See Category:Coats of arms of the House of Eberstein

Other
Donnersberg district, has a Boar, site author claims its a combination of Eberstein and Sponheim

Siebmacher's Wappenbuch, 17th century, click on the entries by the name Eberstein. There are some for Graf Eberstein, some for von Eberstein, some for Graf Von Eberstein...

= Other stuff =

German wikipedia - The House of Eberstein 

Article here, automated translation

Separate families?

A page saying the branches are probably different. http://www.peter-hug.ch/lexikon/Eberstein

Eberstein Rose legend

A site talking about how the Rose legend might have been invented in the 1500s. Also talks about an alternate legend.. where the Gold rose from the pope turns into a real rose. Also talks about how Orsini and Gherardini crests, from Italy, have similar roses. From a PDF article by Von Cornelia Zorn

Wikipedia has a site on the Golden Rose

Counts (Grafen) Eberstein, 1000s to 1300s AD

A very interesting artiicle, Here, auto translated. It mentions the 1282 agreement between the Abbot of Fulda and the Bishop of Wurzburg, to destroy the Eberstein castle (part of some medieval feud...). Which castle? The Tannenfels? Says something about Palestine. Claims they got moved to Schackau? If you google Schackau Eberstein you can find a woman-on-helmet/fleur-de-lis crest.

See Counts of Eberstein, wikipedia. Or... German Wikipedia has an article about the Grafen (Counts) Eberstein: Eberstein (Adelsgeschlecht), auto translated

Wikimedia commons also has a category of images from the counts: See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Eberstein_%28Grafen%29

The Circle of Swabia

Some Counts Ebersteins in the old days were in an area called Swabia, which was in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire. The Foundation for Medieval Geneaology and Charles Cawley have a list of several counts of the region, including Eberstein, at a Page on Swabian Nobility.

Wolfgang Menzel mentions the wars of the 1300s in Swabia in his book The History of Germany (Pg 140)

Judith J. Hurwich has a book.. "Noble Strategies; Marriage and Sexuality in the Zimmern Chronicle", Zimmern being a Swabian noble line, and mentions Ebersteins.

Baden Baden drinking hall legends

Baden Baden has a drinking hall with legends on murals... two of them are apparently about Ebersteins... Trinkhalle und Sagen der Umgebung

(and one of them is, in fact, the story WHVE tells in his memoirs, of the counts outwitting the emperor, with the help of his daughter)

Ebersteinburg

A little town right by the ruins of Alt-Eberstein. Another German Wikipedia entry: Ebersteinburg

Oh, and apparently now also a tourist destination: "As almost all castles in Germany... ...even the most ruined ruin, Ebersteinburg, too has a café/restaurant in the courtyard"

WW-Person project

There is a guy in Germany that has a database of 500,000 members of the nobility. If you click here and type in Eberstein, you get a lot of hits: http://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/cgi-bin/stoyan/wwp/LANG=engl/?list

= Other countries =

Switzerland

Christian Franz Freiherr von Eberstein

Austria

There is a town called Eberstein in the state of Carinthia (german - Kärnten), in Austria. See Eberstein,_Austria. Also there an Eberstein castle nearby. See here. The coat of arms is a Boar on a Rock (Eber = Boar, Stein = Stone).

Denmark 

A site in Denmark has an 'Af Eberstein' lineage, and shows a crest with a lion on a shield?? here This is a mirror image almost of the shield from Siebemakers Wappenbuch for

An entire discussion thread questioning whether the Denmark eberstein (everstein) line even exists or whether it was an error: here

Alternate Spellings

Ebbirstein, Ebirstein, Everstein, Ebirsteyn, Evirstein

= Everstein =

Apparently the Counts of Everstein were in Saxony, in a more north westerly part of Germany than the Ebersteins. See the German Wikipedia entry at http://de.wikipedia.org/Everstein_(Adelsgeschlecht). Their logo was apparently a white lion on blue background, as seen in the arms for the town of Holzminden on Weser (see Holzminden). It appears to resembles the Danish Eberstein lion and the Siebmacher Eberstein-Neugarten lion.