Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions. It forms an authoritative source for documenting the surviving epigraphy of classical antiquity. Public and personal inscriptions throw light on all aspects of Roman history; the Corpus continues to be updated in new supplements. CIL refers to the organization within the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities responsible for collecting data on and publishing the Latin inscriptions, it was founded in 1853 by Theodor Mommsen and is the first and major organization aiming at a comprehensive survey. The CIL collects all Latin inscriptions from the whole territory of the Roman Empire, ordering them geographically and systematically; the earlier volumes collected and published authoritative versions of all inscriptions known at the time—most of these had been published in a wide range of publications. The descriptions include images of the original inscription if available, drawings showing the letters in their original size and position, an interpretation reconstructing abbreviations and missing words, along with discussion of issues and problems.
The language of the CIL is Latin. In 1847 a committee was created in Berlin with the aim of publishing an organized collection of Latin inscriptions, described piecemeal by hundreds of scholars over the preceding centuries; the leading figure of this committee was Theodor Mommsen. Much of the work involved personal inspections of sites and monuments in an attempt to replicate the original as much as possible. In those cases where a cited inscription could no longer be found, the authors tried to get an accurate reading by comparing the versions of the published inscription in the works of previous authors who had seen the original; the first volume appeared in 1853. The CIL presently consists of 17 volumes in about 70 parts, recording 180,000 inscriptions. Thirteen supplementary volumes have special indices; the first volume, in two sections, covered the oldest inscriptions, to the end of the Roman Republic. The other volumes cover other topics. Volume XVII, for instance, is devoted to milestones.
A volume XVIII is planned. A two-volume "Index of Numbers", correlating inscription numbers with volume numbers, was published in 2003; the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften continues to update and reprint the CIL. Epigraphy Inscriptiones Graecae Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae Prosopographia Imperii Romani "Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum". Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Retrieved 13 November 2009. "CIL volumes". Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Retrieved 19 December 2009. "English translations of selected inscriptions from CIL". Attalus.org. Retrieved 8 October 2012
Bavaria
Bavaria the Free State of Bavaria, is a landlocked federal state of Germany, occupying its southeastern corner. With an area of 70,550.19 square kilometres, Bavaria is the largest German state by land area comprising a fifth of the total land area of Germany. With 13 million inhabitants, it is Germany's second-most-populous state after North Rhine-Westphalia. Bavaria's main cities are Nuremberg; the history of Bavaria includes its earliest settlement by Iron Age Celtic tribes, followed by the conquests of the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC, when the territory was incorporated into the provinces of Raetia and Noricum. It became a stem duchy in the 6th century AD following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, it was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire, became an independent kingdom, joined the Prussian-led German Empire while retaining its title of kingdom, became a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Duchy of Bavaria dates back to the year 555. In the 17th century AD, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918. In 1946, the Free State of Bavaria re-organised itself on democratic lines after the Second World War. Bavaria has a unique culture because of the state's Catholic majority and conservative traditions. Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes a language, architecture, festivals such as Oktoberfest and elements of Alpine symbolism; the state has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, giving it a status as a rather wealthy German region. Modern Bavaria includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia and Swabia; the Bavarians emerged in a region north of the Alps inhabited by Celts, part of the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum. The Bavarians spoke Old High German, unlike other Germanic groups, they did not migrate from elsewhere. Rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by the Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century; these peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Allemanni, Thuringians, Scirians, Heruli.
The name "Bavarian" means "Men of Baia" which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520. A 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BC. From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria, ending with Tassilo III, deposed by Charlemagne. Three early dukes are named in Frankish sources: Garibald I may have been appointed to the office by the Merovingian kings and married the Lombard princess Walderada when the church forbade her to King Chlothar I in 555, their daughter, became Queen of the Lombards in northern Italy and Garibald was forced to flee to her when he fell out with his Frankish overlords. Garibald's successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the eastern frontier against the expansion of Slavs and Avars around 600. Tassilo's son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616.
After Garibald II little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onwards he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and strengthen Christianity in his duchy, his son, led a decisive Bavarian campaign to intervene in a succession dispute in the Lombard Kingdom in 714, married his sister Guntrud to the Lombard King Liutprand. At Theodo's death the duchy was reunited under his grandson Hugbert. At Hugbert's death the duchy passed from neighboring Alemannia. Odilo issued a law code for Bavaria, completed the process of church organization in partnership with St. Boniface, tried to intervene in Frankish succession disputes by fighting for the claims of the Carolingian Grifo, he was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748. Saint Boniface completed the people's conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century. Tassilo III succeeded his father at the age of eight after an unsuccessful attempt by Grifo to rule Bavaria.
