Brake Castle

Bernhard II, Edelherr zur Lippe, ordered the construction of the great moated castle of Brake around 1190, at the same time as he founded the town of Lemgo. Around 1280, Simon I moved the residence of the Lippe nobles from Rheda to Brake. He had the "castrum brac" fortified with a wall and built a chapel and farm buildings. His successors ruled Brake Castle until 1410, when it was conquered in the Soest feud (1447). From 1536 it was the widow's seat of the Lippe dynasty. After 1571, Countess Dowager Katharina zur Lippe had the medieval palace and gatehouse rebuilt in the Renaissance style.

Count Simon VI zur Lippe moved his residence from Detmold to Brake. Around 1584 he commissioned Hermann Wulff, a master builder from Lemgo, to build the new castle (north wing) and the mighty tower in the Renaissance style. The castle contained the lord's apartments, a large banqueting hall, a chapel and a kitchen. In the Brake tower there was an exclusive study with a secret chamber and the count's extensive library. A gifted organist, Simon commissioned the Scherer workshop in Hamburg to build a magnificent organ for the castle chapel in Brake.

Simon VI was a well-educated Renaissance prince. He studied at the Strasbourg Gymnasium and was a Calvinist. In order to maintain the political position of the county of Lippe in the Holy Roman Empire, the Calvinist count always sought proximity to the Catholic imperial court. He mediated on behalf of Rudolf II in the Dutch War of Independence and used his diplomatic contacts to acquire Dutch paintings for the imperial collection. In 1598, Simon VI was appointed imperial councillor and in 1608, imperial chamberlain. He owned a prestigious castle with a roof garden and an equestrian staircase on the Hradschin in Prague.

Three of the original four wings of the Brake Renaissance castle remain. The west wing was demolished in 1811. Today Brake Castle is the seat of the Lippischer Landesverband and the Weser Renaissance Museum.