Today the castle located high above the Neckar River valley with its characteristic semicircular rampart and the tower rising up above it is only preserved as a ruins. However, it provides an impression of the former size of the castle complex. It was closely allied with the Electoral Palatinate and its residential town of Heidelberg, Dilsberg Castle reflects the eventful history of this region.
Long before the castle was built, people settled on Dilsberg ground. Finds dating from the early Stone Age and Roman times bear witness to this. The existence of the Castle can first be proven in the high Middle Ages. The castle is mentioned by name for the first time in a document from 1208. However, the Counts of Lauffen had already begun to erect an oval village with a central green (Rundling) and a ring wall, a residential tower and a surrounding ring mote on Dilsberg Mountain in the mid-12th century. As early as 1190 the residential tower was replaced with a keep (Bergfried) and a new "Palas" (residential building).
With the new building the castle on Dilsberg Mountain was intended to push back the influence of the Palgrave, who lived is Heidelberg. For he made an effort to bring Dilsberg Castle into his possession due to its favorable strategic position - regardless of whether it was to control the traffic routes or carry out military campaigns. When the dynasty of Lauffen dies out in the male line in 1212, Dilsberg Castle went to the Counts of Dürn. As a result, the castle increasingly moved in the realm of power of the Heidelberg Palgraves, for the Counts of Dürn became his "lord of the castle" (Burgmannen) and was now obligated to protect Heidelberg Castle. After briefly being in the possession of King Rudolf of Habsburg, Dilsberg Castle fell to the Palgraves once and for all around 1310.
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In the time that followed the Palgraves expanded Dilsberg Castle as a military and administrative location with which the lower Neckar and Elsenz region could be controlled. The first step was the conferring of the rights and privileges of a town on Dilsberg by Ruprecht I, the first Elector of the Palatinate, in 1347. The residents of the neighboring towns of Reidenberg and Rainbach had to move to the newly founded town, which was laid out within a town wall erected around the mountain peak. The Elector now had the right to be supplied by the town, while the citizens received tax allowances and exemption from serfdom.
With the founding of the town the castle complex was modernized at the same time. However, this was virtually a completely new building. The existing complex was mostly torn down and rebuilt with this material in its present - partially - preserved form. In the process the area was reduced and the valley side was straightened in a rectangular form. A rampart with an average thickness of 6.6 ft (2.00 m) and "tourelles" (small towers jutting out from the wall) at the ends of the wall was erected on the foundations of the older ring wall. Further building measures included surrounding the domestic buildings and town, as well as the construction of an outer courtyard. The model for this new castle complex was probably Pfalzgrafenstein Castle near Kaub.
The Elector had secured the expansion of the castle with the founding of the town, however the hoped for economic upturn never came. The town was too far from the major trading routes for this. As a result, the town did not grow and its main task remained the maintenance of the castle. The Electors still attached great importance to this, as is demonstrated by the raising of Dilsberg to an "Unteramt" regional administrative instance (1401). An administrator (or "Keller") administrated the sovereign's own villages, monitored compliance with the rights of sovereignty and collected the taxes of the villages. From this time forth Dilsberg Castle also served as the starting point for the Elector's hunting parties and as a state prison.