Herrstein owes its beginnings to the crags at which a little stream called the Dietersbach emptied into the Fischbach, which seemed like a good place to build a castle to watch over the lordly holdings near Niederwörresbach, from which Herrstein was at first administered. At the foot of this stronghold on the so-called "Herren-Stein" (“Lord’s Stone”) arose a village, as so often happened when a castle was built in the Middle Ages. The castle and the village belonged then to the Counts of Sponheim, and Herrstein grew in importance as the seat of a Sponheim "Oberamtmann"