Theisbergstegen 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 village of Theisbergstegen, which grew together from the two former villages of Theisberg and Stegen, lies on both sides of the river Glan in the bottom of the dale at an elevation of some 209 m above sea level. On the Glan's right bank (Theisberg), the southwest slope of the Potzberg with its extensive forest within municipal limits – and a castle that is now nothing more than a heap of stones in the woods – rises up steeply to an elevation of 480 m above sea level. Theisberg itself sits on this slope. Left of the Glan looms the 368 m-high Remigiusberg with its castle ruin and church, presenting a picturesque view, which was immortalized as long ago as the early 19th century in a now famous steel engraving. The two historic buildings, however, stand within neighbouring Haschbach's municipal limits. The Glan valley here narrows sharply between the slopes of the Potzberg and the Remigiusberg, which are quite close together. Stretching south from the Remigiusberg is the valley of the Röderbach, which near Theisbergstegen empties into the Glan. Stegen spreads across this likewise narrow side valley and also along the long ridge that stands between the two dales. Running alongside the river Glan are Bundesstraße 423 on the right bank and the railway on the left. The outlying centre of Godelhausen also lies in the Glan valley, with the Potzberg and the Remigiusberg right across the river on the other side, on the outliers of Wackenhübel and Röderwald that edge the Glan valley on the west. The built-up area lies on the comb of a high ridge that drops off smoothly into the dale, while also forming the southern flank of another side valley, through which two more brooks flow on their way to empty into the Glan. Buildings are grouped loosely about a staggered crossroads formed by Bergstraße (“Mountain Road”) coming down the slope and Hauptstraße (“Main Street”) running over the dale's western flank.Theisbergstegen’s locationTheisbergstegen’s location The municipal area measures 501 ha, of which 128 ha is wooded.Theisbergstegen’s municipal area
Neighbouring municipalities Theisbergstegen borders in the north on the municipality of Altenglan, in the northeast on the municipality of Rutsweiler am Glan, in the east on the municipality of Neunkirchen am Potzberg, in the southeast on the municipality of Matzenbach, in the south on the municipality of Rehweiler, in the southwest on the municipality of Etschberg and in the northwest on the municipality of Haschbach am Remigiusberg. Theisbergstegen also meets the municipality of Rammelsbach at a single point in the north.
Constituent communities Theisbergstegen's Ortsteile are Theisberg, Stegen and Godelhausen.
Municipality’s layout Today's Ortsteil of Theisbergstegen was originally made up of three villages, Theisberg (Deinsberg) on the Glan's right bank and Oberstegen and Unterstegen over on the left bank, all of which have now grown together. As early as 1715, Theisberg and Stegen were merged into a single municipality. The village as a whole still has the outward appearance of an agricultural structure, which defined life well into the 20th century. In the former Theisberg, people settled mainly along the village thoroughfare (Bundesstraße 423). Next to that, over time, parallel streets arose, one of which runs up to the mountain, reaching the former Theisberg Evangelical school and the Protestant parish church. The latter building stands on a former graveyard and has its beginnings in the Middle Ages. It has, however, undergone many changes, especially with the addition of a steeple during the 20th century. A bridge links Theisberg to Stegen, whose old village core stands along Kuseler Straße in the Rödelbach valley. The newer housing developments, meanwhile, stretch along the Glan, especially on Schulstraße (which rather unsurprisingly, for its name is German for “School Street”, leads to a school, although this is in outlying Godelhausen) and on Bahnhofstraße (“Railway Station Street”). The development along the road to Godelhausen is gradually being built up. On the mountain slope at the side of Kuseler Straße stands the Art Nouveau former Catholic rectory with its built-on chapel. The railway station is found north of the Glan bridge. The sporting ground lies in the north of the former village of Stegen. Far outside the village on the slope of the Potzberg, somewhat hidden, lies the Deinsberg Castle ruin, nowadays known as Alte Burg (“Old Castle”).Municipality’s layout
History
Theisberg and Stegen Deinsberge (Theisberg), which lies east of the river Glan, had its first documentary mention in 992. Stegen, which lies across the river, on the other hand, arose later and was not mentioned until 1364 as Stegin. Theisberg was the seat of the Amt of Deinsberg-Reichenbach and belonged until the early 14th century to the Imperial Domain (Reichsland) around Kaiserslautern. As in Kübelberg and Wolfstein, it could be that a castle was built at Theisbergstegen in Emperor Barbarossa's time to safeguard the western frontier; it also, as “Deinsburg”, gave a family of lesser nobility its name. After a newer castle, the Michelsburg, was built on the Remigiusberg, the older one was called, fittingly enough, Alte Burg (“Old Castle”). Stegen still belonged to the Remigiusland and more locally to the Schultheißerei of Pfeffelbach. In 1600, the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken ceded the village to its sideline Palatinate-Veldenz, who assigned it to the Schultheißerei of Reichenbach in the Oberamt of Lauterecken.
