Heidesheim Am Rhein - History

History

Many finds from prehistory and early historical times confirm that Heidesheim am Rhein’s municipal area was settled as early as the New Stone Age (5500 to 2200 BC). Most have been chance finds. In Roman times, north of today’s community core, stood an extensive villa rustica, which was forsaken after the Germanic invasions in the early 5th century. Within its walls was built Saint George’s Chapel (Sankt Georgskapelle), around which, after the mid 7th century, Frankish settlers came to live. The municipality’s name is said to go back to an estate owned by a Frankish nobleman called Heisino.

The place had its first documentary mention as Heisinisheim or Hasinisheim in donations to the Lorsch Abbey, the earliest of which purports to date from 762, although in actuality it can only be traced back to some time between September in one of the years between 765 to 768. The earliest confirmed date is 5 July 768. All together, the Lorsch codex catalogues ten endowments for the Lorsch Abbey in Heidesheim between 765 or 768 and 794, of which however none crops up in later documents. This circumstance leads to the inference that Lorsch had already traded or sold its holdings in Heidesheim by the time the Codex was transferred to parchment between 1183 and 1195.

A wider array of documents referring to Heidesheim only comes to light about 1150. The Altmünster Abbey at Mainz then had at its disposal extensive landholdings and half the tithes. Whether these stemmed from the Rhine Counts (Rheingrafen), as one always reads, has yet to be confirmed. Besides this, in 1145, the first holding in Walsheim (a vanished village near Heidenfahrt) passed to Eberbach Abbey, laying the groundwork for the Sandhof (see Culture and sightseeing: Buildings below). Eventually, in 1158, the Lords of Winternheim were mentioned, who later named themselves after the castle, Burg Windeck, as the Lords of Winterau. Besides these three parties, who dominate the historical records, other Mainz monastic foundations and resident families held lands and rights here.

While the Lords of Winternheim began work on Burg Windeck in the earlier half of the 12th century, the actual settlement around Saint George’s Chapel apparently remained unfortified, or at least not amply so: when Archbishop Conrad of Wittelsbach was getting himself ready in 1200 to build Mainz’s city wall up again after it had been razed on Emperor Friedrich I’s orders in 1163, he obliged many villages in the outlying countryside to build their own respective sections. The Heidesheim dwellers had to contribute, arm and maintain five merlons, for which they enjoyed protection, defence, market rights and free buying and selling in the city.

Besides landholdings and income, Altmünster had the Heidesheim Vogtei and thereby sovereign rights over the village. Over the course of the centuries, the Vogtei passed through many holders’ hands: That it was held after 1250 by the Lords of Biegen, who gave it back to Altmünster on 13 February 1285 is clearly not so. The relevant document refers not to Heidesheim, but rather to Hattenheim in the Rheingau. Against this is that the Abbey appointed Werner von Winterau and his male heirs village Vögte on 31 January 1326. The lordly house of Winterau died out before 12 April 1372, on which day a Wilhelm von Scharpenstein was avouched as Vogt. From him the Vogtei passed on 14 July 1385 in inheritance along the male line to Dietrich Huth von Sonnenberg.

On 17 January 1414, the Archbishop of Mainz John II of Nassau documented that the abbess and convent of Altmünster at Mainz had transferred one third of the court at Heidesheim to the Archbishopric. Outside this arrangement were the Vogtei with all its appurtenances, the income and the landholdings that were part of the convent’s estate. This was confirmed in writing to the convent for all time by the Archbishop with the cathedral deacon’s and the cathedral capitular’s consent. Moreover, Altmünster was henceforth to be freed of all contributions and levies imposed by the Archbishop or the cathedral capitular. Both pledged henceforth to protect and defend the convent with all its holdings and rights – particularly the remaining two thirds of the court at Heidesheim Der Mainzer und Magdeburger Erzbischof Kardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg bestätigte die Verfügung seines Vorgängers am 22. Oktober 1522.

Such deals, under which Mainz ecclesiastical and monastic foundations yielded sovereign rights, which they could hardly assert through their own power, to the Archbishop against assurance and protection of their ownership rights were often struck in the time that followed. In Heidesheim’s case, this transfer led to the Archbishop’s Amtmann appearing alongside the Altmünster convent’s Vogt. Men known to have served as Archiepiscopal Amtmänner after 1414 on are, in 1481 Johann Langwerth von Simmern, and from 1565 to 1584 Mainz cathedral cantor Heinrich von Stockheim. Known Vögte from that same time are, from 1468 to 1489 Philipp von Stockheim, and from 1489 to 1524 Count Emmerich of Nassau and his male heirs, from 1524 to 1537 Ritter (“Knight”, or perhaps “Sir”) Rabe von Liebenstein, from 1537 to 1553 Hans Sifrid vom Oberstein, and from 1553, first Konrad, and then Hans Georg von Bicken. That the Amtmann and Vogt often annoyed each other can be seen in two trials fought by Heinrich von Stockheim and Hans Georg von Bicken before the Imperial Chamber Court.

When Hans Georg von Bicken found out that he would keep being denied inheritance along the male line, he asked Archbishop of Mainz Wolfgang von Dalberg on 10 November 1598 to change the Heidesheim Vogtei, which had been transferred to him and his cousins as a non-heritable fief, into a heritable fief. His request was never answered. Thus, when he died about 1608, the Vogtei passed back to Altenmünster. The convent seized the day: On advice that in these hard times they could no longer fulfil the demands that the remaining two thirds of the sovereign rights in Heidesheim required of them, the abbess and convent offered the Elector this two-thirds share. In return, the Archbishop – as had been done in 1414 and 1522 – was to protect holdings, rights and income in the village. The Archbishop accepted the transfer with the specified conditions on the very same day, which suggests that the matter had been being discussed for quite some time.

The year 1609 was a watershed in the municipality’s history. Altenmünster now only held patronage rights at Saint Philip’s and Saint James’s Parish Church; the convent could still suggest priests and bellringers, who had to be confirmed by the Archbishop. Furthermore, in spiritual matters, the archiepiscopal vicariate general was responsible, while in worldly matters Heidesheim was under an Electoral deputy. The offices of monasterial Vogt and Electoral Amtmann were forgone. Eventually, the Electoral Chamber gave out Windeck Castle – until then the Amtmann’s seat – as a heritable asset.