Sankt Julian (often rendered St. Julian) 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 The municipality lies on the river Glan in the Western Palatinate.
The municipality's main centre, likewise called Sankt Julian, lies in the Glan valley, mainly on the river's left bank and on both sides of Bundesstraße 420, while over on the right bank, a new, smaller neighbourhood has arisen. Also standing there are the school, the kindergarten and the Museumsmühle ("Museum Mill"). Formerly running through the village was the Glantalbahn (railway), but service was permanently ended on this stretch of the line in 1992. Sankt Julian's nominal limits reach from the fertile cropfields in the Glan valley up to the heights either side of the river. Some 300 ha of its traditional area of 1 407 ha now lies within the Baumholder troop drilling ground. Elevations range from 190 m above sea level on the valley floor up to 463 m above sea level at the Ottskopf in the so-called Schwarzland.Sankt Julian’s location
The outlying centre of Eschenau lies downstream from the Steinalb's mouth on the Glan's left bank on a point bar at 180 m above sea level in its lowest spots, and roughly 250 m above sea level in its higher ones. North of this centre, the land climbs steeply up to the heights, which stand almost 400 m above sea level. The other side of the Glan with the buildings of the former Schrammenmühle (a mill) belongs to the former (before the amalgamation) municipal area of Gumbsweiler, itself now part of Sankt Julian, like Eschenau. Some two kilometres up the Glan lies Niederalben's outlying centre of Neuwirtshaus, and just beyond that is Rathsweiler. About one kilometre down the Glan lies Sankt Julian's like-named main centre, and across the Glan to the southeast lies another of Sankt Julian's centres, Gumbsweiler.Eschenau’s location
Gumbsweiler lies in a hollow in the middle Glan valley on the river's right bank right near the municipality's other centres of Sankt Julian and Eschenau at an elevation of roughly 180 m above sea level. Elevations outside the built-up area reach more than 350 m above sea level: the Hubhöhe (364 m), the Großer Mayen (352 m), the Wackerhübel (321 m). The Schrammenmühle with five houses lies some 1.5 km up the Glan and can best be reached from the left bank by way of the constituent community of Eschenau. The Pilgerhof ("Pilgrim's Estate") lies some 4 km from the centre on the southern edge of the Freudenwald ("Joy Forest"). This was built in 1964-1965 as an Aussiedlerhof (an agricultural settlement established after the Second World War to increase food production). Gumbsweiler's area measures 435 ha, of which 67 ha is cropland, 172 ha is grassland, 155 ha is wooded and 63 ha is settled [sic].Gumbsweiler’s location
Obereisenbach, Sankt Julian's fourth centre, lies apart from the others some 250 m above sea level on the upper reaches of the Eisenbach (also called the Kesselbach), which empties into the Glan near Glanbrücken's outlying centre of Niedereisenbach. The mountains either side of the narrow brook valley climb up to 400 m above sea level. Only a few hundred metres up from this centre runs the boundary with the Baumholder troop drilling ground.Obereisenbach’s location
Neighbouring municipalities Sankt Julian borders in the north on the municipality of Kirrweiler, in the northeast on the municipality of Deimberg, in the east on the municipality of Glanbrücken, in the southeast on the municipality of Horschbach, in the south on the municipality of Welchweiler, in the southwest on the municipality of Ulmet, in the west on the municipality of Niederalben and in the northwest on the Baumholder troop drilling ground. Sankt Julian also meets the municipality of Bedesbach at a single point in the south.
Constituent communities Sankt Julian's Ortsteile are the main centre, likewise called Sankt Julian, Eschenau, Gumbsweiler and Obereisenbach. Under many of the headings in this article, each of the four centres will be treated separately, as their histories and backgrounds are on many points quite different from each other. The municipality of Sankt Julian is not so much a village as an amalgamation of four historically separate villages, which were only united into one political body in relatively recent times.Sankt JulianEschenauGumbsweilerObereisenbach
Municipality's layout
Sankt Julian (main centre) The village's appearance is characterized by its topography. A linear village (by some definitions, a "thorpe") sprang up in the valley along the river's left bank, later spreading out to the hillside along two sidestreets. The neighbourhood around the church can be considered the village's hub. Prehistoric archaeological finds have shown that the area was already settled in La Tène times and on into Roman times. As a pilgrimage centre and seat of the Vierherrengericht ("Four-Lord Court"), the village was said to be a central place in the Glan valley, and to this day it can still claim a certain central placement. The formerly self-administering municipality of Sankt Julian had a great municipal area that bordered on the fields of neighbouring Eschenau, Niederalben, Obereisenbach and Niedereisenbach on the Glan's left bank, while on the right bank it bordered on Gumbsweiler, Welchweiler, Horschbach and Hachenbach. These limits can be explained by the village's mediaeval history. Sankt Julian, Eschenau, Obereisenbach and Niederalben (along with the vanished villages of Ohlscheid, Hunhausen and Grorothisches Gericht) quite likely had a jointly held woodland and a common, splitting these up among themselves only in the course of time. All this explains the tangle of municipal boundaries. In 1905 these villages' municipal areas together still spread over 1 856 ha of land, matching the area occupied by the old Vierherrengericht. Still belonging today to Sankt Julian's