Heidelberg

Traces of human existence around Heidelberg date from the dawn of history: 500,000 years ago the Homo heidelbergensis lived in this area and from the Stone Age potsherds and stone weapons have remained. About 800 B.C., the Celts settled on the Heiligenberg. Later the Romans were here and some important archeological artefacts from this period have been found (providing knowledge about the viniculture). They were driven away by the Alemannic tribe in 260 A.D. A lasting settlement was only founded in the 6th century and the villages Neuenheim and Bergheim developed quickly, followed by Handschuhsheim (765 mentioned first), Rohrbach (766) as well as Wieblingen and Kirchheim (both 767 first mentioned).


The title of the Count Palatinate at Rhine was first granted to Konrad of Hohenstaufen, a brother of Emperor Friedrich I of Barbarossa, in 1155. The name Heidelberch was mentioned for the first time in 1196, in a deed of the Cloister Schönau. The history of the castle starts in 1225, when the Wittelsbach Ludwig I., Count Palatinate 1214-1231, gained a castle as a feudal tenure from the Cloister Lorsch, with the aim that he might protect the trade road into the Neckar valley. In 1356, the electoral title is embodied in the constitution: from that date on, the Count Palatinates held one of the seven titles as Imperial Electors.

In 1386, Ruprecht I. founded the University and even in 1392, Heidelberg extended as far as the present-day Bismarckplatz, and in 1400 the building of the Holy Ghost Church began. In the same year, Elector Ruprecht III. was elected as the German King Ruprecht I. and following his death the Palatinate was divided between his four sons. His son Ludwig III. succeeded him in Heidelberg, and the town was praised in the work of the medieval poet Oswald von Wolkenstein, an acquaintance of the king: "Ich ruem dich, haidlberg" (I laud thee, haidlberg).


In the following years Heidelberg and its castle flourished. Ludwig V. (1508-1544) enforced the fortress elements of the castle, among them the Artillery Garden and the Herb Tower. During this time the Library and the Ladies Building were erected and the Economy buildings enlarged. In 1524 Ludwig V. added the Ludwigsbau and the Hall-of-Mirrors Building was erected under Friedrich II. in 1549. Elector Ottheinrich (1556-1559) began the transition of the castle into a splendid Renaissance building by commissioning the Ottheinrich Palace. Friedrich IV. (1592-1610) added the Friedrichsbau Palace, and also founded the city of Mannheim in 1606/07. Following this, both the castle and Heidelberg flourished dramatically. Peasants, fisherman, craftsmen and traders settled here, but due to the War of Succession hardly anything has remained. An especially beautiful example of a feature that did at the market place, however, is the house Zum Ritter St. Georg which was built by a Huguenot trader in 1592.