Sankt Julian (often rendered St. Julian) is an ''
Ortsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative division, administrative unit in the Germany, German States of Germany, federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically compose ...
'' – a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
belonging to a ''
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative unit in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically composed of a small group of villages or towns.
Rhineland- ...
'', a kind of collective municipality – in the
Kusel
Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...
district
A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...
in
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. It belongs to the
''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein.
Geography
Location
The municipality lies on the river
Glan in the Western
Palatinate.
The municipality’s main centre, likewise called Sankt Julian, lies in the Glan valley, mainly on the river’s left bank and on both sides of ''
Bundesstraße
''Bundesstraße'' (German for "federal highway"), abbreviated ''B'', is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.
Germany
Germany's ''Bundesstraßen'' network has a total length of about 40,000 km.
German ''Bundesstraßen'' ...
'' 420, while over on the right bank, a new, smaller neighbourhood has arisen. Also standing there are the
school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
, the
kindergarten
Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...
and the ''Museumsmühle'' ("
Museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
Mill
Mill may refer to:
Science and technology
*
* Mill (grinding)
* Milling (machining)
* Millwork
* Textile mill
* Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel
* List of types of mill
* Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...
"). Formerly running through the village was the
''Glantalbahn'' (
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
), but service was permanently ended on this stretch of the line in 1992. Sankt Julian’s nominal limits reach from the fertile cropfields in the Glan valley up to the heights either side of the river. Some 300 ha of its traditional area of 1 407 ha now lies within the Baumholder troop drilling ground. Elevations range from 190 m above
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...
on the valley floor up to 463 m above sea level at the Ottskopf in the so-called Schwarzland.
The outlying centre of Eschenau lies downstream from the Steinalb’s mouth on the Glan’s left bank on a
point bar
A point bar is a depositional feature made of alluvium that accumulates on the inside bend of streams and rivers below the slip-off slope. Point bars are found in abundance in mature or meandering streams. They are crescent-shaped and located on ...
at 180 m above sea level in its lowest spots, and roughly 250 m above sea level in its higher ones. North of this centre, the land climbs steeply up to the heights, which stand almost 400 m above sea level. The other side of the Glan with the buildings of the former ''Schrammenmühle'' (a mill) belongs to the former (before the amalgamation) municipal area of Gumbsweiler, itself now part of Sankt Julian, like Eschenau. Some two kilometres up the Glan lies
Niederalben
Niederalben is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, wh ...
’s outlying centre of Neuwirtshaus, and just beyond that is
Rathsweiler
Rathsweiler is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, who ...
. About one kilometre down the Glan lies Sankt Julian’s like-named main centre, and across the Glan to the southeast lies another of Sankt Julian’s centres, Gumbsweiler.
Gumbsweiler lies in a hollow in the middle Glan valley on the river’s right bank right near the municipality’s other centres of Sankt Julian and Eschenau at an elevation of roughly 180 m above sea level. Elevations outside the built-up area reach more than 350 m above sea level: the Hubhöhe (364 m), the Großer Mayen (352 m), the Wackerhübel (321 m). The ''Schrammenmühle'' with five houses lies some 1.5 km up the Glan and can best be reached from the left bank by way of the constituent community of Eschenau. The Pilgerhof ("Pilgrim’s Estate") lies some 4 km from the centre on the southern edge of the Freudenwald ("Joy Forest"). This was built in 1964-1965 as an ''
Aussiedlerhof'' (an
agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
settlement established after the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
to increase food production). Gumbsweiler’s area measures 435 ha, of which 67 ha is cropland, 172 ha is grassland, 155 ha is wooded and 63 ha is settled
'sic''
Obereisenbach, Sankt Julian’s fourth centre, lies apart from the others some 250 m above sea level on the upper reaches of the Eisenbach (also called the Kesselbach), which empties into the Glan near
Glanbrücken
Glanbrücken is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein. ...
’s outlying centre of Niedereisenbach. The mountains either side of the narrow brook valley climb up to 400 m above sea level. Only a few hundred metres up from this centre runs the boundary with the Baumholder troop drilling ground.
Neighbouring municipalities
Sankt Julian borders in the north on the municipality of
Kirrweiler
Kirrweiler is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in E ...
, in the northeast on the municipality of
Deimberg
Deimberg is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein.
Ge ...
, in the east on the municipality of
Glanbrücken
Glanbrücken is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein. ...
, in the southeast on the municipality of
Horschbach
Horschbach is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, wh ...
, in the south on the municipality of
Welchweiler, in the southwest on the municipality of
Ulmet, in the west on the municipality of
Niederalben
Niederalben is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, wh ...
and in the northwest on the
Baumholder
Baumholder () is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, in the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France. The town of Baumholder is the administrative seat of the like-named ''Verba ...
troop drilling ground. Sankt Julian also meets the municipality of
Bedesbach
Bedesbach is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, whos ...
at a single point in the south.
Constituent communities
Sankt Julian’s ''
Ortsteil
A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, community, larger than a hamlet (place), hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population t ...
e'' are the main centre, likewise called Sankt Julian, Eschenau, Gumbsweiler and Obereisenbach. Under many of the headings in this article, each of the four centres will be treated separately, as their histories and backgrounds are on many points quite different from each other. The municipality of Sankt Julian is not so much a village as an amalgamation of four historically separate villages, which were only united into one political body in relatively recent times.
Municipality’s layout
Sankt Julian (main centre)
The village’s appearance is characterized by its topography. A linear village (by some definitions, a "thorpe") sprang up in the valley along the river’s left bank, later spreading out to the hillside along two sidestreets. The neighbourhood around the
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
can be considered the village’s hub.
Prehistoric
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
finds have shown that the area was already settled in
La Tène times and on into
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
times. As a
pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
centre and seat of the ''Vierherrengericht'' ("Four-Lord Court"), the village was said to be a central place in the
Glan valley, and to this day it can still claim a certain central placement. The formerly self-administering municipality of Sankt Julian had a great municipal area that bordered on the fields of neighbouring Eschenau, Niederalben, Obereisenbach and Niedereisenbach on the Glan’s left bank, while on the right bank it bordered on Gumbsweiler,
Welchweiler,
Horschbach
Horschbach is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, wh ...
and
Hachenbach. These limits can be explained by the village’s
mediaeval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
history. Sankt Julian, Eschenau, Obereisenbach and Niederalben (along with the vanished villages of Ohlscheid, Hunhausen and Grorothisches Gericht) quite likely had a jointly held woodland and a
common
Common may refer to:
Places
* Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
* Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts
* Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts
* Clapham Common, originally com ...
, splitting these up among themselves only in the course of time. All this explains the tangle of municipal boundaries. In 1905 these villages’ municipal areas together still spread over 1 856 ha of land, matching the area occupied by the old ''Vierherrengericht''. Still belonging today to Sankt Julian’s municipal area is a 327-hectare uninhabited area called the "Schwarzland" ("Blackland") which was incorporated into the Baumholder troop drilling ground in the 1930s when the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
established it, and which has now formally been transferred back to the municipality. Over on the Glan’s right bank, the formerly self-administering municipality of Sankt Julian had parts of its municipal area. They bordered on the Lenschbach, which formerly marked the border between lands held by the
Waldgrave
The noble family of the Waldgraves or Wildgraves (Latin: ''comites silvestres'') descended of a division of the House of the Counts of Nahegau in the year 1113.
When the (a countship named after the river Nahe) split into two parts in 1113 ...
s and those held by the Duchy of
Palatinate-Zweibrücken. Some rural cadastral toponyms, for instance "Pfaffental" (meaning roughly "Parson’s Dale"), still recall a time when Sankt Julian was an important
pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
place, and perhaps also the seat of a
monastery
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...
. The municipal area was worked on into the 20th century by small
agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
landholds that busied themselves with grain growing,
livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...
raising, fruitgrowing and, on a small scale,
winegrowing
Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...
. A few bigger farms had between 10 and 20 hectares, while most others were quite small, with some 3 or 4 hectares. In the 19th century, the growing population overstretched the available agricultural land and farmers began looking for other opportunities for a livelihood, with many of them resorting to
emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
. Today there are only a few farmers, and modern agriculture in Sankt Julian, as in all other villages in the Glan valley, only offers earning opportunities for a few operations.
Eschenau
''
Bundesstraße
''Bundesstraße'' (German for "federal highway"), abbreviated ''B'', is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.
Germany
Germany's ''Bundesstraßen'' network has a total length of about 40,000 km.
German ''Bundesstraßen'' ...
'' 420 also runs through Sankt Julian’s constituent community of Eschenau, on which, towards Sankt Julian, stand the buildings of a former industrial concern. On the north side on the way into the village lies the graveyard. Branching off ''Bundesstraße'' 420 in Eschenau are two notable village streets. One runs southwards to the Glan. At the end stands the former
railway station
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
, in which today the painter Dietmar E. Hofmann maintains a permanent art exhibition, calling the old station the ''Kleiner Kunstbahnhof'' ("Little Art Railway Station"). Likewise standing on this street is the former
school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
house, which has since been converted into a village community centre. The other street branches off northwards and mainly serves a new building zone. Farmhouses called ''Einfirsthäuser'' ("single-roof-ridge houses"), which are typical of the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, stand in the area near the intersections. In the village’s west end the ''Schrammenmühle'' (a mill) can be reached over a bridge across the
Glan. The former
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
line, now used by
draisine
A draisine () is a light auxiliary rail vehicle, driven by service personnel, equipped to transport crew and material necessary for the maintenance of railway infrastructure.
The eponymous term is derived from the German inventor Baron Karl ...
-pedalling tourists, crosses the Glan near the station and then turns towards the former Sankt Julian station.
Gumbsweiler
The houses in Gumbsweiler’s original built-up area stand safe from
flood
A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...
ing at the foot of the ''Kleine Höhe'' ("Little Heights") and near the bridge crossing. Until the 20th century, the
Glan flooded regularly, especially when the Steinalb fed vast amounts of water into it, and the river’s course changed time and again. In a later phase of settlement, the even north slope of the heights was settled. Thus arose an irregular, thin village with
open strip fields. Houses and outbuildings were as a rule built with only a single floor. Only after measures had been undertaken to control the Glan, and after the railway embankment had been built did people once again risk occupying the lands near the water. A roadway parallel to the Glan formed and four sidestreets branched off towards the mountain slope. All streets, however, led to the bridge. The village church stands there, as do the gristmill and the village
limetree. The crossroads up from the mill has been since days of old the gathering point for villagers and youth. In 1905, the village streets were still lit with
oil lamp
An oil lamp is a lamp used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and continues to this day, although their use is less common in modern times. Th ...
s. Only in 1921 were the village and its houses linked to the electricity grid. The great shift in the village’s appearance and modernization of the houses, though, was brought by the building of the central watermain in 1954 and the laying of
sewerage
Sewerage (or sewage system) is the infrastructure that conveys sewage or surface runoff (stormwater, meltwater, rainwater) using sewers. It encompasses components such as receiving drainage, drains, manholes, pumping stations, storm overflows, a ...
in 1984-1987. The houses had floors added onto them, sanitary fittings were installed,
washing machine
A washing machine (laundry machine, clothes washer, washer, or simply wash) is a home appliance used to wash laundry. The term is mostly applied to machines that use water as opposed to dry cleaning (which uses alternative cleaning fluids and ...
s became available and
heating systems were brought up to date. The village streets, too, were sealed to make them suitable for modern traffic, and also expanded and properly lit. Gumbsweiler’s nominal area stretches between the Glan and the Grundbach to the Hubhöhe (heights) and to the woodland known as the ''Großes Mayen''. It is thus very hilly and has many slopes, more shady north slopes than sunny south slopes. The soils are sandy,
loam
Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–sil ...
y and stony, and the depths are mainly
slaty
Slate gray is a gray color with a slight azure tinge that is a representation of the average color of the material slate. As a tertiary color, slate is an equal mix of purple and green pigments.
Slaty, referring to this color, is often used ...
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
-
marl
Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, clays, and silt. When hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae.
Marl makes up the lower part o ...
beds. They are not very fertile and have been ranked on a quality scale at 37 points out of 100. Furthermore, there is the dearth of precipitation. The plots were quite small and broadly scattered. The village lies in the northern strip of its nominal area, meaning that farmers often had to walk up to 2 km to and from their plots, along with equipment drawn by horses, oxen or even cows.
