Pfeffelbach is an – a municipality belonging to a , a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kusel-Altenglan, whose seat is in Kusel.
Geography
Location Pfeffelbach lies in the heart of the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France, at the edge of the Preußische Berge ("Prussian Mountains") in the Western Palatinate. Among these mountains, one within Pfeffelbach's limits, the Herzerberg, is the district's highest peak at 585 m above sea level. On this mountain are both a lookout platform, from which visitors can see as far as Kaiserslautern on a clear day, and a launch point for hang gliders. The municipality lies in the broad valley of the Pfeffelbach, which rises only a few kilometres to the west. The brook flows northeastwards to the steep slopes of Castle Lichtenberg. The village spreads out mainly over the brook's right bank as an extensive clump village. On the valley's north side, the Preußische Berge rise up to heights of almost 600 m above sea level in a long ridge (Teufelskopf 582 m, Spitzerberg 577 m, Herzerberg 585 m). Rising up over this mountain chain is a tall broadcast tower, which actually stands within Eckersweiler's limits. The heights south of the village reach above 400 m above sea level (Niederberg 442 m, Pflugsturz 416 m). Cutting through the municipal area in the southwest is the Autobahn A 62 (Kaiserslautern–Trier). Particularly in the south and east, hard-stone quarries can be found, some of which are still being worked. The municipal area measures 1 132 ha, of which 600 ha is wooded.Location
The Pfeffelbach The brook that flows through Pfeffelbach is the village's namesake (Bach means "brook" in German). It rises just below Schwarzerden, a constituent community of Freisen in the Saarland, and after flowing for just under 6 km, it empties into the Kuselbach in Kusel's outlying centre of Diedelkopf.
Neighbouring municipalities Pfeffelbach borders in the north on the municipality of Berschweiler bei Baumholder, in the northeast on the municipality of Thallichtenberg, in the east on the municipality of Ruthweiler, in the southeast on the town of Kusel and the municipality of Ehweiler, in the south on the municipality of Albessen, in the southwest on the municipality of Freisen (outlying centre of Schwarzerden, Saarland), in the west on the municipality of Reichweiler and in the northwest on the municipality of Eckersweiler (Birkenfeld district).
Municipality's layout The streets in Pfeffelbach's old built-up area run in an almost star-shaped pattern towards the church, whose location may well be considered the village's point of origin. Running thence, northwards, is the street Bangertseck, which then turns northwestwards. Running eastwards and northeastwards is Kirchstraße ("Church Street"), while Brunnenstraße ("Well Street") and Obereck ("Upper Corner") run to the west. Running somewhat apart from these other streets, parallel to the Pfeffelbach, is the through road, Landesstraße 349, which is partly built up towards the west on the stretch known here as St. Wendeler Straße and that to the east here called Kuseler Straße. The split between these two named stretches of the road occurs one block from a bridge across the Pfeffelbach. Branching off the highway to the south here is Hauptstraße ("Main Street"), which then crosses the brook and turns eastwards to run through the edge of the more heavily built-up area. The trackbed of the former railway (now a cycleway and footpath) runs along the south of the village site, while the former railway station stands in the village's southeast end. Halfway between the church and the old railway lies the sporting ground. Standing here, too, is what was once the school's gymnasium, but is now a multipurpose hall. In the newer neighbourhood to the northeast lies the graveyard. The building work in the 19th and 20th centuries mainly took place on the through road and Hauptstraße. The former schoolhouse stands slantwise across the street from the church. Three former mills stand on the brook, the Schwarzenborner Mühle upstream from the village, and farther downstream the Altmühle and the Bremmenmühle. Noteworthy new building zones have sprung up near the old railway station (Binnerwies-Pfarracker) and north of the highway.Municipality's layout
History
Antiquity The oldest traces of the past in Pfeffelbach go back to Roman times, namely a piece of an old gravestone used as spolia in the churchtower showing the upper parts of a man's and a woman's bodies with the inscription "D M" (Dis Manibus – "to the Di Manes"). Besides this, there were reports of Roman archaeological finds as far back as the 16th century. In 1967, on the Anieshügel (a hill), Karlheinz Schultheiß unearthed many potsherds, some of them from the 2nd or 3rd century AD, and bits of tile.Antiquity