He ruled under Frankish oversight but began to function independently from 763 onwards. He was noted for founding new monasteries and for expanding eastwards, fighting Slavs in the eastern Alps and along the River Danube and colonising these lands. After 781, his cousin Charlemagne began to pressure Tassilo to submit and deposed him in 788; the deposition was not legitimate. Dissenters attempted a coup against Charlemagne at Tassilo's old capital of Regensburg in 792, led by his own son Pépin the Hunchback; the king had to drag Tassilo out of imprisonment to formally renounce his rights and titles at the Assembly of Frankfurt in 794. This is the last appearance of Tassilo in the sources, he died a monk; as all of his family were forced into monasteries, this was the end of the Agilolfing dynasty. For the next 400 years numerous families held the duchy for more than three generations. With the revolt of duke Henry the Quarrelsome in 976, Bavaria lost large territories in the south and
Limes Germanicus
The Limes Germanicus was a line of frontier fortifications that bounded the ancient Roman provinces of Germania Inferior, Germania Superior and Raetia, dividing the Roman Empire and the unsubdued Germanic tribes from the years 83 to about 260 AD. At its height, the limes stretched from the North Sea outlet of the Rhine to near Regensburg on the Danube; those two major rivers afforded natural protection from mass incursions into imperial territory, with the exception of a gap stretching from Mogontiacum on the Rhine to Castra Regina. The Limes Germanicus was divided into: The Lower Germanic Limes, which extended from the North Sea at Katwijk in the Netherlands along the main Lower Rhine branches The Upper Germanic Limes started from the Rhine at Rheinbrohl across the Taunus mountains to the river Main along the Main to Miltenberg, from Osterburken south to Lorch in a nearly perfect straight line of more than 70 km; the total length was 568 km. It included 900 watchtowers; the weakest, hence most guarded, part of the Limes was the aforementioned gap between the westward bend of the Rhine at modern-day Mainz and the main flow of the Danube at Regensburg.
This 300-km wide land corridor between the two great rivers permitted movement of large groups of people without the need for water transport, hence the heavy concentration of forts and towers there, arranged in depth and in multiple layers along waterways, fords and hilltops. Roman border defences have become much better known through systematic excavations financed by Germany and through other research connected to them. In 2005, the remnants of the Upper Germanic & Rhaetian Limes were inscribed on the List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites as Frontiers of the Roman Empire, with lower Limes being placed on the tentative list in 2011, aiming to extend the world heritage site to the whole limes; the Saalburg is a reconstructed museum of the Limes near Frankfurt. The first emperor who began to build fortifications along the border was Augustus, shortly after the devastating Roman defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. There were numerous Limes walls, which were connected to form the Upper Germanic Limes along the Rhine and the Rhaetian Limes along the Danube.
These two walls were linked to form a common borderline. From the death of Augustus until after 70 AD, Rome accepted as her Germanic frontier the water-boundary of the Rhine and upper Danube. Beyond these rivers she held only the fertile plain of Frankfurt, opposite the Roman border fortress of Moguntiacum, the southernmost slopes of the Black Forest and a few scattered bridge-heads; the northern section of this frontier, where the Rhine is deep and broad, remained the Roman boundary until the empire fell. The southern part was different; the upper Rhine and upper Danube are crossed. The frontier which they form is inconveniently long, enclosing an acute-angled wedge of foreign territory between the modern Baden and Württemberg; the Germanic populations of these lands seem in Roman times to have been scanty, Roman subjects from the modern Alsace-Lorraine had drifted across the river eastwards. The motives alike of geographical convenience and of the advantages to be gained by recognising these movements of Roman subjects combined to urge a forward policy at Rome, when the vigorous Vespasian had succeeded Nero, a series of advances began which closed up the acute angle, or at least rendered it obtuse.
