At the end of the 8th century, Scheinfeld is mentioned for the first time in a document as "scegisfeldon".

The Matton (name of an early German noble family) Count Egsloff donated a third of his possessions at Scheinfeld to the monastery of Fulda.

The Schwarzenberg palace appears for the first time in a document in 1258. However, a "Bertholdus of Schwarzenburg" is mentioned already in the 12th century. It can be taken for certain that a castle was already there earlier, even though written evidence is missing.

Erkinger of Seinsheim bought the Schwarzenberg palace in the period from 1405 to 1421, the property of which had been shared by five owners from two lines of nobility by then. From then on, he called himself "of Schwarzenberg", and the palace to this day belongs to this noble family.

Thru Erkinger's influence, in 1415 Scheinfeld received, from the emperor Sigismund, the town charter and crest with all the privileges of a free Reich's town, including the right of complete jurisdiction, nomination of clerks of the community, exemption from taxes and others. Also in that time, the city was fortified.

Today parts of the city's wall and the upper gate's tower are preserved as reminders of the fortifications often reconstructed and enlarged in the course of the centuries.

In 1524 Scheinfeld became Protestant by the conversion of Prince Johann to the new confession. After the dying out of the Protestant line of the von Schwarzenbergs, the Catholic line inherited the dominion. After many religious disputes with the Protestant liege lords of Brandenburg , Prince Georg Ludwig of Schwarzenberg ended the counter-reformation in 1627.

In the year 1598, Emperor Rudolf II confirmed the privileges granted to Scheinfeld by Emperor Sigismund in 1415.

In 1607 the southern wing of the Schwarzenberg palace was destroyed by a fire. In the same year the reconstruction commenced according to a draft of Elias Holl, with the well-known master-builder from Augsburg., Jakob Wolff and son, who had built the Nuremberg city hall, doing the construction.

By 1616 the palace had been restored. In the thirty-years war the city and the palace suffered from repeatedly being sacked by Imperial and Swedish troops.

From 1631 to 1634 Scheinfeld was dominated by the Swedish.

Because of extraordinary economical, political and military merits, the House of Schwarzenberg was raised to the hereditary rank of Princes of the Reich in 1670.

From this time also originates the "blacks tower", which instead of the old demolished "Bergfried" gives the palace its impressive look until now.

Since 1668 Franciscans lived and worked at Scheinfeld. In 1702, near the old St. Mary's chapel above the Schwarzenberg palace, they started to built the new monastery which was completed in 1731. The construction of the monastery's church, according to a draft of Balthasar Neumann, lasted from 1732 to 1735.

In place of the city's church that had become dilapidated, in the period from 1766 to 1772 the current parish church was built by J. Ph. Geigel according to a draft of Balthasar Neumann.

After the Napoleonic wars, Scheinfeld passed over to Bavaria in 1805 and became a district town in the Rezat district (later on the administrative district of Central Franconia).

After the branch of the order that had founded the monastery .... according to Franciscan records .... did no longer exist, and the consequences of the secularization had pressed the monastery of Schwarzenberg hard, the Franciscan minorites in 1866 took over the Convent, in which they still live and work .

After the Second World War, Scheinfeld's development towards a town of schools commenced.

In the year 1946 the secondary school of Scheinfeld, then a higher real school, was founded.

In 1951 the boarding school of the Mathilde Zimmer foundation in Schwarzenberg followed, which now houses a real and higher specialist's school.

From the vocational training school, which also was installed after the 2nd World War, the vocational training center .... with an elderly nursing school .... has developed. After 1968 the Franciscan minorites also developed a well-known place for seminars and conferences, the "educational house of the Schwarzenberg monastery".

Resolute and far-sighted local politics prevented Scheinfeld from becoming unimportant after the extinction of the district (with loss of the most authorities) in the course of the local governments reform in 1972.

Today, Scheinfeld is a tourist information center for the entire Steiger forest, a school center, location of non-polluting industry and middle sized enterprises. A small town with an active cultural life, ideal leisure facilities and aspiring tourism in an attractive countryside.


(note) ... A "Bergfried" (="saving enclosure") is the building or tower used as a last resort in a battle, mostly a very massive and the most impressive structure or highest tower of the castle.

My thanks to Johannes Soukup, in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, for his assistance in the translation of this document.