exception. The majority of surviving pottery pieces date to the period of the establishment of the Nuremberg pfleger office in the 16th century. A selection of these finds is displayed in a glass cabinet in the east wing of the castle. High and Late Middle Ages (11th–14th centuries) The first record of the castle and village of Hiltpoltstein appears in connexion with Weißenohe Abbey, founded in 1100, when the castle is reported as the seat of the associated Vogt. An authentic transcript of the privilege of Pope Paschal II to Weißenohe Abbey from the year 1109 is housed in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. Two transcripts, dating to around 1150, in the archives of Bamberg and Amberg, by contrast, contain not only the text of the Papal Bull, but also a list of all monastic estates, including Hilteboldesdorf cum castro (Hiltpoltstein and castle). These properties were apparently not added until the preparation of the transcripts. The document in Amberg also contains a copied signature of the pope as well as a real papal seal. In spite of the deliberate backdating of the Weißenohe estates in these two examples, it may be assumed that the expansion of Hiltpoltstein Castle as a likely vogt seat occurred at the same time as the abbey was founded. The imperial ministerialis family of Hiltpoltstein-Rothenberg is first recorded in 1139 as Odalricus quidam de Hilteboldestein ("Ulrich of Hiltpoltstein") in a document from Bamberg's Michelsberg Abbey. In connexion with this name, the castle rock (the "Stein") (the "stone") is also confirmed as the seat of his office. In documents originating in the period between 1246 and 1276, a ministerialis called Hiltpold is named after the three associated lordly estates of Lauf, (Wenzelschloss), the castle on the "Alter Rothenberg" hill and Hiltpoltstein. In 1251 he was called Hilteboldus de Hilteboldestein; in 1254, Hiltepoldus de Rotenberge. The "lead name" (Leitname), Hiltpold, was preserved throughout the Hohenstaufen period. After the execution of the last Hohenstaufen, Conradin, in 1268, the estate went to the Bavarian Duke Louis the Strict of the House of Wittelsbach. The family of the castellans of Hiltpoltstein-Rothenberg finally emerged at the end of the 13th century with the marriage of the last Hiltpold to Dietrich of Wildenstein. The old castle of Rothenberg, which had meanwhile become the seat of the Wildensteins, was intervisible with Hiltpoltstein Castle. It was abandoned in the first third of the 14th