municipal area is a 327-hectare uninhabited area called the "Schwarzland" ("Blackland") which was incorporated into the Baumholder troop drilling ground in the 1930s when the Nazis established it, and which has now formally been transferred back to the municipality. Over on the Glan's right bank, the formerly self-administering municipality of Sankt Julian had parts of its municipal area. They bordered on the Lenschbach, which formerly marked the border between lands held by the Waldgraves and those held by the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. Some rural cadastral toponyms, for instance "Pfaffental" (meaning roughly "Parson's Dale"), still recall a time when Sankt Julian was an important pilgrimage place, and perhaps also the seat of a monastery. The municipal area was worked on into the 20th century by small agricultural landholds that busied themselves with grain growing, livestock raising, fruitgrowing and, on a small scale, winegrowing. A few bigger farms had between 10 and 20 hectares, while most others were quite small, with some 3 or 4 hectares. In the 19th century, the growing population overstretched the available agricultural land and farmers began looking for other opportunities for a livelihood, with many of them resorting to emigration. Today there are only a few farmers, and modern agriculture in Sankt Julian, as in all other villages in the Glan valley, only offers earning opportunities for a few operations.Sankt Julian’s layout
Eschenau Bundesstraße 420 also runs through Sankt Julian's constituent community of Eschenau, on which, towards Sankt Julian, stand the buildings of a former industrial concern. On the north side on the way into the village lies the graveyard. Branching off Bundesstraße 420 in Eschenau are two notable village streets. One runs southwards to the Glan. At the end stands the former railway station, in which today the painter Dietmar E. Hofmann maintains a permanent art exhibition, calling the old station the Kleiner Kunstbahnhof ("Little Art Railway Station"). Likewise standing on this street is the former schoolhouse, which has since been converted into a village community centre. The other street branches off northwards and mainly serves a new building zone. Farmhouses called Einfirsthäuser ("single-roof-ridge houses"), which are typical of the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France, stand in the area near the intersections. In the village's west end the Schrammenmühle (a mill) can be reached over a bridge across the Glan. The former railway line, now used by draisine-pedalling tourists, crosses the Glan near the station and then turns towards the former Sankt Julian station.Eschenau’s layout
Gumbsweiler The houses in Gumbsweiler's original built-up area stand safe from flooding at the foot of the Kleine Höhe ("Little Heights") and near the bridge crossing. Until the 20th century, the Glan flooded regularly, especially when the Steinalb fed vast amounts of water into it, and the river's course changed time and again. In a later phase of settlement, the even north slope of the heights was settled. Thus arose an irregular, thin village with open strip fields. Houses and outbuildings were as a rule built with only a single floor. Only after measures had been undertaken to control the Glan, and after the railway embankment had been built did people once again risk occupying the lands near the water. A roadway parallel to the Glan formed and four sidestreets branched off towards the mountain slope. All streets, however, led to the bridge. The village church stands there, as do the gristmill and the village limetree. The crossroads up from the mill has been since days of old the gathering point for villagers and youth. In 1905, the village streets were still lit with oil lamps. Only in 1921 were the village and its houses linked to the electricity grid. The great shift in the village's appearance and modernization of the houses, though, was brought by the building of the central watermain in 1954 and the laying of sewerage in 1984-1987. The houses had floors added onto them, sanitary fittings were installed, washing machines became available and heating systems were brought up to date. The village streets, too, were sealed to make them suitable for modern traffic, and also expanded and properly lit. Gumbsweiler's nominal area stretches between the Glan and the Grundbach to the Hubhöhe (heights) and to the woodland known as the Großes Mayen. It is thus very hilly and has many slopes, more shady north slopes than sunny south slopes. The soils are sandy, loamy and stony, and the depths are mainly slaty clay-marl beds. They are not very fertile and have been ranked on a quality scale at 37 points out of 100. Furthermore, there is the dearth of precipitation. The plots were quite small and broadly scattered. The village lies in the northern strip of its nominal area, meaning that farmers often had to walk up to 2 km to and from their plots, along with equipment drawn by horses, oxen or even cows. Tractors only began to appear after 1950. The heights are used for cropraising while the meadows down in the dale and the slopes are used for grazing or fruitgrowing. The Freudenwald is the biggest continuous woodland. In the years from 1972 to 1979, "classic" Flurbereinigung was undertaken. This laid the groundwork for one farming operation that was run as a main income-earning business and five others that were run as secondary occupations. Through leaseholds, farms of more than 50 ha were created. Twenty-five hectares of new forest was planted. In the cadastral area called "Saupferch", a landscaped pond with a shooting clubhouse and a grilling pavilion appeared in 1982. The country lanes were expanded to almost 50 km. Eight kilometres of these were paved with blacktop.Gumbsweiler’s layout
Obereisenbach