Tractor
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...
s only began to appear after 1950. The heights are used for cropraising while the meadows down in the dale and the slopes are used for grazing or fruitgrowing. The Freudenwald is the biggest continuous woodland. In the years from 1972 to 1979, "classic" ''
Flurbereinigung
is the German language, German word best translated as ''land consolidation''. Unlike the land reforms carried out in the socialist countries of the Eastern Bloc, including East Germany, the idea of was not so much to distribute large quasi-feu ...
'' was undertaken. This laid the groundwork for one farming operation that was run as a main income-earning business and five others that were run as secondary occupations. Through leaseholds, farms of more than 50 ha were created. Twenty-five hectares of new forest was planted. In the cadastral area called "Saupferch", a landscaped pond with a shooting clubhouse and a grilling pavilion appeared in 1982. The country lanes were expanded to almost 50 km. Eight kilometres of these were paved with
blacktop
Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and tarmac, bitumen macadam, or rolled asphalt in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parkin ...
.
Obereisenbach
As of 2005, Obereisenbach is made up of 28 houses, most of which stand on the brook’s left bank. In the village’s upper end, a short street with a few houses on it branches off towards the west mountain slope. Before this junction stands the former
school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
house, which is now a private house. Up from the village, towards the Baumholder troop drilling ground, stands the former ''Bitschenmühle'', while another mill stood down from the village. Their buildings nowadays serve as private houses. Between the lower mill and the beginning of the built-up area lies the graveyard. The village
inn
Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...
, which is sometimes visited by a great many daytrippers, stands in the village’s upper end. The former workshops and commercial buildings at the former
quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envi ...
on the Reuterrech, the slope on the dale’s left side, have been converted into a hunting lodge and now serve to entertain many
hunting
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
guests.
History
Antiquity
Sankt Julian (main centre)
The settled area around Sankt Julian is very old. On the bed of the Lenschbach in the 1950s, two
jade
Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group of ...
hatchets
A hatchet (from the Old French , a diminutive form of ''hache'', ' axe' of Germanic origin) is a single-handed striking tool with a sharp blade on one side used to cut and split wood, and a hammerhead on the other side. Hatchets may also be us ...
were found and determined to be from the
New Stone Age
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
, and thus some 5,000 years old. In the cadastral area of Schwarzland about 1938, two urn graves from
La Tène times (450 BC) were unearthed along with a blue glass ring as
grave goods
Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are the items buried along with the body.
They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods may be classed as a ...
. The old churchtower shows some
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
spolia. It could be that the
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
was built on the same site as an earlier
Roman temple
Ancient Roman temples were among the most important buildings in Roman culture, and some of the richest buildings in Roman architecture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete state. Today they remain "the most obvious symbol of Ro ...
, and it is therefore easy to see that the builders would have salvaged bits of this old building for the church. When the church was given a new nave in 1874, Roman spolia from the old nave were saved. At first, these were kept in the churchtower before being transferred to the ''Historisches Museum der Pfalz'' ("Historical Museum of the Palatinate") in
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer li ...
in 1970. Casts of these spolia now adorn the wallwork at the steps that lead into the church. They depict a
hippocamp
The hippocampus or hippocamp, also ''hippokampos'' (plural: hippocampi or hippocamps; grc, ἱππόκαμπος, from , "horse" and , "sea monster" and they come from a Roman tomb. This mythical creature is hitched to a sea god’s chariot. Other Roman spolia are found in the churchtower’s wallwork. Also among the finds have been two Amazon shields, as they are customarily found on pedestals at
Mithraea
A Mithraeum , sometimes spelled Mithreum and Mithraion ( grc, Μιθραίον), is a Mithraic temple, erected in classical antiquity by the worshippers of Mithras. Most Mithraea can be dated between 100 BC and 300 AD, mostly in the Roman Emp ...
. Further bearing witness to a Roman presence are Roman soldiers’ and traders’ graves along with gold coins from
Emperor Constantine’s time.
Eschenau
The broader area around Eschenau was settled in
prehistoric times
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
, bearing witness to which, among other things, are
hammerstone
In archaeology, a hammerstone is a hard cobble used to strike off lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone during the process of lithic reduction. The hammerstone is a rather universal stone tool which appeared early in most regions of the wo ...
s from the
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
, which have also turned up in neighbouring municipalities. Further prehistoric and also
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
finds have come to light in neighbouring Sankt Julian and Gumbsweiler. Coins and bricks found near Eschenau show that there was a settlement at what is now greater Sankt Julian as long ago as AD 360.
Gumbsweiler
A
prehistoric
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
barrow, about which there were once reports, is now no longer to be found. Of particular interest, however, are the finds of two little stone hatchets, which might date from the
New Stone Age
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
, although on the other hand they might also be of Roman origin. One of these finds was owned by Friedrich W. Weber and is today kept at the Kusel district administration. It is a
trapezoid
A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium ().
A trapezoid is necessarily a Convex polygon, convex quadri ...
al hatchet blade made of
jade
Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group of ...
with a wholly intact edge and workmanship that shows masterful skill in grinding and polishing. It was found in the bed of the Grundbach. Another stone hatchet of similar quality was found near the graveyard and is today still in private ownership. While digging work was being done at the Klosterflur (rural cadastral area), workers struck some old walling made of limestone mortar, some thick bits of tile and a great number of potsherds and artefacts from
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
times. A
Gallo-Roman
Gallo-Roman culture was a consequence of the Romanization of Gauls under the rule of the Roman Empire. It was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman culture, language, morals and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context ...
settlement likely stood here, which may have some link with the Roman finds in neighbouring Sankt Julian. Furthermore, a sewer made of stone slabs, open at the top and leading to the Grundbach was also struck. The village’s farmers are always telling of building blocks being brought up by their ploughs in the fields, and of light stripes seen running across the earth in their seeded fields in times of drought. It could mean that a Gallo-Roman
villa rustica
Villa rustica () was the term used by the ancient Romans to denote a farmhouse or villa set in the countryside and with an agricultural section, which applies to the vast majority of Roman villas. In some cases they were at the centre of a large ...
lies buried underneath, or perhaps a monasterial estate from the early days of the so-called ''Remigiusland''.
Obereisenbach
Graves found within Obereisenbach’s nominal area point to settlers in the area in
prehistoric times
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
. On the heights west of the village, some land surveyors found a
silex
Silex is any of various forms of ground stone. In modern contexts the word refers to a finely ground, nearly pure form of silica or silicate.
In the late 16th century, it meant powdered or ground up "flints" (i.e. stones, generally meaning the c ...
blade, which is now kept at the ''Historisches Museum der Pfalz'' ("Historical Museum of the Palatinate") in
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer li ...
. In the formerly municipally unassigned cadastral area of Schwarzland northwest of Obereisenbach, nowadays part of the Baumholder troop drilling ground, cable layers unearthed two
flat grave
A flat grave is a burial in a simple oval or rectangular pit. The pit is filled with earth, but the grave is not marked above the surface by any means such as a tumulus or upstanding earthwork. Both intact human bodies (skeletal grave) and cremate ...
s which also yielded up beakers, dishes, pots and a glass ring. It was most likely a cremation grave at which the bodies were burnt on site.
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
finds have been unearthed mainly in neighbouring Sankt Julian and Gumbsweiler. A Roman
bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
statue – an idol – was found by a farmer while he was ploughing. This figure is now kept in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
. Roman potsherds have also turned up near Obereisenbach.
Middle Ages
Sankt Julian (main centre)
It is unknown when the tower that still stands now at the old
Romanesque church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
in Sankt Julian was built, but going by its stylistic elements, it might have been sometime about the turn of the 12th century. It is highly likely that an earlier church once stood on this same spot. About 1290, a priest named Conrad worked in Sankt Julian, a well-to-do man who endowed a
chapel
A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...
to hold
Saint Juliana’s relic
In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangi ...
s, which was built right next to the then Romanesque church. Furthermore, Conrad bequeathed to the village a great landhold. After the chapel was built, Sankt Julian must have grown into a
pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
centre. In the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, there was in the Rhinegravial lands between the rivers
Glan and
Nahe an entity known as the ''Hochgericht auf der Heide'' ("High Court on the Heath"), within which the
Waldgrave
The noble family of the Waldgraves or Wildgraves (Latin: ''comites silvestres'') descended of a division of the House of the Counts of Nahegau in the year 1113.
When the (a countship named after the river Nahe) split into two parts in 1113 ...
s and Rhinegraves exercised
high jurisdiction
High, middle and low justices are notions dating from Western feudalism to indicate descending degrees of judicial power to administer justice by the maximal punishment the holders could inflict upon their subjects and other dependents.
Low just ...
. This high court was further divided into smaller court districts, among which was the ''Vierherrengericht'' ("Four-Lord Court"), whose seat was in Sankt Julian. In 1424, the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves enfeoffed a Count Johann vom Steine with the village, while a Hugelin vom Steine (perhaps Count Johann’s brother) had already been enfeoffed with the neighbouring village of Obereisenbach (now a constituent community of Sankt Julian) and with a mill at Sankt Julian itself.
Eschenau
Eschenau lay in the
Nahegau
The Nahegau was in the Middle Ages a county, which covered the environs of the Nahe and large parts of present-day Rhenish Hesse, after a successful expansion of the narrow territory, which did not reach the Rhine, to the disadvantage of the Worms ...
, and was likely founded only in the 11th or 12th century. An exact date has never been determined. According to the 1340 document that contains Eschenau’s first documentary mention, Eschenau was granted to the Lords of Montfort, then represented by Sophie of Monfort. She was obliged to pay a tithe through the Church of Sankt Julian to the monastery on the Remigiusberg amounting to two ''Malter'' of
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
, two ''Malter'' of corn (possibly meaning
rye), four ''Malter'' of
oat
The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human con ...
s and six ''Logel'' of
wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...
. The payments might well have been missed for several years. Sophie then showed herself ready to comply with the requirements. According to a 1366 document, though, the Church of Sankt Julian now had some paying of its own to do. Sophie was now ready to take on half the tithe payments, while the provost was now to pay the other half. Territorially, Eschenau then belonged to the ''Vierherrengericht'' ("Four-Lord Court") of Sankt Julian within the ''Hochgericht auf der Heide'' ("High Court on the Heath"). The responsible
feudal
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...
lords were the Lords of Steinkallenfels, the Lords of Kyrburg (Kirn) and the Rhinegraves of Grumbach. Eschenau was nevertheless time and again transferred by the territorial lords to subordinate
castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
lords and officials. While in the 14th century the village was held by the Lords of Montfort, in the late 15th century it passed in equal shares to Heinrich of Ramberg, Emerich of Löwenstein and Rudolf of Alben. On the other hand, personages from Eschenau can be named who were in foreign service, such as the young nobleman Kunz von Eschenau, who served the town of
Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...
in 1477, and Ludwig von Eschenau, who about 1544 was an ''
Amtmann
__NOTOC__
The ''Amtmann'' or ''Ammann'' (in Switzerland) was an official in German-speaking countries of Europe and in some of the Nordic countries from the time of the Middle Ages whose office was akin to that of a bailiff. He was the most seni ...
'' in
Meisenheim
Meisenheim () is a town in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the like-named ''Verbandsgemeinde'', and is also its seat. Meisenheim is a state-recognized recreational resort (''Erholungsort'') and it is s ...
and later in
Bergzabern
Bad Bergzabern () is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, on the German Wine Route in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated near the border with France, on the south-eastern edge of the Palatinate forest, approximately ...
, and also a
Palatinate ''Großhofmeister''.
Gumbsweiler
Going by the village’s name, ending as it does in ''—weiler'', Gumbsweiler might have been founded early in the time when the
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...
were taking over the land. At that time, it lay within the so-called ''Remigiusland'' around
Kusel
Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...
and
Altenglan
Altenglan is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan. Alten ...
, which in the early 12th century was taken over by the
Counts of Veldenz
The County Palatine of Veldenz was a principality in the contemporary Land Rhineland-Palatinate with full voting rights to the Reichstag. The county was located partially between Kaiserslautern, Sponheim and Zweibrücken, partially on the Mose ...
as a ''
Vogt
During the Middle Ages, an (sometimes given as modern English: advocate; German: ; French: ) was an office-holder who was legally delegated to perform some of the secular responsibilities of a major feudal lord, or for an institution such as ...
ei''. Gumbsweiler, however, only had its first documentary mention in 1364 in a document from Count Heinrich of Veldenz. The count’s son, who later became Heinrich III of Veldenz, was married to
Lauretta (or Loretta) of
Sponheim
Sponheim is a municipality in the district of Bad Kreuznach in Rhineland-Palatinate in western Germany.
History
Sponheim was the capital of the County of Sponheim.
