Merzweiler 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
Merzweiler lies in the Jeckenbach valley in the Western Palatinate between the Palatinate Forest and the Hunsrück at elevations ranging from 250 to 260 m above
sea level. The elevations around the village reach heights of more than 300 m above sea level (Brecherberg 362 m, Rüllberg 350 m). The municipal area measures 226 ha, of which roughly 2 ha is settled and 27 ha is wooded.
[ Location]
Neighbouring municipalities
Merzweiler borders in the north on the municipality of Hoppstädten, in the east on the municipality of Kappeln, in the southeast on the municipality of
Grumbach, in the southwest on the municipality of
Herren-Sulzbach and in the west on the municipality of Langweiler. Merzweiler also meets the municipality of Homberg at a single point in the southwest.
Municipality’s layout
Merzweiler lies at a crossroads of one road running east–west from Kappeln to Langweiler, and another running north–south from Hoppstädten to
Grumbach. The village community centre stands in the middle of the village where the road to Hoppstädten branches off. In the past, the village won prizes on various occasions in the contest
Unser Dorf soll schöner werden (“Our village should become lovelier”). Among the old farmhouses, the
Einfirsthaus (“house with a single roof ridge”) is predominant. The small graveyard lies in the village's south end on the road leading to Grumbach.
[ Municipality’s layout]
History
Antiquity
It is certain that the Merzweiler area was settled in
Prehistory. In
Ancient Rome times, a
villa rustica stood where the village is now, and according to old literary citations, as early as 1756, the remnants of a round
Roman temple with mighty stone blocks were unearthed, a complex with a diameter of some “200 paces”. The digs yielded some valuable statues, among them a “
Hercules with the club”. One statue had an inscription on its base reading
Merkurius. The excavation site can still be picked out today in the cadastral area called “Auf Burg”. About the unearthed sculpture's whereabouts today, though, nothing is known.
[ Antiquity]
Middle Ages
It is likely that the
Franks farm that became the seed that grew into Merzweiler arose sometime between 800 and 1000. Originally, from 960 to 1140, the village lay in the
Nahegau, ruled by the
Emichones, but was not mentioned in the documents according to which various villages of the
Heidegericht (“Heath Court”) were pledged by the
to either the Counts of Veldenz or the Dukes of Zweibrücken. The village likely passed as early as the 12th century to the County of Veldenz when this was founded by Count Gerlach I. Nevertheless, the village's name did not appear among those listed in the 1387 “brotherly partition” between Counts Friedrich and Heinrich of Veldenz either. However, that document does say, in archaic
German language, that Count Friedrich was to receive “
die dorffer und armelude zu Meisenheim, die bisher in das Ampt zu Meisenheim gehörig sind” (“the villages and poor people at
Meisenheim, which hitherto have belonged in the
Amt at Meisenheim”). Merzweiler must have been among these villages. Even before 1426, the Counts of Veldenz had granted the court at Merzweiler to the House of Boiz von Reipoltskirchen, first to Conrad Boiz, then to Hermann the Elder and last to Hermann the Younger. In 1438, the
fief passed to Hermann the Younger's son-in-law, Godelmann Blick von Lichtenberg. As a Veldenz, and later Zweibrücken village, Merzweiler always belonged to the
Amt, later
Oberamt, of Meisenheim.
[ Middle Ages][ Merzweiler’s history ]
Modern times
Merzweiler was a church seat, possibly right from the Early Middle Ages. This church was enfeoffed with the St. Antoniushof (estate) near
Bad Sobernheim. In 1563, the church gave this fief for one hundred years to Guff Hansen. In the Treaty of Meisenheim of 20 March 1595, Count Palatine Johannes I gave Merzweiler to the regents of Rhinegrave Christoph von Grumbach's sons, exchanging it for the villages of
Bosenbach and
Oberstaufenbach. At the same time, the Count Palatine was granted leave to develop the brine spring near
Sankt Julian. The Antoniushof, as an ecclesiastical fief to the Lords of Hansen, was confiscated by the Rhinegraves. In the course of the treaty negotiations, Count Palatine Johannes had a report put together from which one can learn details from the late 16th century about Merzweiler. It says that the Count Palatine was responsible for both high and low
Oberkeit (something akin to “superiority”), could have incomes and levies at his disposal, and had hunting rights. It also names all the
Serfdom, 13 families with 44 inhabitants. A serf here belonged, together with his family, to the Count of Palatinate-Veldenz, whose residence was at
Lauterecken, but was nevertheless ready to show the Duke of Zweibrücken the customary subservience. At the time of the exchange, it was clearly laid out what taxes and payments Merzweiler's inhabitants had to pay before 1595. The Duke of Zweibrücken received from the
Beth (tax) each year 1
Rhenish guilder, 4
Alben and 2
. From land taxes he got 19 Rhenish guilders and 4
Batzen. In kind, each household had to deliver to him 11 chickens along with 1
Simmer of fodder
for each horse, all together 7
