Thallichtenberg 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 of Kusel-Altenglan, whose seat is in Kusel.
Geography
Location The municipality lies in the Kusel Musikantenland in the Western Palatinate. The municipal area measures 571 ha, of which 163 ha is wooded. Thallichtenberg lies roughly 300 m above sea level northwest of Lichtenberg Castle (382 m above sea level) in a broad hollow between the Burgberg (“Castle Mountain”) and the so-called Prussian Mountains (Preußische Berge), which here, on the heights of the Wolfsbösch, reach 572 m above sea level. Down in the dale, the village site abuts the Pfeffelbach (brook), which here turns from its south-to-north direction of flow towards the east, forming a narrow gorge between the Burgberg and the Niederberg within Ruthweiler’s limits. Several small brooks (Löschbach, Bisterbach, Kurzer Bach) flow into the Pfeffelbach within Thallichtenberg.
Neighbouring municipalities Thallichtenberg borders in the north on the town of Baumholder, in the northeast and east on the municipality of Körborn, in the southeast on the municipality of Ruthweiler, in the south on the municipality of Pfeffelbach, in the west on the municipality of Berschweiler bei Baumholder and in the northwest on the municipality of Mettweiler.
Constituent communities Also belonging to Thallichtenberg are the outlying homesteads of Burg Lichtenberg and Berghof.
Municipality’s layout The village of Thallichtenberg shows the attributes of a typical clump village, with streets spreading out in a starlike shape from the midpoint into the dales through which the smaller brooks flow and over the heights in between. The road leading to the castle branches off from the village thoroughfare at the village's southern end. About halfway up, on both sides of the road, lies the graveyard. The former Jewish graveyard, which now stands under monumental protection, can be found in the municipality's northwest near the sporting ground. New building areas have been laid out mainly in the north. On the heights far out of the village, below the Wolfsbösch and near the Breitsesterhof, which belongs to Baumholder, lies the Berghof, one of Thallichtenberg's outlying homesteads.
Institutions of national importance are housed within the old castle complex, the Musikantenlandmuseum, for instance, which deals with the history of travelling musicians from this region, and also the Geoskop (museum of primitive times), a branch location of the Bad Dürkheim Palatine Museum (Pfalzmuseum Bad Dürkheim). Also found at Lichtenberg Castle are the Evangelical church for the villages of Thallichtenberg and Ruthweiler, the youth hostel, the herb garden, a well visited inn with a nice view and a registry office. The castle complex, with a length of 425 m, is one of Germany's biggest. Areas in both the Palatinate and the Saarland can be seen from the top of the keep.
History
Antiquity In the late New Stone Age, nomads were found in the area around what is now Thallichtenberg, as archaeological finds from neighbouring places bear witness. The immediate area, though, was quite heavily settled in Gallo-Roman times. An article by Daniel Hinkelmann in the first postwar edition of the Westricher Heimatblätter was headlined “Three Roman Estates in the Thallichtenberg Municipal Area” (Drei römische Gutshöfe auf der Gemarkung Thallichtenberg). A Roman bathing facility had already been unearthed about the middle of the 18th century in the municipality. Pictures of this were published in Strasbourg in 1751 by the magazine Alsatia illustrata. This bathing facility had likely been part of a Gallo-Roman estate, a villa rustica. Another villa rustica was discovered in 1964 by a farmer who was ploughing. It was unearthed in 1967 under the leadership of the archaeologist Wolfgang Binsfeld from Trier by Daniel Hinkelmann and Karlheinz Schultheiß in collaboration with members of the Lichtenberg Castle Local History Club (Heimatverein “Burg Lichtenberg”).Heimatbuch des Landkreises St. Wendel, XVIII. Ausgabe, 1979/1980, p110 An even bigger Gallo-Roman complex was discovered by the local historian soon afterwards not far from this last one. This one was excavated in 1970, with Dr. Binsfeld once again overseeing the work, and was precisely documented and later filled in again.
