Heimberg

Geschichte

Heimberg is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.HistoryHeimberg is first mentioned in 1146 as Heimberc.The oldest trace of a settlement in the area are the Roman settlement ruins near Bühlacker. By the Middle Ages the village existed and was ruled by the Freiherr von Heimberg. Very little is known about the family. They appear in historical records from 1146 until 1175 and then vanish. By 1191 the Zähringens owned the village. It was later divided and inherited by the Counts of Kyburg and the Counts of Buchegg. In 1259 Buchegg donated their portion to Interlaken Abbey but the Kyburgs retained their half ownership and, apparently, full control over the village. After a failed raid on Solothurn on 11 November 1382 and the resulting Burgdorferkrieg, the Kyburgs lost most of their lands to Bern in 1384. The city of Bern then passed the half portion of the village to the Bernese Schultheiss Ludwig von Seftigen to rule as a private dominion within the Steffisburg court under the Thun District. Presumably after the 1528 conversion of Bern to the new faith of the Protestant Reformation and suppression of Interlaken Abbey, the tow halves of the village were combined. The village passed through a number of Bernese patrician families over the following centuries.