The first advance came about 74 AD, when what is now Baden was invaded and annexed and a road carried from the Roman base on the upper Rhine, Straßburg, to the Danube just above Ulm. The point of the angle was broken off; the second advance was made by Domitian about 83 AD. He pushed out from Moguntiacum, extended the Roman territory east of it and enclosed the whole within a systematically delimited and defended frontier with numerous blockhouses along it and larger forts in the rear. Among the blockhouses was one which by various enlargements and refoundations grew into the well-known Saalburg fort on the Taunus near Bad Homburg; this advance necessitated a third movement, the construction of a frontier connecting the annexations of AD 74 and AD 83. We know the line of this frontier which ran from the Main across the upland Odenwald to the upper waters of the Neckar and was defended by a chain of forts. We do not, know its date, save that, if not Domitian's work, it was carried out soon after his death, the whole frontier thus constituted was reorganised by Hadrian, with a continuous wooden palisade reaching from Rhine to Danube.
The angle between the rivers was now full. But there remained further fortification. Either Hadrian or, more his successor Antoninus Pius pushed out from the Odenwald and the Danube, marked out a new frontier parallel to, but in advance of these two lines, though sometimes, as on the Taunus, coinciding with the older line; this is the frontier, now visible and visited by the curious. It consists, as we see it today, of two distinct frontier works, known as the Pfahlgraben, is a palisade of stakes with a ditch and earthen mound behind it, best seen in the neighbourhood of the Saalburg but once extending from the Rhine southwards into southern Germany; the other, which begins where the earthwork stops, is a wall, though not a formidable wall, of stone, the Teufelsmauer.
Main Limes
The Main Limes called the Nasser Limes, was built around 90 A. D. and, as part of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, formed the frontier of the Roman Empire in the area between the present day villages of Großkrotzenburg and Bürgstadt. In this section the limes adjoined the River Main, which forms a natural boundary for about 50 kilometres here, so "Main" refers to the river. In order to secure the riverbank, it was sufficient to erect free-standing towers backed up by the forts of the units stationed nearby. However, of the many watchtowers that stood along the Main, to date only one south of Obernburg am Main has been identified. On the other bank of the Main was the uninhabited Spessart, a wooded hill range which, like the Odenwald which borders it to the south-west, was interesting for the Romans because of its timber. In inscriptions, there are reports of the logging vexillationes of the 22nd Legion, which were stationed in Obernburg and Trennfurt. In the majority of forts, settlement activity continued after the fall of the limes, why, as in Obernburg Niedernberg and Großkrotzenburg, they are now located below the medieval village centres.
In Grosskrotzenburg, Hainstadt and Obernburg, Alamannic artefacts were discovered. North of the Main the limes runs through the marshy terrain of the Schifflache and Bulau before linking up with the Wetterau Limes. At the crossing of the Main at Großkrotzenburg a Roman bridge has been identified from post sockets. In the south it extended in its early period to Wörth; the exact start point of the Odenwald Limes has still not been identified. When the Odenwald Limes was abandoned in the 2nd century A. D. by Antoninus Pius and the establishment of the newer limes in the Bauland, the Main Limes was extended, because the forts in Trennfurt and Miltenberg were added. Because little remains of the forts, Roman artefacts are displayed in local museums such as Obernburg Romand Museum, Miltenberg Municipal Museum, Aschaffenburg Diocesan Museum and Großkrotzenburg Museum. Several fort sites such as Obernburg and Stockstadt have a rich collection of stone monuments. Dietwulf Baatz, Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann: Die Römer in Hessen.
Lizenzausgabe der 3rd edition, 1989, Hamburg, 2002, ISBN 3-933203-58-9. Bernhard Beckmann: Neuere Untersuchungen zum römischen Limeskastell Miltenberg-Altstadt. Verlag Michael Lassleben. Kallmünz, 2004, ISBN 3-7847-5085-0. Bernd Steidl: Welterbe Limes – Roms Grenze am Main. Begleitband zur Ausstellung in der Archäologischen Staatssammlung Munich, 2008. Logo, Obernburg, 2008, ISBN 3-939462-06-3. Kurt Stade: Die Mainlinie von Seligenstadt bis Miltenberg mit einem Nachtrage zur Abt. B Nr. 33 Kastell Stockstadt. In: Ernst Fabricius, Felix Hettner, Oscar von Sarwey: Der obergermanisch-raetische Limes des Roemerreiches. Abt. A, Strecke 6, pp. 3–70. Britta Rabold, Egon Schallmayer, Andreas Thiel: Der Limes. Die Deutsche Limes-Straße vom Rhein bis zur Donau. Verein Deutsche Limes-Straße, K. Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart, 2000, ISBN 3-8062-1461-1
Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes
The Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, or ORL, is a 550-kilometre-long section of the former external frontier of the Roman Empire between the rivers Rhine and Danube. It runs from Rheinbrohl to Eining on the Danube; the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes is an archaeological site and, since 2005, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Together with the Lower Germanic Limes it forms part of the Limes Germanicus; the term limes meant "border path" or "swathe" in Latin. In Germany, "Limes" refers to the Rhaetian Limes and Upper Germanic Limes, collectively referred to as the Limes Germanicus. Both sections of limes are named after the adjacent Roman provinces of Germania Superior. In the Roman limites we have, for the first time in history defined territorial borders of a sovereign state that were visible on the ground to friend and foe alike. Most of the Upper German-Rhaetian Limes did not follow rivers or mountain ranges, which would have formed natural boundaries for the Roman Empire, it includes the longest land border in the European section of the limes, interrupted for only a few kilometres, by a section that follows the River Main between Großkrotzenburg and Miltenberg.
