Ludwigshöhe is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

belonging to a ''

Verbandsgemeinde A (; plural ) is a low-level administrative division, administrative unit in the Germany, German States of Germany, federal states of Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A is typically composed of a small group of Municipalitie ...

'', a kind of collective municipality – in the

Mainz-Bingen Mainz-Bingen is a district (''Kreis'') in the east of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from north clockwise) Rheingau-Taunus, the district-free cities Wiesbaden and Mainz, the districts Groß-Gerau, Alzey-Worms, Bad Kreuzn ...

district in

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) 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 sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Rhein-Selz.

Geography

Location

The small municipality of Ludwigshöhe lies in

Rhenish Hesse Rhenish Hesse or Rhine HesseDickinson, Robert E (1964). ''Germany: A regional and economic geography'' (2nd ed.). London: Methuen, p. 542. . (, ) is a region and a former government district () in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is ...

, in the Rhine rift a short way west of the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

on the old

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

Worms The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a taxonomic database that aims to provide an authoritative and comprehensive catalogue and list of names of marine organisms. Content The content of the registry is edited and maintained by scien ...

trade road, nowadays known as ''

Bundesstraße ''Bundesstraße'' (, ), 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'' are labelled with re ...

'' 9, almost exactly halfway between the Rhineland-Palatinate

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

capital of Mainz and the '' Nibelungstadt'' of Worms.

History

Ludwigshöhe is a comparatively new place, but it goes back to the

Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from around the middle of the 5th century until Pepin the Short in 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the ...

community of Rudelsheim. A dykeburst in 1819 brought about a shift in that place’s population to higher ground on a nearby hill. Rudelsheim had its first documentary mention in 766 in a donation document from the

Lorsch Abbey Lorsch Abbey, otherwise the Imperial Abbey of Lorsch (; or ''Laurissa''), is a former Imperial abbey in Lorsch, Germany, about east of Worms, Germany, Worms. It was one of the most important monasteries of the Carolingian Empire. Even in its ru ...

. It is believed to have been founded in the 5th or 6th century by the

Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...

. After the

Romans 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 Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

had already brought

winegrowing Viticulture (, "vine-growing"), viniculture (, "wine-growing"), or winegrowing 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, ...

to the region, this form of agriculture was taken over by the Franks. Above all, it was the monasteries that led grape cultivation and perfected it. In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, Rudelsheim lay near or right at the yet unchannelled Rhine, whose course could change with each flood, thereby bringing the village considerable misery and damage. It is mentioned in the Wormser wall-building ordinance from around 900 as one of the places that shared responsibility for maintaining the

city wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or Earthworks (military), earthworks to extensive military fortifications such as ...

.C. Van De Kieft and J. F. Niermeyer, eds. (1967), ''Elenchus fontium historiae urbanae'' (Leiden: E. J. Brill), pp. 43–44. A devastating dykeburst in December 1819 led to the village being relocated on a hill farther to the west. The foundation stone was laid on 25 August 1822, Saint Louis’s Day, in honour of

Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse (14 June 1753 in Prenzlau – 6 April 1830 in Darmstadt) was ''Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt'' (as ''Louis X'') and later the first ''Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine''. Louis was the son of Louis IX, Landgrave of ...

, and also in his honour was the new village’s name, Ludwigshöhe (“Ludwig” is the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

form of “Louis”; ''Höhe'' is German for “heights”). Abandonment and moving from the old Rudelsheim was ongoing up until 1830. The church, the only preserved building, fell victim to a fire in 1837.

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 8 council members who were elected by

majority vote A majority is more than half of a total; however, the term is commonly used with other meanings, as explained in the "#Related terms, Related terms" section below. It is a subset of a Set (mathematics), set consisting of more than half of the se ...

on 13 June 2004.

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: Azure a lion rampant barry of nine gules and argent armed and langued gules and crowned Or, in his gambe dexter a sword of the fourth held in bend sinister, in base argent a pot of the first with the inscription ST. VITUS, issuant from beneath which flames of fire of the second.

Notable people

* Johann Becker (1869–1951) German politician ( DVP), Member of the Reichstag, Imperial Minister of Economics (see: Weingut Brüder Dr. Becker)

References

External links

Ludwigshöhe in the collective municipality’s Web pages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ludwigshohe Mainz-Bingen Rhenish Hesse