Sponheim Abbey
There was a Benedictine abbey which was founded in 1101 by Step ...
, and the young couple had chosen as their residence
Castle Lichtenberg. Every village in the ''
Unteramt'' of Altenglan/Ulmet was obliged by this document to supply them both with their economic needs. The document thus named all the villages in question. In a 1379 document, the knight Sir Mohr of Sötern acknowledged that, among other things, he had been enfeoffed with holdings in Gumbsweiler (''Gundeßwilr'') by Count Friederich of Veldenz. Nevertheless, the name ''Gundeßwilr'' that appears in this document has been ascribed by other regional historians, Carl Pöhlmann among them, not to Gumbsweiler, but rather to the village of
Ginsweiler
Ginsweiler is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein.
...
. In 1444, the County of Veldenz met its end when Count Friedrich III of Veldenz died without a male heir. His daughter
Anna
Anna may refer to:
People Surname and given name
* Anna (name)
Mononym
* Anna the Prophetess, in the Gospel of Luke
* Anna (wife of Artabasdos) (fl. 715–773)
* Anna (daughter of Boris I) (9th–10th century)
* Anna (Anisia) (fl. 1218 to 12 ...
wed
King Ruprecht’s son
Count Palatine Stephan. By uniting his own Palatine holdings with the now otherwise heirless County of Veldenz – his wife had inherited the county, but not her father’s title – and by redeeming the hitherto pledged County of Zweibrücken, Stephan founded a new County Palatine, as whose comital residence he chose the town of
Zweibrücken
Zweibrücken (; french: Deux-Ponts, ; Palatinate German: ''Zweebrigge'', ; literally translated as "Two Bridges") is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach river.
Name
The name ''Zweibrücken'' means 'two bridges'; olde ...
: the County Palatine – later Duchy – of
Palatinate-Zweibrücken.
Obereisenbach
An exact founding date for Obereisenbach cannot be determined. Like Eschenau, Obereisenbach lay in the
Nahegau
The Nahegau was in the Middle Ages a county, which covered the environs of the Nahe and large parts of present-day Rhenish Hesse, after a successful expansion of the narrow territory, which did not reach the Rhine, to the disadvantage of the Worms ...
, whose counts split into several lines, and at the time of its 1426 first documentary mention, the village belonged to the Lords of Steinkallenfels (or Stein-Kallenfels) in the ''Hochgericht auf der Heide'' ("High Court on the Heath") and, more locally, the ''Vierherrengericht'' ("Four-Lord Court"), whose seat was in nearby Sankt Julian. A 1336 document about
Niedereisenbach spoke of an ''inferiori Ysenbach'', thus of a lesser place of this name, there might well have been a greater village as well, with the same name.
Modern times
Sankt Julian (main centre)
In the 16th century, the Waldraves and Rhinegraves pledged their holding here to
Palatinate-Zweibrücken under the duke at that time,
Wolfgang, but the pledge was redeemed in 1559. After a legal dispute, the village passed to Steinkallenfels in 1628. High jurisdiction at first remained in the Waldraves’ and Rhinegraves’ hands, but in 1680, this, too, was ceded to the Lords of Steinkallenfels. In 1778, the Steinkallenfels sideline died out, and Sankt Julian was taken back by the Waldraves and Rhinegraves.
Eschenau
The 16th century was a time of constant change in Eschenau. In 1502, the village was still under Hans von Ramberg’s ownership, but by 1554 it was held by the Prince of Stromberg – whose wife was Annette von Ramberg. Thereafter it passed into the Mauchenheims’ ownership, and then Philipp Franz gave it back to the Waldraves and Rhinegraves of Grumbach. In 1596, these counts bought many of their
fief
A fief (; la, feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an Lord, overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a for ...
s back from those whom they had enfeoffed, and until the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, Eschenau, too, belonged directly to the Rhinegraviate. Time and again, Ludwig von Eschenau, already mentioned above, was named in documents. He was a
ministerialis
The ''ministeriales'' (singular: ''ministerialis'') were a class of people raised up from serfdom and placed in positions of power and responsibility in the High Middle Ages in the Holy Roman Empire.
The word and its German translations, ''Minis ...
in the service of the Duchy of
Palatinate-Zweibrücken, and, obviously, he was from Eschenau. He negotiated between Palatinate-Zweibrücken and
the Palatinate
The Palatinate (german: Pfalz; Palatine German: ''Palz'') is a region of Germany. In the Middle Ages it was known as the Rhenish Palatinate (''Rheinpfalz'') and Lower Palatinate (''Unterpfalz''), which strictly speaking designated only the wes ...
in 1534 over the redemption of a series of pledged villages in
Alsace
Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...
. In 1535, he negotiated in a dispute about church property in
Einöd
The municipal district of Einöd (; pfl, Ehnet ) is a quarter (''Stadtteil'') of the city of Homburg and with it part of Saarpfalz-Kreis in Saarland. It includes three municipal fractions: Einöd, Ingweiler and Schwarzenacker. In 2021, Einöd had ...
and
Ernstweiler, and also led negotiations in a dispute with the
County of Leiningen
The County of Leiningen consists on a group of counties (some of them with that were ruled with Imperial immediacy), which were ruled by the Leiningen family.
Most of these counties were annexed by the First French Republic in 1793, after Frenc ...
. In 1536 he settled a dispute between Palatinate-Zweibrücken and the Palatinate about the community of
Gutenberg
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (; – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and craftsman who introduced letterpress printing to Europe with his movable-type printing press. Though not the first of its kind, earlier designs w ...
. Then, he had to deal once again with a dispute involving Einöd and Ernstweiler. Already in 1541, Ludwig became ''
Amtmann
__NOTOC__
The ''Amtmann'' or ''Ammann'' (in Switzerland) was an official in German-speaking countries of Europe and in some of the Nordic countries from the time of the Middle Ages whose office was akin to that of a bailiff. He was the most seni ...
'' in
Meisenheim
Meisenheim () is a town in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the like-named ''Verbandsgemeinde'', and is also its seat. Meisenheim is a state-recognized recreational resort (''Erholungsort'') and it is s ...
and was significantly involved with the formulation of the Treaty of Disibodenberg, which laid out measures for Palatinate-Zweibrücken’s behaviour should the Palatinate’s Electoral line die out. In 1543, the guidelines were finally laid down for founding the Palatinate-Veldenz sideline. In 1544 he was ''Amtmann'' of Neu-Kastell and led negotiations for Gräfenstein. In 1553 he appeared in the record as ''Großhofmeister'' of the Palatinate. During the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
, the village shared a fate with all neighbouring villages when it was utterly destroyed. It appeared for the first time under the name ''Ischenaw'' on a map of the ''Theatrum Europäum'', on which the so-called Battle of Brücken is depicted. In the late 17th century, there was further destruction as a result of
French King Louis XIV’s wars of conquest. Details are unknown. The 18th century ushered in a time of steady population growth, and there was
emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
, mainly to
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
.
Gumbsweiler
Gumbsweiler lay within
Palatinate-Zweibrücken, and also within an ''
Unteramt'', which was administered for a while from
Altenglan
Altenglan is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan. Alten ...
, next from the vanished village of Brücken (not to be confused with
Brücken, which still exists), and then from
Ulmet. In 1546,
Duke Wolfgang approved the expansion of Heinrich Kolb’s mill by two grist runs on the proviso that the estate mill at Ulmet not have any business taken away from it. The mill must therefore already have been standing a long time by then. In this time, too, a tithe barn was built in the village, whose buildings lasted centuries, only to be torn down in 1978 in the name of village renewal. A
keystone with the year 1604 chiselled into it has been preserved. Political development did not always proceed harmoniously. Heavy setbacks came with the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
, by whose end Gumbsweiler had become uninhabited and uninhabitable, although the little
late mediaeval church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
was left mostly unscathed. After the recovery, the
Nine Years' War
The Nine Years' War (1688–1697), often called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg, was a conflict between France and a European coalition which mainly included the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarch ...
(known in Germany as the ''Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg'', or War of the Palatine Succession) brought further setbacks, and only in the 18th century did steady population growth begin. In 1724, the bridge across the
Glan at Gumbsweiler had fallen into disrepair. It was torn down and a new one was built. This was later partly demolished by
French troops, and then given a provisional repair before being built yet again in 1841.
Obereisenbach
During the time of the
Plague
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Agriculture, fauna, and medicine
*Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis''
* An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural)
* A pandemic caused by such a disease
* A swarm of pes ...
, the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
and
French King Louis XIV’s wars of conquest, Obereisenbach shared its neighbours’ fate. There were deaths from both sickness and wartime ravages. The responsible lordship was still Steinkallenfels until Count Philipp Heinrich’s death in 1778. Then came a disagreement between the Counts of Salm-Salm (Hunoltstein), the Counts of Salm-Kyrburg and the Rhinegraves at Grumbach over who owned the two villages of Sankt Julian and Obereisenbach. The dispute was eventually settled in the Rhinegraves’ favour, but they were considered the overlords anyway.
Recent times
=Sankt Julian (main centre)
=
In the time of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
and the
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
ic era that followed, Sankt Julian belonged to the ''Mairie'' ("Mayoralty") of Offenbach, the
Canton of Grumbach, the
Arrondissement
An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands.
Europe
France
The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements' ...
of Birkenfeld and the
Department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
of
Sarre. While in the new territorial order arising from the
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...
the old Rhinegravial villages on the
Glan’s left bank were grouped into the
Principality of Lichtenberg
The Principality of Lichtenberg (german: Fürstentum Lichtenberg) on the Nahe River was an exclave of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld from 1816 to 1826 and the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1826 to 1834, when it was sold to the Kingdom o ...
, a newly created
exclave
An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
of the Duchy of
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld () was one of the Saxon Duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin Dynasty. Established in 1699, the Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield line lasted until the reshuffle of the Ernestine territories that occurred following the extinct ...
(which as of 1826 became the Duchy of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha), or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, links=no ), was an Ernestine, Thuringian duchy ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present-d ...
), Sankt Julian, Obereisenbach and Eschenau were excepted from this transfer and grouped into the
Kingdom of Bavaria
The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German E ...
in 1817 as part of an exchange against a village in the
Oster
Oster ( uk, Осте́р ; russian: Остёр, Ostyor) is a city located where the Oster River flows into the Desna, in Chernihiv Raion, Chernihiv Oblast of Ukraine. Oster hosts the administration of Oster urban hromada, one of the hromadas ...
valley. Sankt Julian at first became the seat of a ''Bürgermeisterei'' ("mayoralty") for these three villages, and administratively amalgamated with it in this context was neighbouring Obereisenbach. The merged municipality was called Sankt Julian-Obereisenbach. The mayoralty was united with the one in
Ulmet in 1861, but became separate again in 1887. In 1878, a new
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
was built. In this rural community with a goodly share of workers among its population, there was a noticeable shift towards polarization of political groupings in the wake of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Quite early on, the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
(NSDAP) gained a strong foothold in Sankt Julian, winning 29.8% of the vote locally in
May 1924 Reichstag election (today, the
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been the ...
is said to be the village’s strongest political party). By 1938, after the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
had existed for five years and war was coming, the ''Heeresstraße'' (literally "Army Road") was built. Since the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
ended, Sankt Julian has been part of the then newly founded
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
of
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
. In 1966, the new
school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
house was dedicated. In the course of the 1968 administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate, the mayoralty was dissolved and the villages of Sankt Julian-Obereisenbach, Eschenau and Gumbsweiler were amalgamated to form the greater municipality of Sankt Julian, which since 1972 has belonged to the
''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Lauterecken. In 1985, passenger traffic on the local
Altenglan
Altenglan is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan. Alten ...
-
Lauterecken
Lauterecken () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname ''Veldenzstadt'', after the comital family t ...
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
line was ended, and in 1992, the line was closed outright.
=Eschenau
=
After
French Revolutionary troops marched in about 1794, the old territorial structures were swept away. Once the German lands on the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, so ...
’s left bank were
annexed
Annexation (Latin ''ad'', to, and ''nexus'', joining), in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. It is generally held to be an illegal act ...
to
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, new administrative entities arose based on the French Revolutionary model. They were set up in 1797, and were made permanent in 1801 (although actually, they did not last very long). Eschenau, just like Sankt Julian, belonged to the ''Mairie'' ("Mayoralty") of Offenbach, the
Canton of Grumbach, the
Arrondissement
An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands.
