The small community Schlossböckelheim in the administrative district of Bad Kreuznach, as well as the neighbouring village Waldböckelheim, are lead us back to a reference as uilla Beccchilenheim in a certificate of 824. Slightly above the village are the ruins of the Castle Böckelheim which became the focus of events in the Empire when Henry V imprisoned his father, the Salian Emperor Henry IV. With the help of a trick, he kept him in the castle and finally forced him to abdicate. In the Palatine War of Succession (1688-1697) the castle was destroyed by French troops. The fortification, of which only a few ruins are left, is one of the oldest in the Nahe region. The Heimberg Tower built in 2008 on the hill with the same name provides hikers and walkers with a panoramic view over the Nahe Valley and the Hunsrück heights. Due to records of the Abbot Johannes Trithemius of Sponheim (1462-1516), Böckelheim was considered Hildegard of Bingen’s place of birth up to the 20th century. In romantic fables, which also impressed the Hildegard biographer Johannes May in 1905, even a meeting between the old Emperor and the young Hildegard in the castle was described and imaginatively embroidered. More recent examinations however, put Böckelheim notably behind Bermersheim and Niederhosenbach as possible places of Hildegard’s origin.