Nerzweiler 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 Nerzweiler is nestled in the Eßweiler Tal (dale) in the North Palatine Uplands between Hinzweiler and Offenbach-Hundheim at an elevation of roughly 190 m above sea level. The elevations on either side of the dale reach some 300 m above sea level (Auf der Platte 310 m, Stiehlberg 280 m). The municipal area measures 213 ha, of which roughly 10 ha is settled.Location
Neighbouring municipalities Nerzweiler borders in the north on the municipality of Offenbach-Hundheim, in the east on the municipality of Aschbach, in the south on the municipality of Hinzweiler and in the west on the municipality of Glanbrücken.
Municipality’s layout Nerzweiler is a loosely settled clump village on the road running through the Eßweiler Tal (Landesstraße 372). In the village core, the village's sidestreets cross the main street, and also here, settlement is a bit heavier. The graveyard lies to the northwest, outside the village.Municipality’s layout
History
Antiquity Given the many prehistoric archaeological finds in the broader Nerzweiler area, it can be assumed that people likewise inhabited the area right around what is now Nerzweiler during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, and perhaps even as early as the New Stone Age. There were people here during Roman times, too. In state scrivener and geometer Johannes Hofmann's 1595 description of the Eßweiler Tal, he wrote: “Likewise one also finds a walled sign near Hintzweiler and Nerzweiler in the fields down below at the Gutleuthaus (literally “good people’s house”, but actually a house for lepers) on the road. There, too, such stones, coins and quite solid pieces of limestone, like one fashioned into a table, have been found in the earth.” He was writing about finds from Roman times, such as many that were found throughout the dale. The Hachenbach chronicler, Ludwig Mahler, also speaks of Roman finds between Nerzweiler and Aschbach. He said the foundations of a Roman bath with six rooms were unearthed in 1827.Antiquity
Middle Ages To a great extent, Nerzweiler shares the same history as all the villages in the Eßweiler Tal, which in many respects, form a unit. Besides Nerzweiler itself, these villages were originally Hundheim (Neuenglan), Hachenbach, Hinzweiler, Aschbach, Horschbach, Oberweiler im Tal, Elzweiler, Eßweiler and the now vanished villages of Letzweiler, Niederaschbach, Nörweiler, Mittelhofen, Zeizelbach, Füllhof, Neideck and Lanzweiler. According to historians’ assumptions, these villages lay in the Free Imperial Domain (Reichsland) around the king's castle in Lautern (Kaiserslautern), and sometime before the 9th century, they were given over into Prüm Abbey’s ownership. This area’s ecclesiastical hub was at first the ancient church at Hirsau, the Hirsauer Kirche near Hundheim. The village of Hundheim then still bore the name Glena or Glan, perhaps even Neuenglan (Niuwen Glena), contrasting with Altenglan (Gleni) – neu and alt are German for “new” and “old” respectively. This Glena became seat of a Hund. Despite this word's modern German meaning (“dog”), this was a secular administrator for 14 feudal lords who held the right to share the tithes from the whole dale among themselves. The lords in question were the Junker Mühlenstein von Grumbach as the Rhinegraves’ vassal, the County Palatine of Zweibrücken, Offenbach Abbey, Remigiusberg Abbey, Tholey Abbey, Enkenbach Abbey, the Knights Hospitaller commandry at Sulzbach, the Church of Zweibrücken, the Church of Sankt Julian, the Church of Hinzweiler (formerly Hirsau), the Stangenjunker of Lauterecken, the House of Blick von Lichtenberg, the Lords of Mauchenheim and the Lords of Mickelheim. Obviously, each fiefholder held a different administrative seat. The Waldgraves and Rhinegraves, as holders of high jurisdiction, resided above the Lords of Mühlenstein (later Cratz von Scharfenstein) near the Hirsauer Kirche and at the Springeburg (or Sprengelburg; the ruin still stands today between Eßweiler and Oberweiler im Tal). The Counts of Veldenz, as feudal lords over the dale's “poor people” (as of 1444, this was instead the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken) chose as their seat the village of Nerzweiler, which between 1350 and 1451 was always named in documents as the seat of the Nerzweiler Amt. Michael Frey claims in his description of the Bavarian Rhine District (bayerischer Rheinkreis) that the Counts of Veldenz had already been enfeoffed with the Amt of Nerzweiler by 1130, and thus right after the county had been founded. Frey, however, does not name a source, and his claim is thus unproven. According to a 1350 document, in which Nerzweiler had its first documentary mention, a lesser nobleman Endris genannt (“called”) Müller von Grumbach made it clear that Count Heinrich II of Veldenz had hired him as Burgmann for his Castle Lauterecken. Endris, however, could not actually live at the castle owing to a lack of room. Hence, he could only even show up at the castle whenever he was issued a special invitation. He was accorded remuneration of six pounds in Heller each year, which he had to claim yearly at the Amtmann’s office at Nertzwilre. In