Bickenreute / Birkenreute

Location: Oberrieder Str. 5, Kirchzarten, Landkreis Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland
Surnames/tags: Ruf Dold

Bickenreute (officially: Birkenreute) is the name of a property near Kirchzarten, Baden-Württemberg, located at the eastern part of the valley at the bottom of Hinterwaldkopf. The name is composed from a person named Buggo or Biko, probably a form of Burkart or Burchard, and -reute. The latter is the result of "Rodung", the German word for clearing of woods and forests from vegetation.

The (misleading) name Birkenreute (Birke = birch) seems to have been used first in 1793 by Dr. Schwartz, second last mayor of Freiburg Talvogtei in Kirchzarten, but never managed to replace the old form completely.

Bickenreute was separated in two farms, the lower and the upper one. While the lower one was owned by nobility, the upper one was owned be the monastery of St. Märgen. However, the upper one as also used by nobility, who paid the monastery a fee for it. An inventory (Rodel) of the monastery first mentions the property in 1262. A family named Bikenrüti and similiar forms like Buckenrütte and Buggenrüti had been documented in Freiburg before and/or after this year, One could assume that these people came from this property.

In 1462 the monastery sold all its property except St. Märgen church and what belonged to it to the city of Freiburg. This included the upper farm of Bickenreute, which in 1517 the city gave to the owner of the lower one for usage. In 1557 the city also bought the lower part, but sold it again. In 1740 Freiburg was owning both parts together with what else they bought from the monastery and what belonged to Talvogtei.

While Kirchzarten became part of the Grand Duchy of Baden as consequence of the Peace of Pressburg in 1805, Bickenreute remained at Freiburg until it was incorporated into Kirchzarten in 1924.

People

• Oswald Ruf and his wife Maria Dold (1683-1747) where operating one of the two farms after 1737 (probably) until their deaths in 1743 and 1747.^[1]

External links

• photographs at Wikimedia Commons

Sources

1. ↑ Klaus Weber: Höfechronik von St. Peter; Freiburg im Breisgau 1997/1998, p. 222, #15

• Bernhard Schelb: Bickenreute. Freiburger Diöcesan-Archiv Band 73 (1953), p. 208-215 (scan, transcript) - mainly based on Ernst Georg Kürz: Biekenreute, Versuch der Geschichte eines Freiburger Schloßgutes (1930), Stadtarchiv Freiburg, H 276

• Joseph Rösch: Birkenreuthe, Freiburger Adreß-Kalender: für das Jahr 1851, p. III-XXXII (for further reading, feel free to incorporate information from there in this page, also contains a map)