When Hans Georg von Bicken found out that he would keep being denied inheritance along the male line, he asked Archbishop of Mainz Wolfgang von Dalberg on 10 November 1598 to change the Heidesheim "Vogtei", which had been transferred to him and his cousins as a non-heritable fief, into a heritable fief. His request was never answered. Thus, when he died about 1608, the "Vogtei" passed back to Altenmünster. The convent seized the day: On advice that in these hard times they could no longer fulfil the demands that the remaining two thirds of the sovereign rights in Heidesheim required of them, the abbess and convent offered the Elector this two-thirds share. In return, the Archbishop – as had been done in 1414 and 1522 – was to protect holdings, rights and income in the village. The Archbishop accepted the transfer with the specified conditions on the very same day, which suggests that the matter had been being discussed for quite some time.