Irmelshausen is a village in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

of Höchheim in the district of

Rhön-Grabfeld Rhön-Grabfeld is a ''Landkreis'' (district) in Bavaria, Germany. It is bounded by (from the southeast and clockwise) the districts of Hassberge, Schweinfurt and Bad Kissingen, and the states of Hesse (district Fulda) and Thuringia (districts ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Castle

Irmelshausen is best known for its castle and related church. Irmelshausen, on the old border between

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

and

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

, is one of the most appealing castles in this region of Germany (

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian languages, Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three Regierungsbezirk, administrative ...

). Irmelshausen is first mentioned in the year 800 when Emhild, the Abbess of Milz and a relative of

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first ...

, gave the village to the Counts of Henneberg. In 1354, upon the marriage of Countess Elisabeth with the Count Eberhard of Württemberg, the village was sold to the

Bishopric of Würzburg In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...

. Twenty-two years later the bishopric transferred it to Berthold

von Bibra The House of Bibra () was one of the leading '' Uradel'' (ancient noble) families in Franconia (northern part of Bavaria) and present day Thuringia from the mid-15th century to about 1600. Later on the family rose from ''Reichsri ...

. Since that time, it has been greatly enlarged and has been one of the main seats of the Bibra family. Parts of the castle were previously taller but during a remodeling in 1854 the half-timbered sections were lowered to the present height. Until recently it was the site of the Bibra family archives which were fortunately moved to Irmelshausen from Bibra prior to the German Peasants' War in 1524-25. The second seat of the von Bibra family, through diplomacy it escaped attack and destruction in both the Peasants' War of 1525 and the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle ...

of 1618-48 when almost all the surrounding castles were taken and sacked. It is said that the first enemy soldier to enter the castle during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

did so on April 8, 1945. The American Col. Vennard Wilson was served tea, noted the contents of the castle and ordered it off limits to troops. The castle itself, the two farms and the forest is owned by the

Bibra family The House of Bibra () was one of the leading ''Uradel'' (ancient noble) families in Franconia (northern part of Bavaria) and present day Thuringia from the mid-15th century to about 1600. Later on the family rose from ''Reichsrit ...

(older and younger lines) and the adopted daughter of the Bibra family who is by birth a Guttenberg and by marriage a Stauffenberg. Besides the five-sided castle, the late Gothic church with its numerous and beautiful Bibra gravestones from the 16th and 17th centuries is worth visiting.

Notes and references

Bibliography

*Bibra, Wilhelm Frhr. von, 1880: ''Beiträge zur Familien Geschichte der Reichsfreiherrn von Bibra, Erster Band'' (vol. 1) *Bibra, Wilhelm Frhr. von, 1882: ''Beiträge zur Familien Geschichte der Reichsfreiherrn von Bibra, Zweiter Band'' (vol. 2) *Bibra, Wilhelm Frhr. von, 1888: ''Beiträge zur Familien Geschichte der Reichsfreiherrn von Bibra, Dritter Band'' (vol. 3) *Karlinger, Hans, 1915: ''Die Kunstdenkmäler von Bayern, III, 13. Bezirksamt Königshofen''. Munich; reprinted Munich 1983 *Sayn-Wittgenstein, Franz, 1974: ''Schlosser in Franken: Residenzen Und Landsitze Im Frankischen''

External links

Wilhelm Frhr. von Bibra, ''Geschichte der Familie der Freiherrn von Bibra'', 1870

Vonbibra.net Irmelshausen page
{{authority control Bibra family Buildings and structures in Rhön-Grabfeld Landmarks in Germany Castles in Bavaria