Bichishausen

Bichishausen (Münsingen), The county of Reutlingen

Bichishausen Castle was one of the castles of the Lords of Gundelfingen in the valley Großes Lautertal. The ruins owe their current appearance to several phases of remodelling and expansion from the 13th to the 16th century. Today, the castle belongs to the district of Reutlingen.

The place "Bichinishusin" appears in the Zwiefalter Chronicle as early as 1100. The castle itself, after which a branch of the Lords of Gundelfingen were named from the middle of the 13th century, is first explicitly mentioned as a "castrum" in 1296. At that time, the knight Konrad II of Gundelfingen spoke of "his castle Bichishausen" and gave it, together with half of the village, to the cathedral chapter of Constance as a fief. According to the current state of research, however, the aristocratic seat was probably established at the beginning of the  13th century. A presumed second fortification is mentioned in 1306, when the Habsburg Urbar mentions a "tower" in Bichishausen, which, together with the other half of the village, was originally part of the Hohengundelfingen estate under Konrad's brother Swigger VIII of Gundelfingen. His half of the village had come to Habsburg between 1293 and 1306. In 1302, Heinrich VIII of Gundelfingen (Konrad's son) held the aforementioned "tower" from the Habsburg rule as a castle fief, but destroyed it in peace in order to fortify his own nearby castle. However, the location of this tower has not been definitively clarified. It is probably identical to the destroyed humpback ashlar keep, which can be seen in the upper part of the castle complex.

Like the main Hohengundelfingen line, Konrad's line also rapidly declined economically. As early as the end of the 13th century, a large part of the property had to be sold due to "heavy debts". Bichishausen Castle subsequently passed through the hands of several owners. In 1353, the castle was owned by the knight Johann Truchsess of Magolsheim, whose family subsequently called themselves Truchsessen of Bichishausen. In the 16th century, it first came to the imperial councillor Henry Treisch of Buttlar, under whom it underwent extensive modernization, and then to Wolf of Vellberg to Vellberg in 1545. Around the middle of the century, it seems to have become increasingly ruinous, but in 1552 it was passed to Georg of

Helfenberg, in 1627 to the noble family Fürstenberg and was only finally destroyed during the Thirty Years' War. After having been in private ownership for fifty, the district of Reutlingen bought the ruins in 1972. Under the direction of the district, several restoration and uncovering measures were carried out between 1973 and 1975.

Burg Bichishausen von Horst Guth, Cinecopter