Europe
France
The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements' ...
of Birkenfeld and the
Department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
of
Sarre. The states that were allied against France (
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
and
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
), reconquered the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank in 1814. After a two-year transitional period, Eschenau passed to the
Kingdom of Bavaria
The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German E ...
in a departure from what was generally considered the new border arrangements, with the
Glan downstream from the mouth of the Steinalb generally being held to be the border between Bavaria and Prussia (or until 1834 the
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha), or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, links=no ), was an Ernestine, Thuringian duchy ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present-d ...
Principality of Lichtenberg
The Principality of Lichtenberg (german: Fürstentum Lichtenberg) on the Nahe River was an exclave of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld from 1816 to 1826 and the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1826 to 1834, when it was sold to the Kingdom o ...
). This exceptional arrangement, which also affected Sankt Julian and Obereisenbach, was part of an exchange against a village in the
Oster
Oster ( uk, Осте́р ; russian: Остёр, Ostyor) is a city located where the Oster River flows into the Desna, in Chernihiv Raion, Chernihiv Oblast of Ukraine. Oster hosts the administration of Oster urban hromada, one of the hromadas ...
valley. Sankt Julian at first became the seat of a ''Bürgermeisterei'' ("mayoralty") together with Eschenau and Obereisenbach. The merged municipality was called Sankt Julian-Obereisenbach. The mayoralty was united with the one in
Ulmet in 1861, but became separate again in 1887. Late in the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, in 1945, part of Eschenau was destroyed in an attack by
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
strafers. There were dead and wounded. In the course of the 1968 administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate, the mayoralty was dissolved and the villages of Sankt Julian-Obereisenbach, Eschenau and Gumbsweiler were amalgamated to form the greater municipality of Sankt Julian, which since 1972 has belonged to the
''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Lauterecken.
=Gumbsweiler
=
The
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
and the French
annexation
Annexation (Latin ''ad'', to, and ''nexus'', joining), in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. It is generally held to be an illegal act ...
from 1797 to 1815 brought with it its horrors, but also some advantages: the lasting abolition of
serfdom
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...
, commercial freedom, the elimination of water rights and milling rights formerly held by feudal lords, freedom from inheritance taxation and, of course, the abolition of all lordly privileges. The new freedoms brought the people advantages foremost in the economic field of endeavour, especially when it came to building new mills. Gumbsweiler belonged during Revolutionary, and later
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
ic, times to the ''Mairie'' ("Mayoralty") of Hundheim, the
Canton of Lauterecken, the
Arrondissement
An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands.
Europe
France
The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements' ...
of Kaiserslautern and the
Department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
of
Mont-Tonnerre
Mont-Tonnerre was a department of the First French Republic and later the First French Empire in present-day Germany. It was named after the highest point in the Palatinate, the ''Donnersberg'' ("Thunder Mountain", possibly referring to Donar, ...
(or Donnersberg in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
), whose seat lay at
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...
. The ''Mairie'' of Hundheim became a mayoralty under
Bavarian administration beginning in 1816, and for a while, Gumbsweiler was the biggest place within it. According to Mahler, writing in 1966, "The ''Bürgermeisterei'' ("Mayoralty") of Hundheim at first belonged to the so-called ''Kreisdirektion Kaiserslautern'' ("Kaiserslautern District Directorate"), but then after the formation of the ''Landkommissariate'' ("State Commissariates") in 1817 was assigned to the ''Landkommissariat'' of Kusel. In 1838, the ''Rheinkreis'' (that is, the
Palatinate when it was a Bavarian
exclave
An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
), whose seat was in
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer li ...
, received the official designation "''
Regierungsbezirk
A ' () means "governmental district" and is a type of administrative division in Germany. Four of sixteen ' ( states of Germany) are split into '. Beneath these are rural and urban districts.
Saxony has ' (directorate districts) with more res ...
'' Pfalz". In 1862, the ''Landkommissariate'' became ''Bezirksämter'', and in 1938, ''Landratsämter''." During this Bavarian epoch, Gumbsweiler grew from a small farming village into a bigger village among whose dwellers, bit by bit, workers came to dominate. Apart from the changes in higher levels of government (Kingdom of Bavaria, Free State of Bavaria,
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
of
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
), the administrative arrangements at first did not change. In the early 1930s, the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
(NSDAP) became very popular in Gumbsweiler. In the
1930 Reichstag elections, 11.3% of the local votes went to
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
’s party, but by the time of the
1933 Reichstag elections, after Hitler had already
seized power, local support for the Nazis had swollen to 54.2%. Hitler’s success in these elections paved the way for his
Enabling Act of 1933
The Enabling Act (German: ') of 1933, officially titled ' (), was a law that gave the German Cabinet – most importantly, the Chancellor – the powers to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or Weimar Presi ...
(''Ermächtigungsgesetz''), thus starting the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
in earnest. The village itself came through the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
unscathed, but the memorial at the graveyard lists 51 fallen. In the course of administrative restructuring in 1968, Gumbsweiler lost its autonomy with the founding of the new ''
Ortsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative division, administrative unit in the Germany, German States of Germany, federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically compose ...
'' of Sankt Julian with the constituent communities (''
Ortsteil
A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, community, larger than a hamlet (place), hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population t ...
e'') of Eschenau, Gumbsweiler, Obereisenbach and Sankt Julian.
=Obereisenbach
=
Obereisenbach’s administrative situation after the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
ary
annexation
Annexation (Latin ''ad'', to, and ''nexus'', joining), in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. It is generally held to be an illegal act ...
was the same as Eschenau’s and Sankt Julian’s: it belonged to the ''Mairie'' ("Mayoralty") of Offenbach, the
Canton of Grumbach, the
Arrondissement
An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands.
Europe
France
The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements' ...
of Birkenfeld and the
Department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
of
Sarre. The states that were allied against France (
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
and
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
), reconquered the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank in 1814. After a two-year transitional period, Obereisenbach passed to the
Kingdom of Bavaria
The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German E ...
in a departure from what was generally considered the new border arrangements, with the
Glan downstream from the mouth of the Steinalb generally being held to be the border between Bavaria and Prussia (or until 1834 the
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha), or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, links=no ), was an Ernestine, Thuringian duchy ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present-d ...
Principality of Lichtenberg
The Principality of Lichtenberg (german: Fürstentum Lichtenberg) on the Nahe River was an exclave of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld from 1816 to 1826 and the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1826 to 1834, when it was sold to the Kingdom o ...
). This exceptional arrangement, which also affected Sankt Julian and Eschenau, was part of an exchange against a village in the
Oster
Oster ( uk, Осте́р ; russian: Остёр, Ostyor) is a city located where the Oster River flows into the Desna, in Chernihiv Raion, Chernihiv Oblast of Ukraine. Oster hosts the administration of Oster urban hromada, one of the hromadas ...
valley. Sankt Julian at first became the seat of a ''Bürgermeisterei'' ("mayoralty") together with Eschenau and Obereisenbach. The merged municipality was called Sankt Julian-Obereisenbach. The mayoralty was united with the one in
Ulmet in 1861, but became separate again in 1887. Just after the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, there was an armed confrontation with some
French occupational
Employment is a relationship between two party (law), parties Regulation, regulating the provision of paid Labour (human activity), labour services. Usually based on a employment contract, contract, one party, the employer, which might be a co ...
troops, who had been mistaken by the populace for "plundering Russians" who had been forced labourers, now freed, in the only just ended time of the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. The shooting killed one inhabitant from Obereisenbach. In 1958, a watermain was built in the village. In the course of administrative restructuring in 1968, the ''Bürgermeisterei'' of Sankt Julian was dissolved, and in 1972, within the
''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Lauterecken, Sankt Julian became the hub of the like-named ''
Ortsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative division, administrative unit in the Germany, German States of Germany, federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically compose ...
'' with the constituent communities (''
Ortsteil
A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, community, larger than a hamlet (place), hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population t ...
e'') of Eschenau, Gumbsweiler, Obereisenbach and Sankt Julian.
Population development
Sankt Julian (main centre)
Information about Sankt Julian’s population levels before 1800 is not available. In 1828, the village had 471 inhabitants, of whom 432 were
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
, 36
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and 3
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. In the century that followed, the population level rose only slightly. In 1997 there were 593 inhabitants, of whom 537 were
Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
and 42 Catholic. Since the
persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...
during the time of the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, there have no longer been any Jews in the village.
The following table shows population development over the centuries for Sankt Julian and Obereisenbach together, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:
Eschenau
Eschenau has remained rurally structured to this day. The greater part of the population worked until a few decades ago at
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
. Alongside farmers, though, there were also farm workers, forestry workers and craftsmen. In the village itself ran an industrial concern that employed both villagers and others. This, however, no longer exists. With respect to religion, the villagers are overwhelmingly
Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
. Today, Eschenau is a residential community for many
commuters
Commuting is periodically recurring travel between one's place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regul ...
. The village’s population rose steadily over the last two centuries with a temporary pause about the turn of the 20th century, and now is stagnating once again, with a drop in numbers foreseen for the coming years.
The following table shows population development over the centuries for Eschenau, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:
Gumbsweiler
Gumbsweiler was home to many farmers, though very early on there were also workers living in the village, and today they make up the majority. There is generally a good cohesion among the villagers, who always seem ready to solve issues communally. There is great interest locally in playing music.
The following table shows population development over the centuries for Gumbsweiler, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:
Obereisenbach
Obereisenbach’s inhabitants lived well into the 20th century mainly from
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
, although there were also the miller families,
inn
Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...
keepers,
distillers, workers – especially at the stone quarries – and those who ran the
mineral water
Mineral water is water from a mineral spring that contains various minerals, such as salts and sulfur compounds. Mineral water may usually be still or sparkling (carbonated/effervescent) according to the presence or absence of added gases.
Tra ...
spring
Spring(s) may refer to:
Common uses
* Spring (season)
Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...
. Rounding out the scene were the
basket weavers
A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehai ...
who travelled overland plying their wares, some very poor people, often families with many children but also lone persons who eked out a living in substandard dwelling conditions. This population structure has since undergone a thorough shift. Farming is indeed still practised, but most people, who belong to the most varied of occupations, seek their livelihoods elsewhere. Obereisenbach is popular among seniors and pensioners as a second residence. With respect to religion, the villagers are overwhelmingly
Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
. The population grew over the course of the 19th century, but shrank again in the 20th. Despite the more recent gains towards the end of the century, a drop in numbers is foreseen for the coming years.
The following table shows population development over the centuries for Obereisenbach:
Municipality’s names
Sankt Julian
Sankt Julian was mentioned in a 1290 document as "''apud Sanctam Julianam''" (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "at Saint Juliana’s"), and therefore, despite the name’s masculine appearance and sound, the village is in fact named after a saint named Juliana, who is worshipped at the village’s church. There are several saints named Juliana, but the old patronage for Sankt Julian’s church could only have referred to
Juliana of Nicomedia
Saint Juliana of Nicomedia is said to have suffered Christian martyrdom during the Diocletianic persecution in 304. She was popular in the Middle Ages, especially in the Netherlands, as the patron saint of sickness.
Historical background
Both th ...
, who during her long martyrdom had molten
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
poured over her. According to a falsified document dated to 1192, "''Saint Julien''" might have been the church’s namesake saint, and indeed the village maintains a partnership with one of the many places in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
named Saint-Julien (to wit, the
one in Côte-d’Or). Sankt Julian may well once have borne another name that the brisk
pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
in Saint Juliana’s pushed aside when the name was changed. If so, the old name is now forgotten. After 1290, the following forms of the name crop up in the record: ''ecclesiae sanctae Julianae'' (1336), ''ecclesiae de sancta Juliana'' (1340), ''zu sant Juliana'' (14th century), ''Sanct Julian'' (1588) and ''Sanct Juljan'' (1686). In the local speech, the village is also called "Dilje".
Eschenau
The name appeared for the first time in
cartularies
A cartulary or chartulary (; Latin: ''cartularium'' or ''chartularium''), also called ''pancarta'' or ''codex diplomaticus'', is a medieval manuscript volume or roll (''rotulus'') containing transcriptions of original documents relating to the fo ...
kept by the
County of Veldenz
The County of Veldenz was a principality in the contemporary Land Rhineland-Palatinate. The county was located partially between Kaiserslautern, Sponheim and Zweibrücken, partially on the Mosel in the Archbishopric of Trier. A municipality of ...
. In 1340 it appeared as ''Essenoe'' and in 1366 as ''Eschenawe''. The current name first appeared in an original document in 1614. The name originally described a settlement on a
floodplain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...
