With the construction of the "small palace" in the second half of the 12th century, this hall replaced the former open hall (which was located on today's terrace). This new hall initially had 4 huge trilobal window openings to the south (as it still has today) and 7 windows to the north, from which 3 were the equivalent of the southern windows, and 4 with round arches.

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A hall like this could be used only in good weather conditions. But we have to assume that the 12th century knew a fair climate, and the benches inside the window openings show that time was spent here chatting, playing games, making homeworks or just relaxing ...

 

Nevertheless, in winter time, one could not spent a lot of time here. Pretty much of the "official" court life might for that reason have been timed in summer, which was also favoured by travelling conditions.

 

With the construction of the "large palace" (with a new great hall and private appartments) this place got a supplementary role for the season of bad weather. One could use it as a covered gallery to get from the new hall to the chapel and vice-versa.

 

When customs of courtal life changed and climate became less fortunate in the late middle ages, the hall was subdivided into several rooms for different purposes. To the chapel side (top of the knight's study) a new "caminata" (heated room) was installed by using the existing chimney of the knight's study; it was to be called "knight's chamber".

 

In 1891, when the castle laid in ruins, the middle gable collapsed in a storm and destroyed not only the vaults of the entrance hall & garrison, but also all the windows of the gallery north side. When in the 1920s the german castle expert Bodo Ebhardt started to rebuild this fascade, he chose the homogenous model of the southern side window openings as a model for reconstruction; by consequence today's northern fascade disposes of 6 trilobal windows, and not 7 of 2 different types as before.