Middle Ages The village of Thallichtenberg might have been founded only once the castle was built in the early 13th century. Thallichtenberg, and also a number of villages that have since vanished, only appear in documents dating from after the castle's completion. It would therefore seem that a number of places sprang up in the area around Lichtenberg Castle, of which Thallichtenberg is the only one that still exists. The village of Ruthweiler at the foot of the castle, though, was likely already standing at the time when work on the castle began. At the first documentary mention of Lichtenberg as Castrum Lichtenberg in 1214, only Lichtenberg Castle is mentioned, and no village named Lichtenberg. When the Counts of Veldenz were appointed as Vögte over the so-called Remigiusland as far back as the early 12th century, they began, unlawfully, to build a castle in this domain that belonged to the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims, a move the abbot contested by registering a protest with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. The actual protest document is lost to history; however, a text of the Emperor's ruling on the matter, handed down in Basel in 1214, has survived. In part, this reads: “… quod nos auctoritate regia castrum Lichtenberg, quod comes de Veldenzen in allodio Sancti Remigii Remensis, … violenter et iniuxte construxit, juste destruere debeamus.” (“By our kingly authority, we are forced to lawfully tear down Castle Lichtenberg, which the Count of Veldenz has forcibly and wrongfully built on Saint Remigius’s property.”). The Count of Veldenz in this case was Gerlach IV, and he did not bow to the Emperor's ruling, and hence, the castle remained standing. Lichtenberg Castle is actually made up of two castles, the Oberburg (“Upper Castle”) and the Unterburg (“Lower Castle”). The Upper Castle with its three palatial halls and tall keep was reserved as the lordly living quarters, while the Lower Castle was where the Burgmannen and their families lived. Only later were other buildings built between the two castles, thus making the two separate complexes into one. The Counts of Veldenz (1112-1444), as lords of the castle, actually lived in Meisenheim, but they presented their claim to power in the mighty castle complex. The castle was even then held to be the administrative seat of the Amt of Lichtenberg. The most important mediaeval Burgmannen at Lichtenberg Castle were the family Blicke von Lichtenberg (1343-1788), the family Gauer (1285-1450), the family Sötern (1376-1483), the family Ballwein (1402-1677), the family Genge (1328-1356), the family Finchel (1300-1374), the family Winterbecher (1409-1446) and the family Raubesak (1270-~1400). 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. From 1444 on, Frutzweiler thus lay in the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken.
Modern times From Zweibrücken times it is clear that only the part of Thallichtenberg that lay on the brook's left bank was counted as one of the villages within the Burgfrieden (the castle's sovereign area). It was also then that grand, lordly buildings sprang up within the castle limits, especially at the Upper Castle, spreading out from the core of the castle all round the keep: South Palace, East Palace, West Palace together with the obligatory fortifications. On the unprotected south side arose a broad bailey ringed with a high outer wall with a battlement parapet. At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, craftsmen and farmers from the castle area built, shortly before Spanish troops advanced in 1620, the so-called Hufeisenturm (“Horseshoe Tower”) with particularly thick walls that were supposed to stand up even to cannon balls. The castle's entrance was secured by three nested gates. During the expansion work in the open area between the Upper Castle and the Lower Castle, the mighty tithe barn arose, along with a new castle church, extensive administration buildings along the castle road and beside the Kellerei (“stewardship”, in fact the tithe barn) more buildings for the Amtmann and the scrivener. While only a few of the inhabitants down below in the dale on the brook's right bank were the Burgmannen’s serfs, those living within the Burgfrieden continually had to perform compulsory labour for the lordship at the castle. The serfs complained about this and managed to have their compulsory labour duties precisely regulated. This happened in a time when French Revolutionary troops were already advancing on the lands around the castle. Lichtenberg Castle was never actually conquered by foreign troops, not even in the Thirty Years’ War. Nevertheless, during both King Louis XIV's wars and the French Revolutionary Wars, the castle accommodated French troops. In 1758, the Oberamt administration moved to new offices on Landschaftsstraße in Kusel.
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