Burgebrach - History

History

The first known name for the place was Urbs Ebraha in 1023. Emperor Heinrich II donated it to the Bishopric of Würzburg, which then sold it to the High Monastery at Bamberg. Burgebrach was the original parish for more than 40 outlying places. It was granted market rights on 21 August 1472 by Bamberg Bishop Georg von Schaumburg.

In 1499, on the Bishop’s demands, three defensive towers had to be built, for which the Bishop exempted the market town from taxes. Walls were needless, as the boggy meadows and the Ebrach’s two arms had long been thwarting enemy attacks. Thus Burgebrach was spared the fury of the Hussite and German Peasants' Wars. Only in 1550 was it beset by the notorious Margrave Albrecht Alkibiades’s, and on 16 February 1632 in the Thirty Years' War by the Swedes’ plundering and pillaging. In 1706, a great deal of money and goods were forced out of the townsfolk by the French.

Since the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the community has no longer belonged to the High Monastery at Bamberg, but rather to Bavaria.

Burgebrach once had Jewish inhabitants who had at their disposal a synagogue and a mikvah. The former has been converted into a home, while the latter, a ritual bath, is used nowadays as a garage. The dead were buried in Walsdorf.