Reipoltskirchen Dorfplatz.jpg

Reipoltskirchen 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.

Geography

Location

Reipoltskirchen lies in the Odenbach valley in the north of the North Palatine Uplands at an elevation of some 200 m on a slight broadening of the valley floor. The mountains on either side of the valley climb rather steeply upwards, reaching more than 300 m above sea level on the right (east) bank and more than 400 m above sea level on the left (west) bank (Steinkopf 403.3 m, Platte 361 m, Galgenkopf 303 m). While the Ingweilerhof lies in the dale, along with the main centre, Ausbacherhof and Karlshof are to be found on the heights that stretch out between the Odenbach valley and Lauter valley to the west. The municipal area measures 652 ha, of which roughly 7 ha is settled and 250 ha is wooded.

Neighbouring municipalities

Reipoltskirchen borders in the north on the municipality of Becherbach, in the northeast on the municipality of Nußbach, in the southeast on the municipality of Hefersweiler, in the south on the municipality of Relsberg, in the southwest on the municipality of Einöllen, in the west on the municipality of Hohenöllen and in the northwest on the municipality of Cronenberg.

Constituent communities

Reipoltskirchen's ''Ortsteile'' are the main centre, likewise called Reipoltskirchen, and the outlying centres of Ausbacherhof, Ingweilerhof and Karlshof.

Municipality’s layout

Reipoltskirchen's main centre stretches along the left bank of the stream on roads that climb up to the western heights. A few houses in the southeast of the village stand on the far bank and are linked with the village centre by the bridge carrying the ''Landesstraße'' 382. The oldest settled neighbourhood lies in the northeast of the village. Standing here are the church and the rectory as well as the old lowland castle of Reipoltskirchen, a water castle which is ringed by the stream and also an artificial watercourse. At the end of this moat also stands the former mill whose waterwheels were driven by water coming out of the moat. The old school and the forester's house likewise stand in this northerly neighbourhood. The graveyard is to be found north of the village between the through road and the brook. Most of the houses come from the 19th century, as does the church. A newer schoolhouse from 1906 stands in the village's south end on Hirtenstraße. Likewise on that street stands the ''Johann-Heinrich-Roos-Halle'', a multipurpose hall. The castle's origins are uncertain. It may have arisen in the late 12th century, but is first recorded in 1267. It was a round complex that was surrounded by the moat and walls on a manmade hill. Still well preserved is the 18 m-tall ''bergfried'' with its very thick walls and flat roof. In recent times, the moat has been filled back up with water. For years, the Kusel district has been having extensive renovation work carried out, which is now almost finished. The Ingweilerhof, south of the village, right on the road near the municipal limit with Hefersweiler, was in bygone days a village in its own right. Nowadays it is a great walled rectangle with houses, a chapel and commercial buildings that come from the 18th century. Housed at this estate is a seniors’ home. Likewise formerly a village in its own right was the Ausbacherhof lying southwest of the village on the road to Einöllen. The Karlshof, though, lying near the Hohenöllen municipal area, is a newer centre founded in the 19th century.

History

Antiquity

Reipoltskirchen was settled quite early on. The latest archaeological find was unearthed one kilometre south of Reipoltskirchen, an old Roman house, that is to say, a villa rustica, believed to have been built between about AD 100 and 200, with its associated stabling and lodging for servants. This villa may have arisen from a foregoing Celtic settlement. In the 6th and 7th centuries, at the time when the Franks, a Germanic tribe, were taking over the land, a Frankish settlement arose in the Odenbach valley roughly where the Nußbach (formerly the Hahnenbach) empties into the Odenbach. It was called ''Hundheim am Steg''.

Middle Ages

Sometime about 980, a Frank named Richbald built a church about a kilometre northwest of Hundheim am Steg. Over the years, a settlement grew up around it and took the name ''Richbaldeskirchen'', after the man who had built the church. This earliest church is believed to have been wooden, but it was replaced by a sturdier building in the 10th or 11th century. This church had its first documentary mention in 1222 in Prüm Abbey’s book of souls as ''Kirche mit Leichenhof'' (“church with graveyard”). The people who settled there cleared land and farmed, although apparently the land did not yield up plentiful harvests.

It is likely that the region around Reipoltskirchen was originally free Imperial Domain (''Reichsland''). An unknown king or emperor may have transferred the village to Prüm Abbey, which in the 12th century then transferred its holdings in the ''Reichsland'' to secular lords as a ''Vogtei''.

