Brauweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate

Brauweiler is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Kirner Land, whose seat is in the town of Kirn.

Geography

Location

Brauweiler lies in the southern Hunsrück at an elevation of 323 m above sea level in the western Soonwald foothills above the Kellenbach and the municipality of Simmertal.

Neighbouring municipalities

Clockwise from the north, Brauweiler's neighbours are the municipality of Kellenbach, the municipality of Simmertal, the municipality of Horbach, the municipality of Simmertal (again), the municipality of Hochstetten-Dhaun and the municipality of Heinzenberg. Brauweiler's municipal area comes within several metres of Hennweiler’s, but does not actually border on it, while Simmertal’s crescent-shaped municipal area means that it borders on Brauweiler’s in two places, one each side of Horbach.

History

Many prehistoric archaeological finds from various epochs bear witness to very early settlers within what are now Brauweiler’s municipal limits. The oldest finds come from the New Stone Age (3500-1800 BC). The village originally belonged to the greater municipal area of Simmern under Dhaun, a lordly estate held by Saint Maximin’s Abbey, an Imperial monastery, and in which the Waldgraves of Dhaun exercised ''Vogtei'' rights. In the Late Middle Ages, Brauweiler was subject to the Sponheim lordship of Koppenstein. The village’s boundary alignment within the ''Amt'' of Koppenstein often led to disagreements with the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves, who had their seat at Dhaun, because territorial and judicial rights were not altogether clearly defined. The Rhinegraves’ position, for instance, was that the Brauweiler municipality outside its estate fences had neither its own municipal area nor any rights, but rather that it should be used together, for its water and grazing, with the inhabitants of Simmern. The Waldgrave and Rhinegrave of Dhaun also claimed fishing, hunting and forestry rights there. All this was argued at the Palatine arbitration tribunal, and it ruled that these rights belonged to the Counts of Sponheim. Brauweiler remained until the end of feudal times a part of the ''Amt'' of Koppenstein, which was subject to the Badish ''Oberamt'' of Kirchberg. Ecclesiastically, Brauweiler was always subject to the parish of Simmern and Dhaun. After the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank were occupied by French Revolutionary troops and administrative reform on the French Revolutionary model had been begun in 1798, Brauweiler was assigned to the ''Mairie'' (“Mayoralty”) of Monzingen. In the time that followed, Monzingen remained Brauweiler's ''Amt'' seat. Since the ''Amt'' was dissolved in 1970, however, Brauweiler has been part of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kirn-Land.Statistische Mappen, Verbandsgemeinde Kirn-Land, 2009

Municipality’s name

The municipality's name appeared in 1380 as ''Pruwilre'' and goes back to the base form ''Brunen-wilre'', which can be interpreted as meaning “Bruno’s Estate”.

Religion

As of 2013, there were 74 full-time residents in Brauweiler, and of those, 50 were Evangelical (67.568%), 8 were Catholic (10.811%) and 16 (21.622%) either had no religion or did not reveal their religious affiliation.

Politics

Town council

The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected by majority vote

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