(''Aue'' in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
) with
ash
Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...
trees (''Eschen'' in German) growing on it.
Gumbsweiler
The village’s name, Gumbsweiler, has the common
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
placename ending ''—weiler'', which as a standalone word means "
hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
" (originally "homestead"), to which is prefixed a syllable ''Gumbs—''. Most of the villages with names ending in ''—weiler'' arose in the early period of the
Frankish
Frankish may refer to:
* Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture
** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages
* Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany
* East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
takeover of the land. The
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
word ''villare'' might relate to the village’s founder’s name. Perhaps the prefix arose from a personal name, ''Gummund'', suggesting that the village arose from a homestead founded by an early Frankish settler named Gummund, thus "Gummund’s Homestead". The name first appeared in Count Heinrich’s document mentioned above in 1364 in the form ''Gommerswijlre''. Other forms that the name has taken have been, among others, ''Gumeswilre'' (14th century), ''Gummeßwilre'' (1416), ''Gomßwillr'' (1458) and ''Gumbsweiller'' (1593).
Obereisenbach
Obereisenbach was named for the brook that flows by it, the Eisenbach ("Ironbrook"), and the prefix is German for "upper", distinguishing it from
Niedereisenbach ("Nether Ironbrook"), which lies at the brook’s mouth. The name first cropped up in the record in the form ''Oberysenbach daz dorff und Geriechte'' (modernized: ''Obereisenbach das Dorf und Gericht'', meaning "Obereisenbach the village and court
istrict) in a 1426 document. The reference to
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...
in the village’s name is inspired by the iron
inclusions in the local
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
.
Vanished villages
Within what are now Eschenau’s limits once lay two villages named Haunhausen (mentioned in 1287) and Olscheid (mentioned in 1345). Their exact locations are unknown. Olscheid lay roughly at the limits with the fellow Sankt Julian constituent community of Obereisenbach and the separate municipality of
Niederalben
Niederalben is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, wh ...
. It might even be that these former places lay within Niederalben’s limits. According to researchers Dolch and Greule, two now vanished villages once stood within Gumbsweiler’s limits, named Borrhausen and Trudenberg. About the former almost nothing is known; the village’s name is preserved only as a rural cadastral toponym. The latter crops up in the historical record only once, in Count Heinrich’s 1364 document (see above), which dealt with supplying the young comital couple Heinrich and Lauretta, and which mentioned many placenames for the first time, including Gumbsweiler. It is certain that Trudenberg lay on the
Glan’s right bank within the former ''Remigiusland'', likely on the heights between
Ulmet and Gumbsweiler. Could it be that the local forest’s current name, "Freudenwald", is a
corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
of an earlier name "Trudenberger Wald", after the now vanished village? Trudenberg might also have lain within Ulmet’s current limits. Within what are now Obereisenbach’s limits once lay a place called Berghausen, but the only record of this place is the preservation of its name in rural cadastral toponyms. This village’s exact location, too, is unknown. It might have lain within what were Sankt Julian’s limits before the four constituent communities were amalgamated.
Religion
Sankt Julian (main centre)
As already stated in the History section above, Sankt Julian was a well known
pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
centre in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
. In
Saint Michael’s Chapel
A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...
(''Michaeliskapelle'') next to the
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
,
Saint Juliana’s relic
In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangi ...
s were worshipped. The originally
Romanesque nave was replaced in 1878 with a
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
structure. The old Romanesque churchtower has been preserved. Also during the Middle Ages, Sankt Julian was a parish seat, and belonging to the parish were not only the villages of the ''Vierherrengericht'' ("Four-Lord Court"), but also
Niedereisenbach and
Offenbach, as well as a few villages that lay within what is now the Baumholder troop drilling ground. The pastor of Sankt Julian was also the vicar at the Offenbach Monastery. That brought along consequences in the time after the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
when the Steward of Offenbach wanted to force Sankt Julian’s pastor into the
Zweibrücken
Zweibrücken (; french: Deux-Ponts, ; Palatinate German: ''Zweebrigge'', ; literally translated as "Two Bridges") is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach river.
Name
The name ''Zweibrücken'' means 'two bridges'; olde ...
Church Order
Church order is the systematically organized set of rules drawn up by a qualified body of a local church. P. Coertzen. ''Church and Order''. Belgium: Peeters. From the point of view of civil law, the ''church order'' can be described as the intern ...
, even though he was a Rhinegravial subject. The problem was settled only after the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, when Sankt Julian had become
Bavarian. Both the County Palatine of Zweibrücken and the Rhinegraviate adopted the
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
faith early on in the time of the Reformation. Under the old principle of ''
cuius regio, eius religio
() is a Latin phrase which literally means "whose realm, their religion" – meaning that the religion of the ruler was to dictate the religion of those ruled. This legal principle marked a major development in the collective (if not individual ...
'', everybody in Sankt Julian
had to convert
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series
* "The Conversion" ...
to
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
sometime about 1560, and even today, now that there is
freedom of religion
Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...
, the great majority of Sankt Julian’s inhabitants are
Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
. Sankt Julian suffered great losses in the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
, but was spared the ravages of
French King Louis XIV’s wars of conquest. In 1694, the church partly burnt down. The fire damage was repaired in 1698 and 1699, and
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
stylistic elements now characterized the church. The little pilgrimage chapel was torn down in 1776. The 19th century brought further serious changes to the building. The nave was replaced in 1880-1881 with a new
Classicist
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
one, while the
mediaeval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
churchtower was preserved.
Eschenau
It is likely that Eschenau was from the beginning tightly bound with the Church of Sankt Julian. In 1556, the
Waldgravial-Rhinegravial House of Grumbach introduced the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
, and the
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
faith prevailed until the 1818 Palatine Union.
Calvinist
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...
and
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
never grew to important numbers. Originally, church services were held only in Sankt Julian, but as early as the 19th century they were also held at specified times at the schoolhouse in Eschenau. The Catholics attended church services in
Offenbach. It is likely that already in the 18th century, as well as on into the 19th century, roughly 10% of the inhabitants belonged to the
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
faith. This can be explained by the many Jewish tradesmen who often plied their trades unlawfully in the Duchy of
Palatinate-Zweibrücken, and who thus liked to settle right at the duchy’s borders.
Gumbsweiler
Before the time of the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
, Gumbsweiler belonged under ecclesiastical organization to the
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Electorate of Mainz (german: Kurfürstentum Mainz or ', la, Electoratus Moguntinus), previously known in English as Mentz and by its French name Mayence, was one of the most prestigious and influential states of the Holy Roman Empire. In the ...
. The little village church was first mentioned in 1573, and even then, it might already have been almost one hundred years old. More locally, the village belonged to the parish whose seat was at the likewise
Zweibrücken
Zweibrücken (; french: Deux-Ponts, ; Palatinate German: ''Zweebrigge'', ; literally translated as "Two Bridges") is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach river.
Name
The name ''Zweibrücken'' means 'two bridges'; olde ...
neighbouring village of
Ulmet, which also in the
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
could not be reached without crossing the river. About 1537, the Dukes of Zweibrücken introduced the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
along
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
lines. However, beginning in 1588,
Count Palatine Johannes I forced all his subjects to
convert
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series
* "The Conversion" ...
to
Reformed belief as espoused by
John Calvin
John Calvin (; frm, Jehan Cauvin; french: link=no, Jean Calvin ; 10 July 150927 May 1564) was a French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system ...
. Only in 1820 was Gumbsweiler parochially united with Sankt Julian. Gumbsweiler’s church came through the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
unscathed but was burnt out in
King Louis XIV’s wars of conquest, leaving only the outer walls standing. In 1720, the duchy authorized a reconstruction, and the municipality even had money to acquire two bells. In the meantime, Lutherans had once again settled in the village, for after the Thirty Years' War, the principle of ''
cuius regio, eius religio
() is a Latin phrase which literally means "whose realm, their religion" – meaning that the religion of the ruler was to dictate the religion of those ruled. This legal principle marked a major development in the collective (if not individual ...
'' no longer applied. In 1723, five Lutheran families settled in Gumbsweiler. During the 18th century, there were disputes between Calvinists and Lutherans. An ordinance from the Zweibrücken Supreme
Consistory
Consistory is the anglicized form of the consistorium, a council of the closest advisors of the Roman emperors. It can also refer to:
*A papal consistory, a formal meeting of the Sacred College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church
*Consistory ...
allowed the Lutherans to
share the church. Similar disputes arose about church usage between the Presbytery and the
Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
living in the dale, represented by their leadership, Heinrich Greiner from
Lauterecken
Lauterecken () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname ''Veldenzstadt'', after the comital family t ...
. The Catholics considered the church a
simultaneum
A shared church (german: Simultankirche), simultaneum mixtum, a term first coined in 16th-century Germany, is a church in which public worship is conducted by adherents of two or more religious groups. Such churches became common in the German-s ...
and deemed shared usage to be a right, which in 1857 Pastor Schwab from Sankt Julian had denied them. This led to a court case before the Royal Regional Court at
Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...
. The judge’s ruling set forth in law that the Gumbsweiler Protestant church community was the little church’s sole owner, with its bells and fixtures, and that therefore it alone could avail itself of the church’s use. There were no further modifications to the church building. A decision in 1913 to tear the little church down so that a bigger one could be built was reversed in 1919. By this time, the building had ended up, along with fixtures, in miller Johann Adam Schlemmer’s ownership. The two old bells fell victim to the ravages of time. The 8.5 m-high
ridge turret
A ridge turret is a turret or small tower constructed over the ridge or apex between two or more sloping roofs of a building. It is usually built either as an architectural ornament for purely decorative purposes or else for the practical housing ...
received a
bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
bell in 1930, delivered by the firm Pfeifer from Kaiserslautern. Cracks in the foundations and walls made a renovation sorely necessary to prevent the church from caving in. In the years 1966-1968, the little church was thoroughly restored, inside and out. The tower was made 17 m taller, and new pews were built. In 1986, the peal of bells became more complete with the addition of a third bell.
Obereisenbach
From a religious point of view, Obereisenbach was from the beginning tightly bound to the Church of Sankt Julian. The village’s dead were buried until 1930 at Sankt Julian’s graveyard. From the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
, the
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
faith prevailed until the Protestants forged the Palatine Union in 1818. The Catholics attend church services in
Offenbach. Little is known about immigrants’ religious practices.
Politics
Municipal council
The council is made up of 16 council members, who were elected by
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman. The 16 seats on council are shared by two voters’ groups.
Mayor
Sankt Julian’s mayor is Philipp Gruber.
[
]
Coat of arms
The municipality’s arms
Arms or ARMS may refer to:
*Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body
Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to:
People
* Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader
Coat of arms or weapons
*Armaments or weapons
**Fi ...
might be described thus: Argent a pile reversed throughout gules charged with a waterwheel spoked of four Or issuant from a fess abased wavy of the field, dexter a pot azure and issuant from sinister an abbot’s staff of the same surmounting per saltire an ash leaf proper.
The charge
Charge or charged may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* '' Charge, Zero Emissions/Maximum Speed'', a 2011 documentary
Music
* ''Charge'' (David Ford album)
* ''Charge'' (Machel Montano album)
* ''Charge!!'', an album by The Aqu ...
s in the arms refer to all four of the municipality’s constituent communities. The waterwheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...
and the wavy fess (or "water") is a reference to the geography and history, indicating that the municipality lies on the Glan and that there were mills (and in one case there still is) in the municipality. The pot refers to Saint Juliana’s martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
dom, while the abbot’s staff refers to Gumbsweiler’s former allegiance to the ''Remigiusland'', which was a monastic holding. The ash leaf relates to Eschenau. The tincture
A tincture is typically an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol (ethyl alcohol). Solvent concentrations of 25–60% are common, but may run as high as 90%.Groot Handboek Geneeskrachtige Planten by Geert Verhelst In chemistr ...
s chosen for the arms were the ones once borne by the Waldgrave
The noble family of the Waldgraves or Wildgraves (Latin: ''comites silvestres'') descended of a division of the House of the Counts of Nahegau in the year 1113.
When the (a countship named after the river Nahe) split into two parts in 1113 ...
s and Rhinegraves. Before the four centres now making up the municipality of Sankt Julian were amalgamated, the outlying centres of Eschenau, Gumbsweiler and Obereisenbach bore no arms of their own.
Town partnerships
Sankt Julian fosters partnerships with the following places:
* Saint-Julien, Côte-d'Or
Côte-d'Or (; literally, "Golden Slope") is a département in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of Northeastern France. In 2019, it had a population of 534,124.[Burgundy
Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...]