Other than ''Meffridus de Ripoldeskirchen'' whose name cropped up in a document, no Lords of Reipoltskirchen are known to history. More is known about the families Bolanden and Hohenfels. Werner I of Bolanden, an Imperial ministerialis, founded the Hane Monastery near Bolanden in 1129. Werner II endowed the Rodenkirchen Monastery. Philipp III of Bolanden (d. 1220) had Castle Ehrenfels built on the Rhine. His son Philipp IV wed Elisabeth von Hohenfels, and thenceforth the House of Hohenfels was always seen as a branch of the House of Bolanden. One of Philipp's sons, Dylmann (Theoderich), was Imperial Treasurer and called himself Dylman von Hohenfels. His own son, Heinrich, in turn is held to be the founder of the Reipoltskirchen line. He bore the double title ''Heinrich von Hohenfels und Herr zu Reipoltskirchen'' (Heinrich of Hohenfels and Lord at Reipoltskirchen), and he was also known for participating in Emperor Henry VII's journey to Rome.

According to Father Michael Frey's (1788–1854) ''Beschreibung des Rheinkreises'' (“Description of the Rheinkreis”, that is, the Palatinate during the time after the Congress of Vienna when it was Bavarian), it was sometime about 1181 that the lowland castle was built. This castle belonged as a fief from Prüm Abbey in the Eifel to the Lords of Bolanden. Known to have been among the earliest ''Burgmannen'' are Meffried von Reipoltskirchen (about 1196) and Jakob Boos zu Reipoltskirchen (1209). The castle eventually passed by inheritance to the Lords of Hohenfels, had its first documentary mention in 1276 and beginning in 1297, it became the seat of the lordly sideline founded by Heinrich von Hohenfels, Lord of Reipoltskirchen.

Sometime between 1194 and 1198, or perhaps even as early as 1189/1190, Reipoltskirchen had its first documentary mention in a directory of landholds kept by Count Werner von Bolant, whose family seat – a castle – stood in Bolanden on the Donnersberg. He was Emperor Barbarossa's ministerialis and one of the wealthiest knights of his time. This directory is today kept at the ''Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv'' in Wiesbaden. In it is found a listing of the extensive and widely scattered fiefs held by Werner, among which is an entry reading “''Mefridus de Ripoldeskirchen habet a me in beneficio in Rameswilre V. mansos predii.''” The confusion about the date arises from the fact that the directory contains no explicit dates in its text. Complicating matters is the directory's division into four parts, each of which likely dates from a different time. Wilhelm Sauer suggested for the third and most extensive part, which contains the mention of Mefridus de Ripoldeskirchen, the 1194-1198 dates. The authors Martin Dolch and Albrecht Greule concurred with this assessment in their 1991 work ''Historisches Siedlungsnamenbuch der Pfalz'', although writer Albrecht Eckhardt had reckoned its date as something more like 1189/1190 in 1976, with which Volker Rödel later agreed in 1980. The key to pinpointing the date lies in the year when Werner II died. Is the “Werner von Bolanden” mentioned in the records between 1193 and 1198 Werner II or his grandson Werner III (Werner II's son Philipp predeceased his father in 1187)? Whatever the truth is, it seemingly cannot be inferred with any certainty from this old directory (especially since the writing in it suggests that it is a copy of the original from about 1250/1260), but what is certain at least is that 1198 is the latest possible date for this document. Thus, the municipality celebrated its 800th anniversary of first documentary mention in 1998. The Lordship of Reipoltskirchen, which belonged to the Upper Rhenish Circle, remained Imperially immediate until its occupation in 1792 by French Revolutionary troops.

The first “Knight of Reipoltskirchen” to appear in the historical record is Heinrich von Hohenfels und Reipoltskirchen, who was mentioned in 1297, and who died in 1329 and was buried at the Zion Monastery Church (''Klosterkirche Sion'') in Otterberg. Also in 1297, Count Heinrich sold his uncle, the Count of Zweibrücken, the Urbach estate (Ausbacherhof). The historical record mentions the castle for the first time. In Reipoltskirchen, a new sideline of the Lords of Bolanden took its seat, with Heinrich von Hohenfels as the founder. It was soon afterwards calling itself after its two castles: the Lords of Hohenfels-Reipoltskirchen. In 1304, Count Heinrich bought from the noble knight Johann von Metz the villages of Finkenbach and Breitenborn (Gersweiler) along with the patronage rights at the church there. In 1350, the Hohenfelses came to Reipoltskirchen after their castle seat on the Donnersberg was destroyed. They were forbidden to build their castle anew once they had shown themselves to be robber knights and highwaymen. The line of succession through the Late Middle Ages was Konrad I, Konrad II, Eberhard I, Eberhard II, Johann I and Wolfgang. All but the last bore the title Lord of Reipoltskirchen. Wolfgang also styled himself Lord of Hohenfels, Rixingen and Forbach, which went to show how greatly the lordly house had expanded its holdings. It was about 1500, through marriage, that the Hohenfels-Reipoltskirchens acquired shares of the counties of Forbach and Rixingen in Lorraine. Furthermore, sons had been founding sidelines, but by the Late Middle Ages, only two such lines remained, the Lords of Hohenfels-Reipoltskirchen and the Lords of Falkenstein, and even this latter house died out with Archbishop of Trier