Simmer. Even the lowly serf who belonged to the Counts of Palatinate-Veldenz (Lauterecken) had to pay their part in all of this. Out of the wine tithes, one third each had to go to the Count Palatine, the Meisenheim parish priest and Antoni Bos's
widow, meaning a rich landholder's family. In an ordinary year, the wine tithe could be as much as 4 or 5
Ohm (an
Ohm was usually something between 134 and 174.75 L). Of the grain tithe, yearly 6 to 7
Malter, half corn (
wheat or
rye) and half oats, one third went to the Meisenheim parish priest while the other two thirds went to the Lords Cratz von Scharfenstein. Payments had to be made to the Church of Merzweiler itself, too, yearly in money 14 Rhenish guilders and 7
Alben, in grain 3
Malter, 2
Simmer 2
Dreiling and 2
Sester of corn and 3
Malter and 1
Simmer of oats. These were received and tallied by the Meisenheim church steward. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), Merzweiler was drawn harshly into hardship, particularly in 1635 and 1636 when
troops, who were on the Emperor's side, attacked, as did troops under the likewise Imperial General
Matthias Gallas. The villagers fled to the nearby woods and watched as the village's houses were destroyed. Hunger and the Plague decimated the population. Many villagers moved to places that were not quite as harshly affected by the war. When the war ended, a taxation report read “Here it must be said that owing to all kinds of war danger most people have died and owing to dearth have moved out of the land and the taxes and levies are therefore not being raised.” In
France King Louis XIV's wars of conquest, there were once more losses. It was relatively calm in the 18th century. The population grew once again, and there was even
emigration for the first time.
[ Modern times] In Merzweiler once lived Johannes Bückler's (1777–1803) grandparents, whose notorious grandson was better known as
Schinderhannes. Bückler's grandfather Otto Philipp Bückler was born about 1709 in
Hilscheid in the
Idar Forest near
Thalfang, worked as a
Scharfrichter and a
knacker and died in 1777 in Merzweiler. Bückler's grandmother Maria Magdalena Riemenschneider (1738–1770) came from Merzweiler. Johannes Bückler (1758–1803), Schinderhannes's father, was born in Merzweiler.
[Peter Bayerlein: Schinderhannes-Ortslexikon, S. 163, Mainz-Kostheim 2003]
Recent times
During the time of the French Revolution and the
era that followed, the German lands on the
Rhine’s left bank were annexed by France. Merzweiler now belonged to the
Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Grumbach, the Canton of Grumbach, the Arrondissement of Birkenfeld and the Department of Sarre. As early as 1793, French Revolutionary troops advanced through the Glan valley and billeted themselves in the villages in the
Grumbach area. There were assaults by Revolutionary troops against the local populace. After the French were driven out in 1814, the Congress of Vienna established a new political order in post-Napoleonic
Europe. In 1816, Merzweiler thus passed to the Principality of Lichtenberg, a newly created
exclave of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, which as of 1826 became the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. As part of this state, it passed by sale in 1834 to the Kingdom of
Prussia, which made this area into the Sankt Wendel district within the
Rhine Province. This district was split into several
Ämter; Merzweiler belonged to the
Amt of Grumbach. Later, after the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles stipulated, among other things, that 26 of the Sankt Wendel district's 94 municipalities had to be ceded to the
United Kingdom- and
France-occupied Saar. The remaining 68 municipalities then bore the designation “Restkreis St. Wendel-Baumholder”, with the first syllable of
Restkreis having the same meaning as in English, in the sense of “left over”. Merzweiler belonged to this district until 1937, when it was transferred to the Birkenfeld district, formed out of the
Restkreis and a formerly Oldenburg-held district, also called Birkenfeld. This new, bigger Birkenfeld district lay within the Prussian
Regierungsbezirk of Koblenz. After the Second World War, the village at first lay within the
Regierungsbezirk of Koblenz in the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In 1968, in the course of administrative restructuring, the
Amt of Grumbach was dissolved, and Merzweiler was then transferred to the Kusel district, in which it remains today. In 1972, Merzweiler passed to the then newly founded
Verbandsgemeinde of Lauterecken, and at the same time from the
Regierungsbezirk of Koblenz to the newly founded
Regierungsbezirk of Rheinhessen-Pfalz, which has, however, since been dissolved.
[ Recent times]
Population development
Until a few decades ago, the greater part of Merzweiler's population earned its livelihood mainly at
agriculture. Besides the farmers, there were also farmhands, forestry workers and a few craftsmen. There were hardly any other jobs to be had. Even today, the land within municipal limits is still worked, although few people nowadays work in farming. A good deal of those in the workforce must seek employment elsewhere. As early as 1955, of the 56 active workforce members in Merzweiler, 48 had to
Commuting to jobs.