), France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
since 1985
Culture and sightseeing
Buildings
The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:
Sankt Julian (main centre)
* Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
parish church, Hauptstraße 21 – Romanesque belltower, about 1130; sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
-block aisleless church
An aisleless church (german: Saalkirche) is a single-nave church building that consists of a single hall-like room. While similar to the hall church, the aisleless church lacks aisles or passageways on either side of the nave and separated fr ...
, Rundbogenstil
(round-arch style) is a nineteenth-century historic revival style of architecture popular in the German-speaking lands and the German diaspora. It combines elements of Byzantine, Romanesque, and Renaissance architecture with particular ...
, 1880/1881, architect Max Siebert, Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer li ...
; furnishings, Stumm organ
* Bergstraße 3 – Protestant rectory; one-floor hewn-stone-framed plastered building, Romanesque Revival
Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...
motifs, 1885, architect Joseph Hoffmann, Ludwigshafen
Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein (; meaning " Ludwig's Port upon Rhine"), is a city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the river Rhine, opposite Mannheim. With Mannheim, Heidelberg, and the surrounding region, it form ...
; former parish barn
* Near Mühlstraße 8 – former oilmill; quarrystone building with half-hipped roof, renovated 1840; technical equipment
* Ortsstraße 8 – ''Quereinhaus'' (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street), marked 1842
* Steige 1 – former ''Alte Schule'' ("Old School"); cubic sandstone-block building with hipped roof, 1838, architect Johann Schmeisser, Kusel
Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...
* Former administration building, north of the village near Obereisenbach – with smithy and canteen, housed Reuerrech sandstone quarry’s administration, Romanesque Revival rusticated stone-block buildings with battlements, 1910
Eschenau
* Bahnhofstraße 10 – former railway station
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
; stone-block building with jutting gable roof, separate storage shed, 1904
* Flurstraße 2 – ''Quereinhaus''; commercial part 1852, dwelling wing on vaulted cellar 1863
Gumbsweiler
* Protestant church, Woogstraße 2 – aisleless church, essentially Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
, alterations in Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
style 1720
Regular events
Sankt Julian (main centre)
Each year on the second weekend in July, Sankt Julian holds its kermis
Kermesse, or kermis, or kirmess, is a Dutch language term derived from 'kerk' (church) and 'mis' (mass) that became borrowed in English, French, Spanish and many other languages, originally denoting the mass said on the anniversary of the foundat ...
(church consecration festival, locally known as the ''Kerb''), and on the first day of Advent
Advent is a Christian season of preparation for the Nativity of Christ at Christmas. It is the beginning of the liturgical year in Western Christianity.
The name was adopted from Latin "coming; arrival", translating Greek ''parousia''.
In ...
a Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
market is held.
Eschenau
Eschenau’s kermis is held on the fourth weekend in October. During the summer, a ''Wunnerfest'' is also held, staged by the ''Wunnerverein'', which also stages a small rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
festival called ''Rock im Kuhstall'' ("Rock in the Cowshed" – because it is held in an old barn). The story behind the club’s and the festival’s names, prefixed as both are with ''Wunner—'', is explained below under Clubs. The ''Wunnerfest'' has been held each year since 1989. It features a photographic exhibit at the schoolhouse in Eschenau, which has always met with great approval. The organizer for this is Karl Ludwig, and each year’s exhibit follows a theme, for example "Eschenau over Changing Times", "The Glan Valley from Altenglan
Altenglan is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan. Alten ...
to Lauterecken
Lauterecken () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname ''Veldenzstadt'', after the comital family t ...
" or "The Municipal Ring". The rock festival began when a young, well travelled man from Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
came to Gumbsweiler, hoping to become a labourer in organic farming
Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on organic production and labelling of organic products and re ...
. When an opportunity arose to acquire Otto Stuber’s farm in Eschenau, he left Gumbsweiler and came to Eschenau, having in mind no longer to be a mere labourer, but rather a landowner at an organic farm. He built himself a house out of the barn with a cozy room where Eschenau youth spent many a comfortable hour. Within this young circle, the idea arose to organize and stage the first ''Rock im Kuhstall''. To cover the cost of getting somebody to come and play the music, each of the eight youths in the circle contributed 100 DM to a kitty. The needed rock group, one called "Liquid Sky" (but not the one that now bears that name), was soon found. Also needed, though, was a major overhaul of the barn, but the youths worked together to bring this about. A local man, Hermann Mayer, also lent the use of his vaulted
In architecture, a vault (French ''voûte'', from Italian ''volta'') is a self-supporting arched form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while ring ...
cellar to be used as a small bar. Despite older villagers’ misgivings, the first ''Rock im Kuhstall'' went smoothly, and the circle felt encouraged to found a club that would task itself with staging the festival every year.
Gumbsweiler
The most important festival in Gumbsweiler is held to be the kermis (also locally known as the ''Kerb''), which is held on the fourth Sunday in August and lasts three days. The kermis is the time of the ''Straußbuwe'' and ''Straußmäd'' ("bouquet lads" and "bouquet lasses"; these two words are dialectal), who spend weeks beforehand binding the "bouquet" together. A parade opens this village festival, led by a band, itself followed by the ''Straußbuben'' (standard High German
The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and ...
for ''Straußbuwe'') bearing the huge ''Strauß'' ("bouquet"). The ''Straußpfarrer'' ("bouquet pastor", but not a real clergyman) climbs up a ladder and delivers the ''Straußrede'' ("bouquet speech"), which covers amusing things that have happened in the village, all in rhyme. Afterwards, the "Three Firsts" are danced (''die Drei Ersten''). The kermis is nowadays held under a marquee, formerly having been held at an inn
Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...
, but the traditions of the ''Frühschoppen'' (morning drink) and of "dancing the wreath out" (''Heraustanzen des Kranzes'') have been preserved at this ''Zeltkerb'' (''Zelt'' means "tent"). The village youth’s sometimes quite mad shenanigans on the Witching Night (Walpurgis Night
Walpurgis Night (), an abbreviation of Saint Walpurgis Night (from the German ), also known as Saint Walpurga's Eve (alternatively spelled Saint Walburga's Eve), is the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess in ...
, 30 April–1 May) have been waning over the years and are now only practised by schoolchildren. Nonetheless, even today, older youths still put up a mighty Maypole every year. Only in Gumbsweiler does the ancient custom of singing on Saint John's Eve
Saint John's Eve, starting at sunset on 23 June, is the eve of celebration before the Feast Day of Saint John the Baptist. The Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:26–37, 56–57) states that John was born six months before Jesus; therefore, the feast of J ...
still exist. On the night of 23 to 24 June, the village youth go on a ''Heischegang'' (that is, they beg for treats, in this case mainly eggs
Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...
and bacon
Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...
, but other gifts too) through the village. While they do this, they also sing the ''Gehannsenachts-Lied'', whose melody is accompanied by the noises of peening
In metallurgy, peening is the process of working a metal's surface to improve its material properties, usually by mechanical means, such as hammer blows, by blasting with shot (shot peening), or focusing light (laser peening). Peening is norma ...
and whetting a scythe
A scythe ( ) is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops. It is historically used to cut down or reap edible grains, before the process of threshing. The scythe has been largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor m ...
. The serenades end with the verse "''Wir danken Euch für Eure Gaben. Rosarot, drei Blümlein rot, die wir von Euch empfangen haben. Sei mein lieb trautes Mädchen!''" ("We thank you for your gifts. Pink, three little blossoms red, that we have received from you. Be my darling true girl!").
Obereisenbach
There was once a kermis, now no longer held, that took place on the first Sunday in July, but there is still a summer festival held on this day. In Advent
Advent is a Christian season of preparation for the Nativity of Christ at Christmas. It is the beginning of the liturgical year in Western Christianity.
The name was adopted from Latin "coming; arrival", translating Greek ''parousia''.
In ...
, a Christmas Market is held. On 1 May, the village youths put up a Maypole.
Clubs
Sankt Julian (main centre)
Active in Sankt Julian’s main centre are the following clubs:
*''Angelsportverein'' — angling
Angling is a fishing technique that uses a fish hook or "angle" (from Old English ''angol'') attached to a fishing line to tether individual fish in the mouth. The fishing line is usually manipulated via a fishing rod, although rodless techniqu ...
club
*''Feuerwehr'' — fire brigade
A fire department (American English) or fire brigade (Commonwealth English), also known as a fire authority, fire district, fire and rescue, or fire service in some areas, is an organization that provides fire prevention and fire suppression se ...
*''Förderverein der Feuerwehr'' — fire brigade promotional association
*''Frauenbund'' — league of women
*''Freie Wählergruppe e. V.
An (; "registered association" or "incorporated association"), abbreviated (), is a legal status for a registered voluntary association in Germany. While any group may be called a , registration as confers many legal benefits, because it con ...
'' — Free Voters
Free Voters (german: Freie Wähler, FW or FWG) in Germany may belong to an association of people which participates in an election without having the status of a registered political party. Usually it involves a locally organized group of voters ...
’ group
*''Gesangverein 1873'' — singing club
*''Jagdgenossenschaft'' — hunting
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
association
*''Kirchbauverein Sankt Julian e. V. '' — church building club
*''Krankenpflegeverein'' — nursing
Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health ...
club
*''Landfrauenverein'' — countrywomen’s club
*''Obst- und Gartenbauverein'' — fruitgrowing and gardening
Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits ...
club
*''Ralleyclub Mittleres Glantal'' — rallying
Rally is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests (often called ''rally racing),'' navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed time or average speed. ...
club
*''Schäferhundeverein'' — sheepdog
A sheep dog or sheepdog is generally a dog or breed of dogs historically used in connection with the raising of sheep. These include livestock guardian dogs used to guard sheep and other livestock and herding dogs used to move, manage and co ...
club
*''SPD-Ortsverein'' — Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been the ...
local chapter
*''Tischtennisverein'' — table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...
club
*''Turn- und Sportverein'' — gymnastic
Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, sh ...
and sport club
A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports.
Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and ...
*''Wanderverein "Die Dippelbrüder"'' — hiking
Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century.AMATO, JOSEPH A. "Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling." In ''On Foot: A Histor ...
club
Eschenau
Along with its singing club "Frohsinn" and its countrywomen’s club, Eschenau also has its ''Wunnerverein''. As described above under Regular events, this arose from a circle of youths led by a would-be organic farmer who first conceived the idea of the yearly rock festival. The founding meeting took place on 20 January 1988. Thirty-four members registered and they chose Thomas Jung as their chairman. The club’s goal was and still is the care and furthering of the village community through sporting leisure activities, group outings, fostering contacts with other clubs and cultural events. The club was officially registered on 18 April 1988. The idea for calling the club the ''Wunnerverein'' goes back to a local folk legend, which has never been written down, but rather has been passed down from one generation to the next. According to this tale, about the turn of the 20th century, or perhaps even earlier, the Glan, as it so often had before, flooded its banks. About where the railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
bridge spans the river now was a wooden footbridge linking one bank to the other. This footbridge had not been built to withstand such torrents, and the floodwaters eventually proved no match for the footbridge and tore it from its place, washing it down the Glan. This much was to be foreseen. What few would have foreseen, however, was the "wonder" (''Wunder'' in German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, or dialectally, ''Wunner'') – or was it a deed worthy of the Schildbürgers? – of what happened next. The villagers from Eschenau sought their footbridge by setting out for Ulmet, believing that they would find it there. This was, however, hardly likely, for Ulmet lay upstream from Eschenau, and the footbridge seekers had to put up with a goodly helping of ribbing from their neighbours over this. The episode came to be known as the ''Eschenauer Wunner''. Eschenau’s youths seized upon this old story, transferring this expression to their club, thus keeping a bit of the local lore all the more alive. The highlights since the club’s founding have been the days-long trips to Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, to the Lüneburg Heath
Lüneburg Heath (german: Lüneburger Heide) is a large area of heath, geest, and woodland in the northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen a ...
along with Heligoland
Heligoland (; german: Helgoland, ; Heligolandic Frisian: , , Mooring Frisian: , da, Helgoland) is a small archipelago in the North Sea. A part of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein since 1890, the islands were historically possessions ...
, to Saxon Switzerland
Saxon Switzerland (german: Sächsische Schweiz) is a hilly climbing area and national park around the Elbe valley south-east of Dresden in Saxony, Germany. Together with the Bohemian Switzerland in the Czech Republic it forms the Elbe Sands ...