By contrast, elsewhere in Europe, the limes is defined by the rivers Rhine and Danube. The function of the Roman military frontiers has been discussed for some time; the latest research tends to view at least the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes not as a military demarcation line, but rather a monitored economic boundary for the non-Roman lands. The limes, it is argued, was not suitable for fending off systematic external attacks. Thanks to a skillful economic policy, the Roman Empire extended its influence far to the northeast, beyond the frontier. Evidence of this are the many border crossings which, although guarded by Roman soldiers, would have enabled a brisk trade, the numerous Roman finds in "Free Germania". Attempts were also made, to settle Roman legions beyond the limes or, more to recruit auxiliaries; as a result, the Romanization of the population extended beyond the limes. Interest in the limes as the remains of a site dating to the Roman period was rekindled in Germany at the time of the Renaissance and Renaissance humanism.
This was bolstered by the rediscovery of the Germania and Annales of Tacitus in monastic libraries in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Scholars like Simon Studion researched discovered forts. Studion led archaeological excavations of the Roman camp of Benningen on the Neckar section of the Neckar-Odenwald Limes. Local limes commissions were established but were confined to small areas, for example, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse or Grand Duchy of Baden, due to the political situation. Johann Alexander Döderlein was the first person to record the course of the limes in the Eichstätt region. In 1723, he was the first to interpret the meaning of the limes and published the first scholarly treatise about it in 1731. Only after the foundation of the German Empire could archaeologists begin to study more the route of the limes, about which there had only been a rudimentary knowledge; as a result, they were able to make the first systematic excavations in the second half of the 19th century. In 1892, the Imperial Limes Commission was established for this purpose in Berlin, under the direction of the ancient historian, Theodor Mommsen.
The work of this commission is considered pioneering for reworking of Roman provincial history. Productive were the first ten years of research, which worked out the course of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes and named the camps along the border; the research reports on the excavations were published from 1894 to the dissolution of the Commission in 1937. The individual reports went under the title of The Upper Rhaetian Limes of the Roman Empire, published in fifteen volumes, of which seven cover the route of the limes and eight cover the various camps and forts; the documents of the Imperial Limes Commission are now in the custody of the Roman-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute. The RLK numbered the sections of the route, the forts and the watchtowers on the individual sections. In the course of this work the 550-kilometre-long route of the limes was surveyed, divided into sections and described; this division followed the administrative boundaries in 19th-century Germany and not that of ancient Rome: Section 1: Rheinbrohl – Bad Ems Section 2: Bad Ems – Adolfseck near Bad Schwalbach Section 3: Adolfseck near Bad Schwalbach – Taunus – Köpperner Tal Section 4: Köpperner Tal – Wetterau – Marköbel Section 5: Marköbel – Großkrotzenburg am Main Section 6a: Hainstadt – Wörth am Main Section 6b: Trennfurt – Miltenberg Section 7: Miltenberg – Walldürn – Buchen-Hettingen Section 8: Buchen-Hettingen – Osterburken – Jagsthausen Section 9: Jagsthausen – Öhringen – Mainhardt – Welzheim – Alfdorf-Pfahlbronn Section 10: Wörth am Main – Bad Wimpfen Section 11: Bad Wimpfen – Köngen Section 12: Alfdorf-Pfahlbronn – Lorch – Rotenbachtal near Schwäbisch Gmünd – Aalen – Stödtlen Section 13: Mönchsroth – Weiltingen-Ruffenhofen - Gunzenhausen Section 14: Gunzenhausen – Weißenburg – Kipfenberg Section 15: Kipfenberg – Eining Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes in general Dietwulf Baatz: Der römische Limes.
