Schorbach () is a commune in the

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...

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 the

Grand Est Grand Est (; gsw-FR, Grossa Oschta; Moselle Franconian/ lb, Grouss Osten; Rhine Franconian: ''Groß Oschte''; german: Großer Osten ; en, "Great East") is an administrative region in Northeastern France. It superseded three former administrat ...

administrative region Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

in north-eastern

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 ...

. The village belongs to the Pays de Bitche. Schorbach had 551 residents. The residents refer to themselves as ''Schorbachois'', and are also known by the sobriquet ''Wurschtfresser'', a name that refers to the annual ''Wurschtfescht'' (sausage feast) that is celebrated on

Saint Rémi Remigius (french: Remi or ; – January 13, 533), was the Bishop of Reims and "Apostle of the Franks". On 25 December 496, he baptised Clovis I, King of the Franks. The baptism, leading to about 3000 additional converts, was an important event ...

's day.

Geography

Schorbach is a few kilometres South of the border with the Palatinate (Germany), North-east of Bitche. The commune is part of the

Palatinate Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve The Franco-German Palatinate Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve (german: Biosphärenreservat Pfälzerwald-Nordvogesen, french: Réserve de biosphère transfrontalière des Vosges du Nord-Forêt palatine) was created in 1998 as the first UNESCO t ...

History

The name ''Schor-Bach'', probably meaning turtle-stream, is first seen in 1210. The place was long part of

Zweibrücken-Bitsch The County of Zweibrücken-Bitsch (, ) was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire that was created between 1286 and 1302 from the eastern part of the County of Zweibrücken and the Barony of Bitche (german: Bitsch) in Lorraine. It continued to exist ...

. Schorbach was an early seat of a church congregation, served by the Hornbach monastery, 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 ...

it remained the central church for the surrounding villages. At the start of

World War II 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 inhabitants were evacuated to the Département of

Charente Charente (; Saintongese: ''Chérente''; oc, Charanta ) is a department in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, south western France. It is named after the river Charente, the most important and longest river in the department, an ...

. Schorbach was liberated by American troops on the 16th of March 1945.

Population

Culture

The church of Saint Rémi, built on the site of a previous church inaugurated in 1143, on a rock overlooking the town, was the central parish church of the Pays de Bitche for many centuries. The founder of the church is unknown, but local history frequently ascribes the foundation to Berthold von Eberstein, whose son Eberhard III resigned his right of patronage at the nearby

Sturzelbronn abbey Sturzelbronn (; ; Lorraine Franconian: ''Stirzelbrunn'') is a commune in the Moselle department of the Grand Est administrative region in north-eastern France. The village belongs to the Pays de Bitche and to the Northern Vosges Regional Nature P ...

. Eberhard's daughter married Count Henri II of Zweibrücken-Bitsch. A square tower survives from the time of the foundation of the church, but the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

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 ...

. In 1774 the church, which had fallen into ruin, was comprehensively restored. Schorbach is also known for the

Ossarium An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...

at the entrance of the old churchyard, which dates from either the 12thFranz Xaver Krauss, ''Kunst und Altertum in Elsass-Lothringen'', tome III, Strasbourg, 1889. or 15thMarie-France Jacops, Jacques Guillaume, Didier Hemmer: ''Le Pays de Bitche (Moselle)'', Inventaire général des monuments et des richesses artistiques de la France, Région Lorraine, Ed. Serpenoise, Metz, 1990 (p.121). century, according to different sources.

References

External links

Schorbach at bitscherland.fr
(French) {{authority control Communes of Moselle (department)