The following table shows population development over the centuries for Merzweiler:[ Merzweiler’s population development]
Municipality’s name
In a copy of a document from 1341, Merzweiler is named as
Mertzwilr. In 1375 it was called
Mortzwiler, and in 1426
Mortzwilre. In 1500, the form
Mertzwiler appeared. The village's name, Merzweiler, has the common
German language placename ending
—weiler, which as a standalone word means “hamlet” (originally “homestead”), to which is prefixed a syllable
Merz—, believed to have arisen from a personal name,
Morizo, suggesting that the village arose from a homestead founded by an early
Franks settler named Morizo. The earlier notion that the village already existed in
Ancient Rome times with the name
Martis Villa (
Martis being the
Genitive case of
Mars, the war god, and thus this name would have meant “Mars’s Estate”) or
Villa Mercis (“Warehouse Estate”) is not nowadays shared by regional historians.
[ Municipality’s name]
Religion
In Merzweiler, from the
Middle Ages onwards, up to the late 16th century, stood a church. Whether the village was originally a self-administering parish is unknown. In the Late Middle Ages, the church was a branch of
Medard. Since the village then belonged to the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, it was then subject to Zweibrücken ecclesiastical organization. That changed right away when Merzweiler was traded for
Bosenbach and
Oberstaufenbach in 1595, and thereby ended up with the Rhinegraviate of Grumbach. It was then subject to Rhinegravial ecclesiastical organization. Merzweiler thus belonged first to the parish of Sulzbach, then passing to the parish of Grumbach when this became self-administering in 1808. In Zweibrücken times, the clergyman would hold services during the week at the Merzweiler church, while on Sundays he would hold them at the Kappeln church. About the church building itself little is known. A 1584 ecclesiastical visitation protocol noted that the church had fallen into disrepair and needed to be renovated. Obviously nothing came of this and the church was simply given up. There were never very many
Catholic Church or
Judaism in Merzweiler in earlier days.
[ Religion]
Politics
Municipal council
The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
[ Kommunalwahl Rheinland-Pfalz 2009, Gemeinderat]
Mayor
Merzweiler's mayor is Klaudia Schneider.
[
]
Coat of arms
The municipality's arms might be described thus: Per bend sinister Or a lion rampant sinister gules armed and langued azure and gules two roses, the smaller surmounting the larger, the larger reversed, both argent and barbed vert and the smaller seeded of the first.
The charge on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side is the lion once borne as an heraldic device by the and Rhinegraves, the area's last Feudalism rulers. The roses symbolize the village's beauty, bearing witness to which are its showings in various contests. The arms have been borne since 20 July 1964 when they were approved by the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of the Interior.[ Description and explanation of Merzweiler’s arms][ Description and explanation of Merzweiler’s arms]
Culture and sightseeing
Buildings
The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[ Directory of Cultural Monuments in Kusel district]
-
Hauptstraße 7 – former mill; building with half-hipped roof, essentially possibly from the latter half of the 16th century, one-floor bakehouse addition
Regular events
Merzweiler holds its kermis (church consecration festival) on the third weekend in August. Old customs, such as were once observed in all villages of the Glan area, are hardly practised at all nowadays.[ Regular events]
Clubs
The following clubs are active in Merzweiler:[ Clubs]
-
Gesangverein — singing club
-
Landjugendgruppe — country youth group
-
Förderverein der Feuerwehr und der Gemeinde — promotional association for the fire brigade and the municipality
Economy and infrastructure
Economic structure
In the time after the Second World War, the number of Agriculture operations in Merzweiler shrank greatly, though the lands used for farming remained mostly preserved. Thus, the farms still in business simply got bigger. Primary income-earning operations mostly shifted to secondary income earners, but all together most of these businesses were reduced to a minimum. Workers therefore had to seek jobs outside the village. As mentioned above, in 1955, of the 56 active workforce members in Merzweiler, 48 had to Commuting to jobs. The number of commuters has since risen.[ Economic structure]
Education
With certainty, schoolchildren from Merzweiler were being taught even before 1595, perhaps in a neighbouring village. From 1595 to 1762, schoolchildren attended the school in Herren-Sulzbach, and thereafter the one in Grumbach. In 1909, the village got its own school. The schoolhouse still stands today, although the school that it housed was dissolved in 1969. The last schoolteacher was Adolf Bender. Until 2010, primary school pupils attended the primary school in Grumbach/Hoppstädten, which has since been closed. The Hauptschule students went straight to the Hauptschule in Lauterecken, and now, the primary school pupils, too, are taught in Lauterecken. The Gymnasium Lauterecken is relatively easy to reach from Merzweiler.[ Education]
Transport
Merzweiler lies at a crossroads of Landesstraße 373 (Kappeln—Langweiler), and Kreisstraße 53 (Unterjeckenbach—Grumbach). Kreisstraße 67 towards Hoppstädten also branches off here. Running to the southwest is Bundesstraße 270. Langweiler and Grumbach each lie roughly 2 km away. The nearest Autobahn interchanges at Kusel and Kaiserslautern are quite far away, and can be reached only after driving 35 to 45 km. Serving Lauterecken is a railway station on the Lautertalbahn.[ Transport]
External links