, to Locarno
, neighboring_municipalities= Ascona, Avegno, Cadenazzo, Cugnasco, Gerra (Verzasca), Gambarogno, Gordola, Lavertezzo, Losone, Minusio, Muralto, Orselina, Tegna, Tenero-Contra
, twintowns =* Gagra, Georgia
* Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic
...
on Lake Maggiore
Lake Maggiore (, ; it, Lago Maggiore ; lmo, label=Western Lombard, Lagh Maggior; pms, Lagh Magior; literally 'Greater Lake') or Verbano (; la, Lacus Verbanus) is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the second largest la ...
, to Oktoberfest
The Oktoberfest (; bar, Wiesn, Oktobafest) is the world's largest Volksfest, featuring a beer festival and a travelling carnival. It is held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is a 16- to 18-day folk festival running from mid- or ...
in Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
and also to the Harz
The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...
. The club also stages events for children and works on village renewal projects, among these the weathervane
A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...
on the schoolhouse.
Gumbsweiler
The Gumbsweiler singing and music club is more than 140 years old. In 1873, the men’s choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...
was brought into existence. It gave itself the tasks of fostering harmonious singing, promoting social life and sponsoring all cultural works. In the two world wars, it fell silent, only to be revived in 1948. An independent women’s choir was formed in 1964. The melding of the two into a mixed choir came in 1971. Joined to the club is the youth mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
orchestra, from which also sprang an entertainment orchestra. Youths’ musical training is now once again strongly promoted. In 1970, Südwestfunk (SWF, now part of Südwestrundfunk
Südwestrundfunk (SWR; ''Southwest Broadcasting'') is a regional public broadcasting corporation serving the southwest of Germany , specifically the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The corporation has main offices ...
) Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the states of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos (river), Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the ...
recorded a cycle of folksongs with choir and orchestra, and in 1971 the programme ''Schiwago auf dem Lande'' (" Zhivago in the Country") was broadcast from Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...
. The gymnastic
Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, sh ...
club, founded in 1921, had to be dissolved in 1960 owing to a dearth of exercise instructors. Today, the villagers of Gumbsweiler have intensified their participation in the clubs based in Sankt Julian’s other centres.
Obereisenbach
Obereisenbach has only one club, the ''Bürgergemeinschaft Obereisenbach'' (Obereisenbach Citizens’ Association), which sees to the villagers’ cohesion, village renewal and raising the quality of life.
Art gallery
In Eschenau, the villagers’ cohesion defines a lively cultural life, borne mainly by the village’s clubs, but foremost in Eschenau’s cultural life is painter Dietmar E. Hofmann’s ''Kleiner Kunstbahnhof'' ("Little Art Railway Station"), which has been earning itself national importance for decades with its permanent exhibits with Hofmann’s own handiwork, which has surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
tendencies. Catalogues of Hofmann’s most important works are available. Works can be bought in the village. At the same time, Hofmann exhibits sculptors’ works and offers them for sale.
Economy and infrastructure
Economic structure
Sankt Julian (main centre)
Sankt Julian had from the beginning a rural character. Given the village’s central location, though, small businesses sprang up quite early on. Mills were built after the Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
. In the 19th century, major quarries were opened that yielded yellow sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
. After the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, however, this industry was given up. A breadmaking plant that had long been in business was shut down, as was a window factory in neighbouring Eschenau. Many workers commute
Commute, commutation or commutative may refer to:
* Commuting, the process of travelling between a place of residence and a place of work
Mathematics
* Commutative property, a property of a mathematical operation whose result is insensitive to th ...
as far as Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...
, with the odd one even going as far as Ludwigshafen
Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein (; meaning " Ludwig's Port upon Rhine"), is a city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the river Rhine, opposite Mannheim. With Mannheim, Heidelberg, and the surrounding region, it form ...
.
Eschenau
In the time after the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the number of agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
operations shrank, and farming is now no longer of great importance among occupations in Eschenau. Eschenau was once the seat of a major window manufacturer. There are still small businesses (a fitter’s shop and a plant nursery), and the turnover in artistic products, both painting and sculpture, is also a certain factor in the village’s economy.
Gumbsweiler
Alongside domestic farms, there were in Gumbsweiler, as in almost all Glan villages, mills, each of which developed differently. The gristmill in Gumbsweiler has stood in three different places, first as the ''Kolbenmühle'' down from the Heckenacker (a rural area), then nearer the village on the other side of the Glan, and then right near the village at the bridge. This is one of the very few of these mills that are still running today. It runs as a heritage mill, but also does business. Automation
Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...
and efficient production have greatly changed the mill. It is today driven by a turbine
A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating e ...
to raise its capacity. There was another mill called the ''Schrammenmühle'', which stood about 1.5 km upstream from the village. This mill was mentioned as early as 1580, but was likely much older than that. It was where Friedrich W. Weber came from, and he compiled a few prime works about the Palatinate’s mills. In the end, this mill only ran as an oilmill. It was shut down for good in 1954. Two smaller mills stood for a time on the Grundbach. They were run in the early 19th century during French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
ary and Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
ic times as coöperatives in which some 15 families held shares in each. Through the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the agricultural structure prevailed, and farming was everybody’s main livelihood. Each family had a few small plots of land for growing grain and potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
es. Fruitgrowing, too, played a great role, for Pome, pomaceous fruits were pressed and Drupe, stone fruits were made into Fruit preserves, jam. The regional office (''Bezirksamt'') in Kusel
Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...
registered in 1905 for Gumbsweiler twelve named farms that were run as primary income earners, fifteen craftsmen and businessmen, two grocery shops, two painters and two innkeepers. Income at the craft businesses was very small, and therefore even the craftsmen had to work the land, albeit as a secondary occupation. Of great importance to feeding the villagers was Animal breeding, stockbreeding. Every house had a stable, usually an outbuilding. In 1904, Gumbsweiler counted 20 horses, 35 head of cattle, 138 pigs and 41 goats. In times of war and neediness, livestock and small-animal keeping grew so greatly that greenery had to be gathered from the woods as stable straw. As cattle farming dwindled, the number of sheep rose. Cattle at first were raised as part of dairy farming, but more and more they came to be raised for beef. During the 20th century, many Gumbsweiler villagers had to earn their livelihoods as workers. They worked at the hard-rock quarries in the dale, at the coal pits in the Saarland, at the Baumholder troop drilling ground or later, after having completed the requisite training, at the Opel works in Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...
. The village grew into a residential community for both Blue-collar worker, blue- and White-collar worker, white-collar workers who must commute
Commute, commutation or commutative may refer to:
* Commuting, the process of travelling between a place of residence and a place of work
Mathematics
* Commutative property, a property of a mathematical operation whose result is insensitive to th ...
to work elsewhere each day. The younger generation is moving to the cities and industrial centres. Still doing business in the village are a bakery that also sells groceries, a stonemasonry and gravestone business and an inn
Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...
.
Obereisenbach
While agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
was mainly what saw to the Obereisenbach villagers’ needs, along with the two former mills, after the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the number of agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
operations shrank. Beginning in the 19th century, other businesses afforded the villagers choices in livelihoods: quarries, businesses that filled mineral water
Mineral water is water from a mineral spring that contains various minerals, such as salts and sulfur compounds. Mineral water may usually be still or sparkling (carbonated/effervescent) according to the presence or absence of added gases.
Tra ...
bottles, distilleries and basket weaving. The ''Bitschenmühle'' (mill) up from the village functioned in the 18th century as an estate mill. The ''Bauernmühlchen'' ("Little Farmers’ Mill") down from the village was maintained as a coöperative. The sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envi ...
in the Reuterrech, the slope on the dale’s left side, was from 1831 let out to private interests by the municipality, earning major importance about 1900 when the Glan Valley Railway, railway line along the Glan was built. The quarry remained in business until about 1960. Along with this sandstone quarry, there were also several small hard-rock quarries. Since a great deal of good fruit grew within Obereisenbach’s limits, this was made into fruit wine and Distilled beverage, spirits. The last distillery, though, closed in 2004. The mineral spring was mentioned as early as the early 16th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Spring (hydrology), spring’s owners began to put it to commercial use. There was a spring on the river’s left bank below the Reuterrech near the big sandstone quarry, called the ''Sankt Julia Quelle'', and another one over on the right bank called the ''Pfälzer Quelle''. Bit by bit, three bottling businesses grew up, bottling not only mineral water
Mineral water is water from a mineral spring that contains various minerals, such as salts and sulfur compounds. Mineral water may usually be still or sparkling (carbonated/effervescent) according to the presence or absence of added gases.
Tra ...
but also various fruity drinks. The products were shipped to many parts of the Western Palatinate and the Saarland. After the Second World War, it was no longer financially worthwhile to continue the business. In 1970, the last bottling business ceased production. The basket weaving craft flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the products were sold by travelling salesmen.
Education
The greater municipality of Sankt Julian nowadays has one kindergarten
Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...
and one primary school. The Realschule, vocational schools and the school for children with mental handicaps are to be found in Kusel
Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...
, while the school for children with Learning disability, learning difficulties is located in Lauterecken
Lauterecken () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname ''Veldenzstadt'', after the comital family t ...
.
Sankt Julian (main centre)
About the origins of schooling in Sankt Julian little is known, since all the school journals went missing at the end of the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. From old property registers, however, it can be seen that already in the 17th century, the municipality owned "school land", and therefore, there must have been a school in the village even then. Going by the village’s size, a two-class village school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
must have been built quite early on. The first schoolhouse stood on the branch of the path from Bergstraße ("Mountain Street") at Haus Steige 1, near the rectory. It might have been built as early as the 17th century, but was torn down in 1850 and replaced with a bigger building, which served as the schoolhouse until about 1900. After 1945, the teachers’ dwellings and the municipal secretariat were built. The house is now under private ownership. A new schoolhouse was built about 1900 on Hauptstraße ("Main Street"). Housed here until 1973 were always two classes and the mayor’s office. This house (Hauptstraße 38) was later sold by the municipality. Housed there now are the Sparkasse (Germany), Sparkasse and a Dentistry, dental practice. In 1962, a Sankt Julian school association was founded under which all schoolchildren in Sankt Julian, Obereisenbach, Eschenau, Gumbsweiler, Hachenbach and Rathsweiler
Rathsweiler is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, who ...
were banded together. From the villages of Horschbach
Horschbach is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, wh ...
, Elzweiler and Welchweiler, only the Hauptschule students were grouped into the school association, and of those from Ulmet and, beginning only in 1968, Niederalben
Niederalben is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, wh ...
, only grade levels 7 to 9 were incorporated. In 1966, this school association acquired the big schoolhouse on the Lenschbach as its central school. Owing to the school reforms that were being put through at that time, though, and at the same time the administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
with the merger of many municipalities in the ''Regierungsbezirk
A ' () means "governmental district" and is a type of administrative division in Germany. Four of sixteen ' ( states of Germany) are split into '. Beneath these are rural and urban districts.
Saxony has ' (directorate districts) with more res ...
'' of Koblenz (region), Koblenz into the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Rheinhessen-Pfalz, there were also new requirements for founding school associations. Thus, first, in 1970, the provisional Hauptschule Offenbach-Hundheim/Sankt Julian, whose seat was in Offenbach-Hundheim, was opened. There were three grade levels there at the beginning, with grade levels 5 and 6 being taught at the new schoolhouse in Sankt Julian and levels 7 to 9 at the Offenbach-Hundheim schoolhouse. This Hauptschule was attended by students from Offenbach-Hundheim and Sankt Julian and those from Buborn, Kirrweiler
Kirrweiler is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in E ...
, Homberg, Kusel, Homberg, Deimberg
Deimberg is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein.
Ge ...
, Glanbrücken, Glanbrücken, Hachenbach and Wiesweiler, and in the beginning also those from a few villages in the Altenglan (Verbandsgemeinde), ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Altenglan, namely the three Hermannsberg municipalities of Horschbach
Horschbach is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, wh ...
, Elzweiler and Welchweiler, along with Ulmet, Niederalben and Rathsweiler. The students from the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Altenglan were grouped into their own Hauptschule in Altenglan
Altenglan is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan. Alten ...
in 1973. The Hauptschule in Offenbach-Hundheim was merged with the one in Lauterecken
Lauterecken () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname ''Veldenzstadt'', after the comital family t ...
in 1975. Besides the Hauptschule, there was at first also a primary school for the schoolchildren from all Sankt Julian’s centres and Hachenbach, Niederalben and Rathsweiler besides. In 1973, a new primary school named Sankt Julian Offenbach-Hundheim was opened for the schoolchildren from Buborn, Nerzweiler, Offenbach-Hundheim, Sankt Julian and Wiesweiler. This school still stands in Sankt Julian’s main centre, and is still open.