On 10 July 1715, the village of Theisberg was merged with the village of Stegen. In the early 19th century (1802), there were 144 inhabitants living in Theisbergstegen, whose numbers climbed to 228 persons in 60 households by 1867. Today, 392 people live in Theisbergstegen's main centre (not counting Godelhausen).
The historical built-up area can be found near the church, in the area around the mill at the bridge across the Glan and north of the Rödelbach on the slope of the Remigiusberg. Standing in Theisberg in the mid-19th century were mostly great, individual estate complexes, for instance, the huge Quereinhaus (a combined residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street) at Hauptstraße 17 and the Quereinhaus built in 1835 at Friedhofweg 7/9, whereas over in Stegen stretched a whole row of small, even tiny, properties. Between the two villages stood the village mill, which had been rebuilt in the 18th century, and which in 1868 was converted, and run in the early 20th century as a sawmill. The weir that lay before the mill, like the old bridge, has since disappeared. In the latter half of the 19th century, a fire engine hall was built in Theisberg at the foot of Kirchstraße (near no. 2 on that street).
Godelhausen The village of Godelhausen, nowadays an Ortsteil of Theisbergstegen, first found mention in a document in 1364 as Godelsauwe. It belonged to the Schultheißerei of Pfeffelbach in the Oberamt of Lichtenberg. Before the Thirty Years' War, in 1609, there were 56 people here in 15 households. By 1675 – the war had ended in 1648 – only three families had settled once again in Godelhausen. In 1677 the village was destroyed once again in the Franco-Dutch War. In the early 19th century (1802), there were 98 inhabitants living in Godelhausen, whose numbers climbed to 217 persons in 44 households by 1867. Today, 329 people live in Theisbergstegen's outlying centre of Godelhausen. Standing in Godelhausen in the mid-19th century were a few great Quereinhäuser (plural of Quereinhaus), standing mostly in a row, gable-to-gable, along Bergstraße. Although a number of estates with forward gables had already been springing up along the road that leads to Theisbergstegen, the village actually first began spreading out from the schoolhouse, built in 1829, towards the south. Only in the early 20th century did the built-up area spread northwards across the brook. The oldest building still standing in the village is the dwelling wing of a former Quereinhaus (Hauptstraße 33), which was built in 1769. The rest of the buildings in Godelhausen today have a 19th-century appearance. At Hauptstraße 67 stands the Godelhausen Mill, which was renovated in 1788 and in 1903 converted to a waterworks for Kusel according to plans by Regional Master Builder (Bezirksbaumeister) Kleinhans.Theisbergstegen’s history
Antiquity The Potzberg area was already settled in prehistoric times, to which archaeological finds bear witness. There have never been any confirmed prehistoric finds within Theisbergstegen's current limits. However, potsherds and bones from prehistoric times have supposedly been found, although their origins, and even their current whereabouts, are now unknown. Also apparently found was a “Gaulish coin”, which has disappeared. There was a Roman settlement whose whereabouts are no longer known, but it has yielded cremation graves, unearthed in the course of building work, and two pieces of stone in the outer wall masonry at Saint Peter's Church (Peterskirche) that are spolia from grave monuments. Two pieces of a Viergötterstein – a Jupiter Column base – that until 1834 were to be found in the church's quire are now kept at the Historisches Museum der Pfalz (Historical Museum of the Palatinate) in Speyer.
Middle Ages According to old descriptions, the area on the Glan's left bank lay in the Remigiusland while the area on the Glan's right bank lay in the free Imperial Domain (Reichsland) around Kaiserslautern. Thus the village of Stegen belonged to the Remigiusland while the village of Theisberg belonged to the Imperial Domain. Just when the two villages were founded nobody can say. Certainly, though, Theisberg is older than Stegen. Theisberg's 992 first documentary mention was in a document issued by Emperor Otto III in which Bishop Hildibald of Worms transferred to Count Wolfram the tithes from all the bishopric's holdings in the wooded lands on the Rhine’s left bank against which the bishopric took ownership of commodities in the area of the villages of Altenglan and Deinesberge (Theisberg). This, however, does not seem to make much sense, and it would also seem that the Bishop of Worms took liberties in this deal to which he was not entitled. Whatever the truth is, a village named Deinsberg near a castle of that same name already existed at the time that the document was issued. Indeed, it might have been founded centuries earlier. In the free Imperial Domain around Kaiserslautern, to which Theisberg belonged, though, the record shows no episcopal holdings. What the record does show, however, is that Theisberg was not only an ecclesiastical centre but also the seat of an Amt in an Unteramt of the free Imperial Domain, possibly taking turns in that function with Reichenbach.