Middle Ages Pfeffelbach may have been founded in the so-called Remigiusland, which, it is highly likely, was donated towards the end of the 6th century to the then Bishopric of Reims by the Merovingian Frankish King Childebert II. On 19 November 1124, Archbishop Adelbert I of Mainz acknowledged for Abbot Odo of the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims the latter's ownership, within the Reims holdings around Kusel, of the Church of Kusel with its chapels of ease at Altenglan, Konken and Pfeffelbach. Shortly before this, Pfeffelbach's first documentary mention, the Remigiusland had been handed over to Count Gerlach I from the Nahegau as a Vogtei (1121), who took this and other Vogteien that he held from the Archbishopric of Mainz and the Bishopric of Reims, along with some of his own holdings, and founded the County of Veldenz. In 1138, a number of villages were mentioned as belonging to Kusel, among them Peffelenbach. The County of Veldenz was later divided into Ämter, which themselves comprised several Schultheißereien or Unterämter. Pfeffelbach became the seat of one such Schultheißerei in the Amt of Lichtenberg alongside the other Schultheißereien of Ulmet and Konken. In 1316, F. X. Glasschröder's Neue Urkunden zur pfälzischen Kirchengeschichte ("New Documents About Palatine Church History") mentioned the village as Peychnillenbach. In 1324, according to Thielmann von Konken, Wilhelm von Tholey became the priest at the church at Pfeffelbach. By 1329, however, Boemund von St. Wendel held the chaplaincy at Pfeffelbach. In 1385, the regesta of the Counts of Veldenz mentioned the Amt of Pfeffelbach and named the Amts-Schultheiß as "Berscheln". 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. Pfeffelbach remained a seat within this state, now of an Unteramt, itself within the Oberamt of Lichtenberg, which had now been expanded into ten Schultheißereien, and whose capital was moved to Diedelkopf. In 1477, the regesta mentioned in the Lichtenberg accounts, under palace income, a small fulling mill, although its location is now unknown.Middle AgesPfeffelbach's history part 1
Modern times At the time when history was moving from the Middle Ages to modern times, Pfeffelbach had 42 inhabitants who were liable to taxation, making it one of the bigger villages in the Amt of Lichtenberg. In 1516, Nickolaus Becker von Lichtenberg was mentioned; he was to be the last local priest before the Reformation. In 1523, the parish became Lutheran under Ludwig II, Duke of Zweibrücken (the Reformation had taken hold throughout the duchy by 1526). In 1533 came the first ecclesiastical visitation in the Oberamt of Lichtenberg, at which Pfeffelbach was represented by an Evangelical clergyman, as was every other parish in the Oberamt but Niederkirchen. In 1609, another Oberamt of Lichtenberg ecclesiastical visitation protocol yielded, among other things, the oldest known list of Pfeffelbach's inhabitants; there were 217. After the Plague had made itself felt in the village and the surrounding countryside in 1596 and 1597, 188 people died in the grim epidemic in Pfeffelbach and the neighbouring villages of Schwarzerden and Reichweiler in 1612 alone. To add to these woes, a fire broke out in Pfeffelbach the following year, destroying several houses including the rectory, barns and stables. Churchwarden Preuel wrote in a report dated 10 August 1613: "Last Friday, a great fire raged, in which the rectory, the barn, the stable and other buildings in the village were destroyed." In 1618, the Thirty Years' War broke out, bringing the village its share of great hardship and woe. A great part of the population was killed, and buildings were burnt down. Further death and destruction came along with French King Louis XIV’s wars of conquest. In 1626, Hans Schworm, the innkeeper, was running the mill at Reichweiler. In 1642, according to a report from the clergyman, Bösius, troops of the Duke of Lorraine had behaved most wickedly in Pfeffelbach, and the village saw no end to the misery. In 1675, in a directory by Textor under the heading Entfestigungen und Zerstörungen im Rheingebiet während des 17. Jahrhunderts ("Decay and Destruction in the Rhine Area During the 17th Century"), Pfeffelbach appears among the villages burnt down by Louis XIV's armies. That same year, only 13 families still lived in Pfeffelbach; by 1688, this had risen to 22. Eighty years later, in 1768, Pfeffelbach had 375 inhabitants. The 18th century then brought the village a time of general upswing and growth.Modern timesPfeffelbach's history part 2
Recent times