Fürfeld 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 of Bad Kreuznach, whose seat is in the like-named town, although this lies outside the Verbandsgemeinde.
Geography
Location Fürfeld lies, like Frei-Laubersheim and Neu-Bamberg, in the Rheinhessische Schweiz – Rhenish-Hessian Switzerland – a recreational region, and at the same time it is within Germany's biggest winegrowing region. The village's midpoint is the so-called "Römer" ("Roman"). The village itself is found in the east of the Bad Kreuznach district. The municipal area borders on the neighbouring Alzey-Worms district and the Donnersbergkreis. With regard to physical geography, Fürfeld lies in the foothills of the North Palatine Uplands at the foot of the Eichelberg ("Acorn Mountain"; 321.6 m above sea level) and not far from the Köpfchen ("Little Head"), which at 325 m above sea level is Rhenish Hesse's second highest elevation. Fürfeld is framed by vineyards and wooded land. The village's own elevation is 210 m above sea level, and its municipal area measures 1 248 ha, of which 855 ha is agricultural and 242 ha is wooded.Location
Neighbouring municipalities Clockwise from the north, Fürfeld's neighbours are the municipalities of Frei-Laubersheim, Neu-Bamberg, Wonsheim and Stein-Bockenheim (these last two in the neighbouring Alzey-Worms district), exclaves of Wonsheim and Neu-Bamberg, and the municipalities of Tiefenthal, Niederhausen an der Appel, Winterborn (these last two in the neighbouring Donnersbergkreis), Hochstätten and Altenbamberg.
Constituent communities Also belonging to Fürfeld are the outlying homesteads of Biedenthalerhof, Hof Iben, Thalermühle and An der Goldkaut.Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Amtliches Verzeichnis der Gemeinden und Gemeindeteile , Seite 14 (PDF; 2,3 MB)
History
Palaeontology Some 47 million years ago, the subsidence began over a vast area that would eventually form the Mainz Basin, and about 37 million years ago, the depression filled up with seawater, as the forerunner of what is today the Mediterranean Sea stretched that much farther north. This so-called "Rupelian Clay Sea" (Rupeltonmeer in German), in whose former coastal region Fürfeld's municipal area now lies, gradually developed into the so-called "Hydrobia Sea", a sea of brackish water snails. Grazing in the seaweed forests in towards shore were barrel-shaped seacows. In April 1911, Martin Mörsch from Fürfeld announced to the Alzey district office:I must ask something of you, for while digging earth for a field shed, I found a sea creature's skeleton. So, I ask you for an immediate investigation, or else my digging will be hindered. The investigation yielded the information that it was the fossilized skeleton of a seacow, Halitherium schinzii, from which, however, the head and tail were both missing.Palaeontology
Archaeology The oldest proof of mankind's presence in what is now Fürfeld is an archaeological find that came to light in 1901. It was a "rock hatchet with a pointed butt" from the New Stone Age, which was unearthed in a field known as "In der Teilung". The hatchet is now kept at the museum at Saint Andrew's Foundation (Andreasstift) at Worms. Also from this time come finds from the Linear Pottery culture. These, though, are merely fragments and potsherds, all dug up on the village's southeastern outskirts. Nevertheless, it would seem that these finds point to there having been a Linear Pottery culture settlement here. Assigned to late La Tène times is an ancient Celtic population – "Gaulish" in Roman eyes – who supplied Fürfeld with what is widely regarded as its finest prehistoric find, a necked vase. There have also been Frankish finds. In January 1913 the following was reported from Fürfeld:Not far from the crossing in the upper village – Hintenherum (roughly "round behind") as they say locally – five human skeletons were dug up during an excavation; 4 lay about a metre deep in the earth, the other only about 50 cm. Near one skeleton lay a loose head, and it was also missing every limb. One skeleton could be unearthed unscathed and was set up in the side building. It is supposedly 181 cm tall. The others were beaten into rubble during digging. The Jahresbericht der Denkmalpflege im Großherzogtum Hessen ("Yearly Report of Monument Care in the Grand Duchy of Hesse") added:Found at Wilhelm Mattern II's neighbouring building site were a sword of 73 cm in length, two small metallic objects and a flint…According to a writeup by Prof. Anthes, the discovery mainly deals with five skeletons of which the fifth had as grave goods a great Frankish slashing sword (scramaseax) as well as two little bronze buckles. On the other hand, the circumstances of what was held to be a "Merovingian row graveyard" were "not fully clear". Whatever it was, it was unearthed in 1952 on Franz Knickwandtöpfe's property, but although it was supposedly a graveyard, no skeletons were dug up. It is thus still an open question as to whether Fürfeld has such an archaeological site.Archaeology