Archäologische Ausflüge zwischen Rhein und Donau. 4th edn. Gebrüder Mann, Berlin, 2000, ISBN 3-7861-1701-2. Thomas Becker
Main (river)
The Main is a river in Germany. With a length of 525 kilometres, it is the longest right tributary of the Rhine, it is the longest river lying in Germany. The largest cities along the Main are Würzburg; the mainspring of the Main River flows through the German states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse. Its basin competes with the Danube for water; the Main begins near Kulmbach in Franconia at the joining of its two headstreams, the Red Main and the White Main. The Red Main originates in the Franconian Jura mountain range, 50 km in length, runs through Creussen and Bayreuth; the White Main originates in the mountains of the Fichtelgebirge. In its upper and middle section, the Main runs through the valleys of the German Highlands, its lower section crosses the Lower Main Lowlands to Wiesbaden. Major tributaries of the Main are the Regnitz, the Franconian Saale, the Tauber, the Nidda; the name "Main" derives from the Latin Moenus or Menus. It is not related to the name of the city Mainz; the Main is navigable for shipping from its mouth at the Rhine close to Mainz for 396 km to Bamberg.
Since 1992, the Main has been connected to the Danube via the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and the regulated Altmühl river. The Main has been canalized with 34 large locks to allow CEMT class V vessels to navigate the total length of the river; the 16 locks in the adjacent Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and the Danube itself are of the same dimensions. There are 34 dams and locks along the 380 km navigable portion of the Main, from the confluence with the Regnitz near Bamberg, to the Rhine. No.: Number of the lock. Name: Name of the lock. Location: City or town where the lock is located. Year built: Year when the lock was put into operation. Main-km: Location on the Main, measured from the 0 km stone in Mainz-Kostheim; the reference point is the center of the lock group. Distance between locks: length in km of impoundment. Altitude: height in meters above mean sea level of the upper water at normal levels. Height: Height of the dam in meters. Lock length: Usable length of the lock chamber in meters. Lock width: Usable width of the lock chamber in meters.
Most of the dams along the Main have turbines for power generation. No.: Number of the dam. Name: Name of the dam. Height: Height of the dam in meters. Power: Maximum power generation capacity in megawatts. Turbines: Type and number of turbines. Operator: Operator of the hydroelectric plant. Tributaries from source to mouth: Around Frankfurt are several large inland ports; because the river is rather narrow on many of the upper reaches, navigation with larger vessels and push convoys requires great skill. The largest cities along the Main are Würzburg; the Main passes the following towns and cities: Burgkunstadt, Bad Staffelstein, Eltmann, Haßfurt, Volkach, Marktbreit, Karlstadt, Gemünden, Marktheidenfeld, Miltenberg, Erlenbach/Main, Seligenstadt, Hanau, Hattersheim, Flörsheim, Rüsselsheim. The river has gained enormous importance as a vital part of European "Corridor VII", the inland waterway link from the North Sea to the Black Sea. In a historical and political sense, the Main line is referred to as the northern border of Southern Germany, with its predominantly Catholic population.