Eschenau
Until Bavarian times, there was only a winter school (a school geared towards an agricultural community’s practical needs, held in the winter, when farm families had a bit more time to spare) in Eschenau, attendance at which was optional. All-year education, however, was available in Sankt Julian. In 1837, an administrator named Adam Fegert was doing the teaching at the winter school, and promised to come back the next year – but never did. A schoolteacher named Georg Philipp Stachelrath applied, and the pastor from his home village, Merxheim, confirmed in writing that Stachelrath was indeed a teacher by trade. Nevertheless, this trained teacher left again quickly enough. It was odd, however, that winter schooling was still being maintained in Eschenau, even though Bavarian law forbade it. There came further teachers and teacher candidates, but none lasted in the job very long, until at last in 1840, all-year schooling was introduced. At that time, a schoolteacher named Schöpper, who at first could offer no references because he could not get them back from another employment application that he had made. It turned out later that Schöpper could furnish proof of very good marks, having even been rated "excellent" in religion, but he could neither sing nor play the organ. The village councillors chose to overlook Schöpper’s lack of musical ability for, after all, there was no church in Eschenau anyway. The district administration demanded, however, that the teacher sit an examination after two years’ service and have himself further trained in the artistic subjects (Schöpper could also not Drawing, draw very well). Until that was done, no binding agreement was to be concluded with the teacher. Nevertheless, Schöpper was eventually named Eschenau’s permanent schoolteacher, but not until 1855, by which time he was 39 years old. He then remained in service in Eschenau until 1886, retiring at the age of 70. Schöpper had reached no mandatory retirement age, but he could no longer see and hear very well, and he was also suffering from a Inguinal hernia, hernia. The yearly considerations for Schöpper’s service amounted to 137 Rhenish guilders, of which 70 guilders was paid out in cash, while 25 guilders was deducted for the school land, 10 for the dwelling, 4 for a specified amount of municipal firewood and 28 for 7 hL of corn (wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
or rye). Over the next few years, there was once again a high teacher turnover. In 1889 came Wilhelm Schmidt, who had been an administrator in Dörrenbach. He was forthwith granted a permanent post, and in 1890 the authorities granted him official leave to marry Katharina Zimmermann from Bergzabern
Bad Bergzabern () is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, on the German Wine Route in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated near the border with France, on the south-eastern edge of the Palatinate forest, approximately ...
, who had been born in the United States to a father from Germany who had been a master baker. Schmidt was efficient at his job. He received approval from the authorities to make the school barn available to a local fertilizer manufacturer, and he himself was allowed to take part in selling the products. He then participated at an agency of the ''Giselaverein'', a club named after a Archduchess Gisela of Austria, Bavarian princess (among other titles that she bore) that concerned itself with outfitting nubile girls. As well, he represented a Property insurance, fire insurance company and kept the municipality’s poor budget. Schmidt faced penalties for having set his dog on a few boys from Sankt Julian who earlier had wanted to tease the dog. Schmidt was transferred in 1898 to Dierbach. His successor was Jakob Müller, who was now also in the service of the church, and in 1903, he was transferred to Niedermohr, Schrollbach. There was more quick turnover. Teachers came one after the other: Michael Assenbaum, Johannes Göhring, Karl Linn. Reinhard Blauth from Weilerbach appeared during the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, and not surprisingly he was soon called into the military. Alwine Leppla and Ernst Neumann took over for him while he was fighting. Blauth came back from Prisoner of war, wartime imprisonment in 1920. He taught in Eschenau until 1926 and then had himself transferred to Weilerbach, where he distinguished himself as a local history writer. The Eschenau school was dissolved in 1969. The last local schoolteacher was Volker Jung from Altenkirchen, who died young, but not before working as the acting headteacher at the Realschule Schönenberg-Kübelberg. Eschenau’s primary school pupils nowadays attend classes in Sankt Julian, while the Hauptschule for the village is the one in Lauterecken
Lauterecken () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname ''Veldenzstadt'', after the comital family t ...
. Gymnasium (school), Gymnasien can be attended in Kusel
Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...
and Lauterecken.
Gumbsweiler
For almost 200 years, Gumbsweiler had its own elementary school. Classes were in the beginning held on private premises made available for this purpose. When the first school was built and where it stood are things that can hardly be ascertained today. The earliest information about a school in Gumbsweiler comes from 1753, from a yearly report about the delivery of education. According to this, there were classes in Gumbsweiler daily over the winter from Michaelmas (29 September) until spring, and then over the summer only once weekly. In that same year, 18 pupils in three classes were taught by a lone teacher. The name of the teacher who was teaching in 1756 is known. He was Simon Cordier, 32 years old and unmarried. As a dwelling, a one-bedroom apartment had been made available to him. How hard teachers had it in those days can be gathered from a 1745 document: "Let every municipal citizen, without regard to religion, make the contribution of the so-called bell corn or bell wikt:sester, sester of 48 guilders yearly. Let this serve partly for covering the schoolteacher’s wages in his capacity as municipal bellringer for ringing the bells and setting the village clock. For the Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
teacher let there also be a charge of 20 Kreuzer for bellringing at burials." The conditions at the school must have generally been abysmal. This might well have had its roots in the pressure on the municipality from the government in 1841 aimed at getting the municipality to give building the schoolhouse precedence over building a new bridge. Only in 1905 was more information about the school set down in writing, in a registration of the village at the regional office (''Bezirksamt'') in Kusel
Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...
: "Gumbsweiler has a Protestant school that is under the district school inspectorate’s authority. The teacher’s name is Kopf Friedrich." In this same year, a royal decree from Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria had already entered into force, and under this law, after entering school at the age of six, seven years of weekday school and five years of Sunday school were decreed. Furthermore, Christianity, Christian teaching was compulsory for every Sunday school pupil. In 1922-1923, the schoolhouse was given an upper floor because a second teacher and therefore another classroom had become necessary. In 1936, the government of Bavaria introduced the 8th school year. Even after the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the school remained a Protestant elementary school with two teaching posts. In 1953, the municipality had both classrooms equipped with modern furniture. In 1954, the school was hooked up to the local water supply network and in 1960 it got oil heating. As early as 1965, a school association had been formed. See under Sankt Julian (main centre) above for this phase in the school history. In 1977, the school in Gumbsweiler was torn down and the teacher’s dwelling was sold off.
Obereisenbach
Until 1850, schoolchildren from Obereisenbach attended classes in Sankt Julian. Then, the village got its own school, although at first, classes were held in private houses. It was not until 1866 that a schoolhouse, built largely by volunteers among the villagers, became available. The little building with its turret and bell have been preserved, but it has been converted into a private house. Lessons were always given by school administrators, who each stayed in Obereisenbach for only a short while. A few of them later reached careers in the fields of school oversight and teacher training. The number of schoolchildren for the most part varied from ten to twenty, and by the end it hovered about seven or eight. As early as 1963, the school was dissolved, thus even before the administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
. The school had been closed once before, during the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and up until 1949. Today the primary school pupils attend school in Sankt Julian, while the Hauptschule students go to classes in Lauterecken
Lauterecken () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname ''Veldenzstadt'', after the comital family t ...
.
Transport
Running through Sankt Julian’s main centre and Eschenau, and passing just outside Gumbsweiler (about 200 m from the village core) is ''Bundesstraße
''Bundesstraße'' (German for "federal highway"), abbreviated ''B'', is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.
Germany
Germany's ''Bundesstraßen'' network has a total length of about 40,000 km.
German ''Bundesstraßen'' ...
'' 420, which links Oppenheim, a town on the Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, so ...
, with Neunkirchen, Saarland, Neunkirchen, linking Sankt Julian to the Saarland and Rhenish Hesse. This Glan valley road was brought into service in the 18th century by the Dukes of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, and about 1840, the Kingdom of Bavaria
The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German E ...
gave it a thorough overhaul, expanding it. After Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
and his Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
came to power, the road was expanded once again, this time into an army road. The constituent community of Gumbsweiler lies just off this road. Gumbsweiler’s most important link with the outside world is its bridge across the river Glan. In 1779 it was built as a stone bridge. Very often, flood
A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...
ing and ice runs have threatened this bridge. The bridge with its short stretch of road linking the village does, however, make Gumbsweiler’s transport situation quite advantageous, for it means that there is no dangerous through traffic in the village. Gumbsweiler is also linked by ''Kreisstraße'' 27 to Horschbach
Horschbach is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan, wh ...
and by ''Kreisstraße'' 26 to Hachenbach. There is also a metalled country lane leading from Gumbsweiler to the ''Schrammenmühle'' (a derelict mill). The constituent community of Obereisenbach does not lie on ''Bundesstraße'' 420 at all, and indeed not even on the Glan. It is linked by ''Kreisstraße'' 28, which branches off ''Landesstraße'' 373 between Glanbrücken
Glanbrücken is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein. ...
and Kirrweiler. There are good bus links from Sankt Julian and Gumbsweiler to Kusel
Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...
and Lauterecken
Lauterecken () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname ''Veldenzstadt'', after the comital family t ...
. This service began on 1 June 1997 and runs hourly. The Automobile, car has made great progress since the 1950s. In Gumbsweiler, for instance, there were only five motor vehicles in 1952, but car ownership is now almost universal. The stretch of the ''Glantalbahn'' (railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
) running through Sankt Julian was in service from 1904 to 1985, having been built for strategic reasons. It opened on 1 May 1904 and remained in service for precisely 81 years and one month. On 31 May 1985, the last scheduled passenger train (actually a railcar) ran, flying a black flag, on the stretch of line between Lauterecken and Altenglan
Altenglan is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kusel-Altenglan. Alten ...
. On its tracks, visitors may now ride draisine
A draisine () is a light auxiliary rail vehicle, driven by service personnel, equipped to transport crew and material necessary for the maintenance of railway infrastructure.
The eponymous term is derived from the German inventor Baron Karl ...
s. Serving Lauterecken
Lauterecken () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname ''Veldenzstadt'', after the comital family t ...
is Lauterecken-Grumbach station on the Lauter Valley Railway (Palatinate), Lauter Valley Railway (''Lautertalbahn''), and serving Altenglan is Altenglan station on the Landstuhl–Kusel railway. Both lie roughly 7 km from Eschenau.
Famous people
Sons and daughters of the town
* Ludwig Gümbel (b. 12 March 1874 in Sankt Julian; d. 8 February 1923 in Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
)
::Pastor and Gymnasium (school), Gymnasium teacher Karl Ludwig Gümbel’s son, Gümbel attended the Gymnasium in Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer li ...
and the Berlin Institute of Technology, Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg. As a shipbuilding engineer he led the machine-building department for the Hamburg America Line and was acting director of the ''Norddeutsche Maschinen- und Armaturenfabrik'', which later became Bremen’s Atlas Elektronik, Atlas Works. His work extended to oscillation and frictional resistance of ships’ hulls, waterscrew theory and – of importance to all machinery – investigations into machine greasing. In the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Gümbel was called into the Imperial German Navy where he took on the task of building up the German submarine fleet.
* Friedrich Wilhelm Weber (b. 1911 in Gumbsweiler at the ''Schrammenmühle''; d. 1998 in Grünstadt, buried in Gumbsweiler; not to be confused with Friedrich Wilhelm Weber, the man of the same name who lived in the 19th century)
::Oilmiller Wilhelm Weber’s son, Weber attended the elementary school in Gumbsweiler, the Gymnasium (school), Progymnasium in Kusel
Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...
and the teacher training institute in Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...
. In 1936 he was a schoolteacher in Gommersheim near Landau, and later a Realschule teacher in Eisenberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Eisenberg, retiring in 1974 as the acting principal. Weber had a deep knowledge of molinology and was also a regional historian. He was a member of the board of the "Club for Palatine Church History" and for the "Historical Club of the Palatinate". He wrote ''Nordpfälzer Geschichtsblätter'' ("North Palatine History Papers") and was an employee at ''Westrichkalender Kusel''. He was the compiler of the standard works ''Die Geschichte der Mühlen und des Müllerhandwerks der Pfalz'' ("The History of the Mills and the Milling Craft in the Palatinate") and ''Die Geschichte der pfälzischen Mühlen besonderer Art'' ("The History of Palatine Mills of Special Type"), as well as writing many other publications.Friedrich Wilhelm Weber
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References
External links
Municipality’s official webpage
Official webpage of the ''Straussjugend Sankt Julian''
{{Authority control
Municipalities in Rhineland-Palatinate
Kusel (district)
Holocaust locations in Germany