Sien () is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Herrstein-Rhaunen, whose seat is in Herrstein.
Geography
Location Sien lies between Idar-Oberstein and Lauterecken northeast of the Baumholder troop drilling ground.
Neighbouring municipalities Sien borders in the north on the municipality of Otzweiler (Bad Kreuznach district), in the east on the municipality of Hoppstädten (Kusel district; not to be confused with Hoppstädten-Weiersbach), in the south on the municipality of Langweiler (Kusel district; not to be confused with Langweiler in the Birkenfeld district), in the southwest on the municipality of Unterjeckenbach (Kusel district) and the Baumholder troop drilling ground and in the west on the municipality of Sienhachenbach. Sien also meets the municipality of Schmidthachenbach at a single point in the northwest.
History
Celtic times The earliest traces of habitation in what is now Sien's municipal area go far back before the Christian era, bearing witness to which are two extensive fields of barrows. There are hundreds here, built by the Treveri, a people of mixed Celtic and Germanic stock, from whom the Latin name for the city of Trier, Augusta Treverorum, is also derived. Among the most important archaeological finds unearthed at one of the two barrows where digs have been undertaken is a beak-spouted clay ewer. Buried with Celtic princes in the time around 400 BC (La Tène A) were Etruscan bronze beak-spouted ewers, a luxury that few could afford. These were for serving Celts as festive wine vessels, even in the afterlife. Grave goods from ordinary people's graves, however, were humbler things, mostly made of clay. Nowhere had a clay imitation of a bronze Etruscan ewer ever been unearthed, which was somewhat against expectations, until 1972. That year, in Sien, a Celtic warrior's grave yielded up such a vessel. The humble potter had not merely slavishly copied the Etruscan model, but had also thrown the 29 cm-tall piece on his wheel in such a way that he gave it a thoroughly unique artistic form. The original is to be found at the Trier State Museum, while a replicas are on display at the local history museum in Birkenfeld and in Sien.Sien’s Celtic history
Roman times Archaeological finds, of which there have been many, also establish that Sien's municipal area was settled in Roman times (2nd to 4th century AD). Most noteworthy among the finds from this era has been a well-preserved column made of light-coloured sandstone. Presumably it belonged to the portico villa of a Roman estate.
The column, unearthed in 1973, was carved out of a single block of stone (a monolith). With the capital and the abacus, it measures some 2 m tall. It tapers slightly towards the top and has a diameter of roughly 36 cm. The column's surface is, given sandstone's characteristics, rough. In two places, just above the base and also just below the necking, is a fine groove turned on a lathe. On the whole, it could be an example of the Tuscan style.
The column can nowadays be found being used as a support for the little porch at the entrance to the Evangelical church in Sien.Sien’s Roman history
Frankish times Today's village of Sien was founded by Germanic, namely Frankish, settlers who made it their home after the Roman Empire had fallen. Bearing witness to this is the village's own name, Sien, which likely derives from the Old High German word sinithi (“grazing land”).
Since the parish of Sien is considered one of the oldest ones in the area, the village may well have been one of the earliest Frankish foundings in the time between the 6th and 10th centuries. Moreover, Sien was the hub of a high court district, witnessed as early as 970, and a fief granted by the Salian emperor to the Emichones, gau counts in the Nahegau, who later called themselves the Waldgraves and Raugraves.
The Nahegau was divided into administrative zones called Hochgerichte (“high courts”). The one whose seat was in Sien was called the Hochgericht auf der Heide (“High Court on the Heath”). The Hochgericht comprised a vast area (18 650 ha) between the Nahe and the Glan with all together 50 population centres, although some of these later vanished. Court was held at least once a year on the heath near Sien (hence its name). The count or the Schultheiß, as the king's representative, administered justice along with 14 Heideschöffen (“heath Schöffen”, or, roughly “heath lay jurists”). Today the cadastral names Königswäldchen (“King’s Little Wood”) and Galgenberg (“Gallows Mountain”) recall the former execution places.Sien’s Frankish history
Middle Ages In 1128, Sien had its first documentary mention in the so-called Adalbert Document, in which it says that Archbishop of Mainz Ruthard had bestowed upon the Disibodenberg Monastery – quite possibly as an economic hedge – one Hufe of land (this was between 30 and 60 Morgen, and a Morgen itself could be between 0.2 and 1 ha) in Sien (“…et in Sinede hubam”).
In this same document, the namesake Archbishop of Mainz Adalbert (1109-1137) confirmed his predecessor's donations to Disibodenberg. The donation of the Hufe of land might have taken place about 1108, for it was then that building work on a new Benedictine monastery began at the forks of the Nahe and Glan, after the old one had been destroyed in the 10th century and forsaken by the monks. The Adalbert Document is reproduced in the Disibodenberg Monastery's cartulary, now kept at the state archive at Darmstadt.
Over the course of history, the village has been known as Sinede, Synede, Synde, Syende, Siende and Syne, among other names, before settling on the currently customary form, Sien.