The river marked the southern border of the North German Federation, established in 1867 under Prussian leadership as the predecessor of the German Empire. The river course corresponds with the Speyer line isogloss between Central and Upper German dialects, sometimes mocked as Weißwurstäquator; the Main-Radweg is a major German bicycle path running along the Main River. It is 600 kilometres long and was the first long-distance bicycle path to be awarded 5 stars by the General German Bicycle Club ADFC in 2008, it starts from either Creußen or Bischofsgrün and ends in Mainz. Roman camp at Marktbreit Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte, Main und Meer - Porträt eines Flusses. Exhibition Catalogue to the Bayerische Landesausstellung 2013. WBG. ISBN 978-3-534-00010-4. Main River Website on the River Main by the Tourist Board of Franconia. "Main". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921. "Main". The New Student's Reference Work. 1914. There is literature about Main in the Hessian Bibliography Water levels of Bavarian rivers Wasser- und Schifffahrtsdirektion Süd Main Cycleway Historical map of the Main confluence at Steinenhausen from BayernAtlas
Klingenberg am Main
Klingenberg am Main is a town in the Miltenberg district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is located on both banks of the river Main; the town lies right on the boundary with the state of Hesse on the Lower Main, is made up of the old town of Klingenberg and the two villages of Trennfurt and Röllfeld that were amalgamated with the town in 1976. Lying on the Main’s right bank at the foot of the Spessart are Klingenberg and Röllfeld, whereas Trennfurt is over on the left bank at the foot of the Odenwald. There are two vineyards above the main town of Klingenberg with their terrace-shaped slopes: the Hohberg and the Schlossberg, among others, the well known Klingenberg red wine is grown. Klingenberg lies 12 km away from the district seat of Miltenberg, 28 km from the greater centre of Aschaffenburg and 67 km from Frankfurt, is – like the whole Bavarian Lower Main – part of the Rhein-Main-Gebiet. Klingenberg borders in the north on the towns of Erlenbach and Wörth, in the east on the Spessart communities of Mönchberg and Röllbach, in the south on the market community of Großheubach and the community of Laudenbach and in the west on the Hessian Odenwald community of Lützelbach.
A Roman worship stone, an early mediaeval circular rampart and the Grubinger Kirchhof on the road to Großheubach going back to Alamannic times, are the oldest witnesses to Klingenberg’s history. In the 2nd century, the Romans built the border fortifications of the Limes Germanicus through Germany, which ran along the Trennfurt side of the Main; the limes was strengthened with a fort in Trennfurt. In 1100, a nobleman named, he belonged to the noble family of Reginbodo. The Staufen-era Clingenburg was built around 1170 by Conradus Colbo, cup-bearer to Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa. About 1250, the Bickenbach noble family moved into the castle. In Bickenbach times, the town of Klingenberg beneath the castle had its first documentary mention, namely in 1276. After the Bickenbachs died out in 1500, the town and lordly domain passed to the Archbishop of Mainz. In 1552, Klingenberg’s old town, like many other towns, was completely destroyed by the Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach in the Second Margrave War.
In the years that followed. Clingenburg castle was never rebuilt, it remained a ruin. After the dissolution of the Archbishopric of Mainz in the course of the 1803 Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, Klingenberg at first belonged to Prince Primate von Dalberg's newly formed Principality of Aschaffenburg, swallowed in 1810 by the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt along with its capital, Aschaffenburg. After the 1814/15 Congress of Vienna, along with the whole Aschaffenburg-Miltenberg region and the Grand Duchy of Würzburg passed to the Kingdom of Bavaria. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the clay mine brought the town great wealth; the citizens were therefore exempt from taxes in the late 19th century and indeed were paid Bürgergeld, a dividend from the town's earnings. Furthermore, among other things, a lookout tower, a bridge across the Main, a school, a new town hall and many elegant middle-class houses, such as those on Wilhelmstraße and Ludwigstraße, were built. Klingenberg was one of the first municipalities in the region to get an underground electrical supply network with its own power station in 1897.
The population figure rose sharply. In 1945, late in the Second World War, there was fighting in Klingenberg between German troops and advancing Americans; the Germans withdrew, but not before blowing up the Main bridge between Klingenberg and Trennfurt, rebuilt only in 1950. The town's historic buildings were hardly affected by the fighting. In 1976, Klingenberg earned worldwide notice for the case of a young woman named Anneliese Michel, whom the Church believed to be possessed by demons. After an exorcism lasting several months, she died. In the framework of municipal reform, Klingenberg was united in 1976 with Trennfurt and Röllfeld to form the new greater town of Klingenberg. Big firms in Klingenberg are the WIKA manometer factory, the ceramic manufacturer Klingenberg Dekoramik in Trennfurt and the lacquer manufacturer Hemmelrath in Röllfeld. Besides industry, tourism is an important sector. Klingenberg clay, which among other things is used in the pencil industry as a graphite additive, is still quarried today as it has been for hundreds of years, albeit not in such great quantities as in the past.
Since 1860, the clay pit has been owned by the municipality. It generated significant profits that enabled the town to pay its citizens a stipend before World War I; the town lies on a designated holiday route. Winegrowing here dates back at least to the 13th century. Klingenberg has at its disposal 30 ha of winegrowing lands under commercial cultivation, whose ancient terraces make up part of the town’s appearance. All together there are three vineyards, the Schlossberg and the Erlenbacher Hohberg (2
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