Middle Ages Fürfeld was founded as a clearing settlement. If one puts the actual founding at the time when the provisional lodging was built for the people who cleared the land, then it seems highly likely that Fürfeld's founding came about in 894. Fürfeld thus stands as a notable exception among Rhenish Hesse's municipalities, even if most of them are older than Fürfeld. If one can believe the data given in the Alphabetisches Register rheinhessischer Städte und Gemeinden ("Alphabetical Register of Rhenish-Hessian Towns and Municipalities") in the book Rheinhessen. Landschaft, Wein und Kultur, the municipality of Fürfeld is almost alone in knowing its founding date, sharing this distinction only with Schornsheim and Mainz.Middle Ages
Charlemagne's great-great-great-grandson On 13 June 897, a Monday, in Herlisheim, King Zwentibold issued a donation document for Saint Maximin's Imperial Abbey near Trier, which, among other things, gave Fürfeld its first documentary mention, as Furnifeld. This document is preserved in the original and is now kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. King Zwentibold, Charlemagne's great-great-great-grandson, had a reputation that preceded him, for he was known not to be one to avoid a fight. Contemporaries called him brazen, spiteful and violent, and it is reported that once, in the course of a difference of opinion with his chancellor – Archbishop Ratbod of Trier, no less – Zwentibold beat him with a club. The rights laid down in the document were confirmed several times: On 1 January 912 in Metz by Charles the Simple (Charles III) of West Francia; On 30 November 1023 in Mainz by Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor and German King; On 11 January 1026 in Trier by Conrad II, the first Salian on the German throne.Charlemagne's great-great-great-grandson
High and Late Middle Ages From 960 onwards, the Emichones are encountered in records as having been the Salians’ viscounts in the Nahegau. The Emichones were Vögte of Saint Maximin's Abbey for its far-flung holdings in the Diocese of Mainz, and thus also the holdings on the Nahe, along with Münsterappel-Fürfeld. They were also the Raugraves’ forebears. Saint Maximin's upheld its feudal-lordly claims for centuries, but as of the latter half of the 17th century it was unsuccessful in this pursuit. Thereafter, the local lords in Fürfeld no longer considered themselves Saint Maximin's vassals. The village of Fürfeld itself was neither a Raugravial fief nor land actually owned by the Raugraves. Indeed, the Raugraves’ landhold in Fürfeld might have been no more than one estate, held by a farmer named Schrot, making it a very humble property. For their part, the Raugraves were clearly not satisfied with this, and after the dissolution of the Knights Templar by Pope Clement V at the Council of Vienne, Raugrave Heinrich III ascribed to himself in a 1325 directory of holdings, which still exists in the original, "all the estate that we have at Uben (Iben)" as his property. On 22 January 1362, Raugrave Ruprecht IV sold "Uben and what we had there, godsend, house, meadows, vineyard, cropfields, forest, tithes, tax, water and ways" for 500 pounds to Lord Emerich Rost von Waldeck. Iben was in fact an Electoral-Trier holding, but pledgings and even sales of fiefs were not only possible but even customary as long as the feudal lord was willing. His interests would not be affected as long as whoever held the fief performed his feudal duties.High and Late Middle Ages
Modern times As early as 1506, at the village level of jurisdiction, out of Germanic/German tradition, division of power between the judiciary and the executive was not the only thing that already existed. The village court lords were in their function not endowed with plentiful power like miniature dictators, but rather were themselves subject to the local legal norms, and even had to face legal consequences for any wrongdoing on their part, too. The 1506 Fürfelder Weistum (cognate with English wisdom, this was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times) clearly bears witness to a certain tense relationship between the court lord and the legal community. The court lords at the time were: Junker Philipp Beuser von Ingelheim; Junker Conrad von Waldeck, called von Üben; Junker Johann Boßen.