Steinwiesen is a market town and

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 ...

located in the Upper Franconian district of

Kronach Kronach ( East Franconian: ''Gronich'') is a town in Upper Franconia, Germany, located in the Frankenwald area. It is the capital of the district Kronach. Kronach is the birthplace of Lucas Cranach the Elder and Maximilian von Welsch, as well ...

, in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

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 ...

. The town is situated about 100 km slightly east of due north of

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

, and approximately 10 km northeast of

. The main town is located in a valley, within the Franconian Forest Nature Park, and is known for its particularly scenic surroundings.

History

Steinwiesen is thought to have been founded in 1000 AD, and was first mentioned under the name '''Steinnigenwiesen''' in Urbar A of the Bamberg Collegiate Diocese in 1323 as part of a list of possessions and interests. ''Steinnigenwiesen'' held 9.5

fiefs 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 overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form ...

and a mill. The name is derived from a translation referred to as a 'stony meadows'. In 1348, '''Steinwisen was mentioned for the first time in Urbar B. In 1386 '''Steinwiesen is mentioned in a document as the first rafting village in Frankenwald (en: the Franconian forest). The oldest document in the possession of the community officially dates back to 1419, a fief letter from Bishop Albrecht von Wetheim for Cuntz Weydhawser concerning the tithe to Steinwiesen. The Kronach Kastenamts-Urbar of 1507 listed 45 houses and 7 cutting mills. These were the lower cutting mill at the Silberberg, at the Hader, the Schöpfenmühl, the upper grinding mill, the mill at the Steingründlein, Hirtensteg, and Wolfsgrube. At that time, the lords of the village were the Hochstift, Heinz von Redwitz, who owned five estates, and the Marschall von Ebneth with two estates. Between 1653 and 1674, the village was hit by the plague on five occasions. Steinwiesen was granted market privileges in April 1743 through Friedrich Karl von Schönborn-Buchheim, bishop to Bamberg and Würzburg. The town remained within the Bishopric of Bamberg until 1802. With the directive of April 1937, the governor of Bavaria, knight Franz of Epp lent the community of Steinwiesen the right to lead an own crest. The community flag with three strips in the sequence red-white-green was approved 1968 by the Bavarian Interior Ministry.

Notable people

* Josef Müller, German Resistance member and founder of the

Christian Social Union in Bavaria The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (German: , CSU) is a Christian-democratic and conservative political party in Germany. Having a regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic ...

References

Kronach (district) {{Kronach-geo-stub