a 1377 document, a man called Henne Weber is named – or Hans – who worked at the weaver’s craft (indeed, his surname is German for “weaver”). This Henne Weber from Nertzwilre was one of 40 bondsmen for Gerhard von Lauterecken, his wife Gertrud and Henne Heinzmann’s sons. Gerhard von Lauterecken had pledged allegiance to Count Heinrich II of Veldenz and declared himself ready to pay one thousand Mainz Gulden should he fail to keep his word. In five further documents from Count of Veldenz Friedrich III’s time, the issuers make reference to the state of affairs between the County of Veldenz and Electoral Palatinate. Specifically, a significant part of the County of Veldenz was made up of Electoral Palatinate fiefs; that is to say, these areas originally belonged to the Electors Palatine, but they enfeoffed the Counts of Veldenz with these holdings, to be kept as hereditary holdings. The fiefs in question were the town of Kusel, the Michelsburg (castle) on the Remigiusberg, Castle Pettersheim, the whole Remigiusland and also the Ämter of Bosenbach and Nerzweiler. In the 1387, 1398, 1437 and 1443 documents, Count Friedrich III acknowledged receipt of these holdings from Electoral Palatinate. In a 1393 document, though, Ruprecht of Electoral Palatinate (as of 1398 Elector Palatine, and as of 1400 German King) granted Count Friedrich leave to grant his wife Margarethe of Nassau-Saarbrücken the Amt of Nerzweiler (and also the Amt of Bassenbach or Bosenbach) as a widow’s estate, meaning that, should the Countess outlive her husband, she could draw an income as a widow from these two Ämter. In 1444, the County of Veldenz met its end when Count Friedrich III of Veldenz died without a male heir. His daughter Anna wed King Ruprecht’s son Count Palatine Stephan. By uniting his own Palatine holdings with the now otherwise heirless County of Veldenz – his wife had inherited the county, but not her father’s title – and by redeeming the hitherto pledged County of Zweibrücken, Stephan founded a new County Palatine, as whose comital residence he chose the town of Zweibrücken: the County Palatine – later Duchy – of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. Even before 1444 had ended, Stephan shared the new County Palatine out between his sons Friedrich and Ludwig. In 1446, the former Veldenz territory was confirmed for the two brothers by the new Elector Palatine, Ludwig. Cropping up in this confirmation document, issued on 27 July 1446 in Alzey, for the very last time is a reference to the Amt of Nerzweiler. It is not known when, but sometime thereafter, the Amt seat was moved to Hundheim, and then the entity was always called in documents the Hundheimer Pflege (Pflege literally means “care”, but it was actually a local geopolitical unit). Dependence on a great number of lords in the dale afforded greater freedom than in other areas where united power and governing relationships prevailed. Legal matters within the Eßweiler Tal were governed by a whole range of Weistümer (singular: Weistum – cognate with English wisdom – this was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times), which were already in force in the Middle Ages, although they were not actually set down in writing until the early 16th century. These documents are still preserved, and are said today to be prime examples of mediaeval jurisprudence. One deals with the court and borders, one is a Kanzelweistum (promulgated at church; Kanzel is German for “pulpit”), one is a Huberweistum (Huber were farmers who worked a whole Hube, which roughly corresponds to an “oxgang”), and one was a municipal Weistum (Gemeindeweistum).Middle Ages
Modern times In 1537, the Reformation was introduced into the Eßweiler Tal. In the course of the 16th century, the Plague raged, and the villages were emptied of people. In Nerzweiler itself by 1575 were only ten people. With regard to the ruling class, this brought about a shift in power in 1595 as the high jurisdiction, hitherto held for some 250 years by the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves, was transferred to the Dukes of Zweibrücken. In return, Count Palatine Johannes I of Zweibrücken transferred the village of Kirchenbollenbach near Idar-Oberstein (nowadays a Stadtteil of that town) to the Rhinegraves. Lordship over the blood court thereby ended up in new hands, while the other lords named still otherwise held their tithing rights in the various villages. In 1614, Duke Johannes II of Zweibrücken traded his serfs in Teschenmoschel for some in the Eßweiler Tal belonging to Baron Johann Gottfried von Sickingen in Schallodenbach. Nerzweiler also suffered in the Thirty Years' War. Details are, however, unavailable. Another fundamental shift in the power structure came in 1755, when Duke Christian IV transferred Offenbach Abbey with the villages of Hundheim, Nerzweiler, Hinzweiler, Oberweiler, Oberaschbach and Niederaschbach (now vanished) and also the Hirsauer Kirche to the Rhinegraves of Grumbach, who until 1595 had exercised high jurisdiction in these villages. Nerzweiler thereafter remained in the Rhinegraviate until the collapse of the old feudal order in the course of the French Revolution.Modern times
Recent times