Divisions of inheritance and feuds led to an ever-greater splintering of the gau counts’ formerly unified holding. Thus, Sien passed by way of inheritance in 1112 to the Counts of Veldenz, the Emichones’ successors. From the 13th century, Sien itself was even divided. One part belonged to the Waldgraves of Grumbach – and as of 1375 to the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves of Kyrburg – while the other part was held by the Counts of Loon (a place nowadays in Belgium), who were offspring of the Vögte and prefects of the Foundation of Mainz, and thereby also possibly heirs to the Mainz church estate in Sien.
In 1325, the Counts of Loon, who in the late 13th century built a moated castle on their part of Sien, enfeoffed the knight Kindel von Sien with the castle and half the village of Sien, as well as with further, considerable holdings. The small castle was known in documents as Festes hus (“steadfast house”), but for all its steadfastness, on 28 September 1504, it was destroyed in the Landshut War of Succession and was never restored. All that is left of it now is the former castle well. There is also a memorial plaque on Schloßstraße (“Castle Street”) in the village. Two local cadastral names also recall the old castle: “Schlosswies” (“Castle Meadow”) and “Am Weiher” (“At the Pond” – meaning of course the former moat). The part of the municipal area where the castle once stood was officially known as Sienerhöfe (“Sien Estates”), but it was never locally known as anything other than the Schloss (“Castle”), and accordingly, the inhabitants were called the Schlösser. The Counts, though, ceded the feudal overlordship over their Sien holdings in 1334 to the Waldgraves of Dhaun. The then Count of Loon and Chiny, Ludwig, issued a writ releasing all his vassals and subjects who were part of the castle holding from any and all duty and loyalty to him, but in the same breath, Ludwig reminded them that they now owed their new overlord, the Waldgrave of Dhaun, Johannes, the same as they had owed their old overlord. The writ bore Ludwig's seal on the back.
An enfeoffment document gives information about the fief. It apparently comprised the castle, half the village of Sien, half the village of Sienhoppstädten, the lordly rights as they pertained to the church and the tithes from Sien, Sienhoppstädten, Schweinschied, Selbach, Reidenbach, Oberhachenbach and Niederhachenbach.
In 1431, the Knights of Sien died out in the male line. Schonetta von Siende, the last knightly feudal lord's niece, brought the Sien fief by marriage to Reinhard von Sickingen to the Lords of Sickingen, whose best known family member was her grandson, Franz von Sickingen. Schonetta von Siende was the last of the knightly house of Sien. Her first marriage was to the knight Hermann Boos von Waldeck, but he died young. A son that she bore in this union inherited parts of Dickesbach and Schmidthachenbach from the Sien fief. Schonetta married her second husband in 1449, and bore him a son, Schwicker von Sickingen, who later became Franz von Sickingen's father. Schonetta died on 1 January 1483 in Kreuznach. In the upheaval of the Reformation, her bones were transferred from Kreuznach to Ebernburg, where the family Sickingen kept its seat. Thereafter, however, the trail is lost, and the whereabouts of Schonetta's bones is now unknown. There is, however, still a stone to her memory at the parish church in Sien. It dates from roughly 1560.Sien’s mediaeval history
Age of Absolutism In 1765, the Sickingens sold off their holdings in Sien to Johann XI Dominik Albert, Prince at Salm-Kyrburg (known as Prince Dominik) and owner of the other half of Sien, thereby ending the age of two lords holding the village as a condominium. One thing left over from that age, though, was the denominational split between Catholics and Protestants that had arisen from the two lords’ different policies. On the other hand, under Prince Dominik's enlightened rule, trade and crafts blossomed, which was something sorely needed. Hardly needed, though, were some of the subsequent events, such as the Plague, the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and the Nine Years' War (1688-1697; known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession), which laid the land waste and sharply decimated the local population. According to one memorandum, in 1698, Sien comprised no more than 15 houses.
Prince Dominik was one of the most important rulers among the Lords of Salm, to whom the Oberamt of Kirn passed after the Waldgravial-Rhinegravial line of Kyrburg died out. He was born in 1708 in Mechelen, nowadays in Belgium, and despite being orphaned at the age of eight, this Jesuit-educated boy lived what was at that time a relatively charmed life as an heir to the Salm estates. His father's death, of course, meant that he inherited his father's holdings, the lordship of Leuze in the County of Hainaut (nowadays mostly in the Belgian province of Hainaut, but with parts in the neighbouring French Department of Nord). Thus, even as a youngster, he could enjoy a carefree life of leisure in Vienna, the more so when he and his brother Philipp Joseph received the Oberamt of Kirn in 1743. This included the Schultheißerei of Sien, along with half the village of the same name.
Two years later, both brothers were raised to princely status. Dominik now underwent a gradual shift in his ways of thinking and in his attitude towards life, which was helped along by various educational travels, whereafter he permanently moved house in 1763 to Kirn so that he could quite humbly live amongst his subjects. As an enlightened prince, he was very concerned about their welfare, and worried particularly about their education and religious upbringing.