Beilstein, Rhineland-Palatinate - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Beilstein is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality

Municipalities of Germany

Municipalities are the lowest level of territorial division in Germany. This may be the fourth level of territorial division in Germany, apart from those states which include Regierungsbezirke , where municipalities then become the fifth level.-Overview:With more than 3,400,000 inhabitants, the...

belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde is an administrative unit in the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.-Rhineland-Palatinate:...

, a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell

Cochem-Zell

Cochem-Zell is a district in the north-west of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are Mayen-Koblenz, Rhein-Hunsrück, Bernkastel-Wittlich, and Vulkaneifel.- History :...

district

Districts of Germany

The districts of Germany are known as , except in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein where they are known simply as ....

in Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Cochem, whose seat is in the like-named town

Cochem

Cochem is the seat of and the biggest place in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With just under 5,000 inhabitants, Cochem falls just behind Kusel, in the like-named district, as Germany's second smallest district seat...

History

Finds from Frankish

Franks

The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

graves show that Beilstein was settled about AD 800. Beginning in 1268, the village was a fief held by the Lords of Braunshorn. Under Johann von Braunshorn (1299–1346), Beilstein was granted town privileges in 1309 by Heinrich VII

Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor

Henry VII was the King of Germany from 1308 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1312. He was the first emperor of the House of Luxembourg...

and was fortified. In 1309, a Jewish

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

community was founded, whose graveyard up above the castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

still exists today. In 1310 the former parish church was endowed. After the family von Braunshorn died out, the fief passed in 1360 to the family von Winneburg. After the Electorate of Trier took over ownership of Beilstein in 1488, it enfeoffed the Imperial Counts of Metternich with the Lordship of Winneburg and Beilstein

County of Beilstein

The Lordship of Winneburg and Beilstein was a state of the Holy Roman Empire situated on the Moselle River around Winneburg Castle near Cochem....

. In 1689 came the destruction of Castle Metternich (known as Die stolze Gemäuer, or “The Proud Walling”) by French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

troops. The Carmelite

Carmelites

The Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or Carmelites is a Catholic religious order perhaps founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel, hence its name. However, historical records about its origin remain uncertain...

monastery was founded in 1636 (and dissolved in 1803). In 1691, the Carmelite monastery church’s foundation stones were laid; the church was completed in 1783. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the village’s appearance took on the shape that it still largely retains today. The Metternich lordship was swept away in 1794 when French Revolutionary

French Revolutionary Wars

The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...

troops occupied the region. In 1815 Beilstein was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

at the Congress of Vienna

Congress of Vienna

The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...

. Since 1946, it has been part of the then newly founded state

States of Germany

Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

of Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

Municipal council

The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected by majority vote

Plurality voting system

The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies...

at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

Coat of arms

Beilstein’s old arms

Coat of arms

A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

, adopted in 1951, were the arms formerly borne by the Lords of Braunshorn. In English heraldic

Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...

language they might be described thus: Gules a bugle-horn argent stringed Or. The single charge

Charge (heraldry)

In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...

in these arms has been incorporated into the new arms, designed by A. Friderichs, albeit with the string in the same tincture

Tincture (heraldry)

In heraldry, tinctures are the colours used to emblazon a coat of arms. These can be divided into several categories including light tinctures called metals, dark tinctures called colours, nonstandard colours called stains, furs, and "proper". A charge tinctured proper is coloured as it would be...

as the horn itself. These newer arms might be described thus: Quarterly, first Or a bend dancetty gules, second sable an escallop argent, third gules a bugle-horn of the fourth and fourth argent a cross quartered of the second.

Sightseeing

The small village has one of the best preserved historical appearances on the Moselle and is thus also sometimes known as a miniature Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a town in the district of Ansbach of Mittelfranken , the Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany, well known for its well-preserved medieval old town, a destination for tourists from around the world. In the Middle Ages, it was an Imperial Free City...

or Dornröschen der Mosel (“Sleeping Beauty of the Moselle”). Towering above the village, which despite its small size is built to look much like a town, are the ruins of Castle Metternich, which once belonged to the like-named noble family.

The village is a pilgrimage

Pilgrimage

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...

site, for it is here that the “Miraculous Black Madonna

Black Madonna

A Black Madonna or Black Virgin is a statue or painting of the Virgin Mary in which the Virgin Mary is black. The term was especially applied to those created in Europe in the medieval period or earlier...

” is displayed in the Baroque

Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

Saint Joseph’s Monastery Church. This is a statue of Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

origin from the 12th or 13th century, left behind by the Spaniards after their short time as Beilstein’s lords after the Thirty Years' War

Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....

and shortly thereafter taken to France

France

, only to be brought back to Beilstein in 1950.

The organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

in the monastery church was built by Balthasar König from Münstereifel

Bad Münstereifel

Bad Münstereifel is a historical spa town in the district of Euskirchen, Germany, with about 19,000 inhabitants, situated in the far south of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia...

/Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

in 1738. Restoration work in 2002 gave the instrument back its original sound and character.

Each year in July and August, the Beilsteiner Märchensommer (“Beilstein Fairy-Tale Summer”) is held, at which the marionette

Marionette

A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...

theatre from Cochem

Cochem

produces fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

s at the winegrowing museum. Always opening and closing the series of events is a traditional version of the Brothers Grimm

Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...

’s “Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...

”, in keeping with one of the village’s nicknames.

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:

Castle Metternich ruins (monumental zone) – mentioned in 1268, destroyed in 1689; keep
Keep
A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word keep, but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residences, used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the...

from about 1200, southwest round tower from 14th century, basement of a building wing; parts of a residential building and side buildings, outer bailey with round tower, wall with the town, outer gate, ringwall and bailey.
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

’s Catholic Parish Church (Pfarrkirche St. Joseph) and Carmelite
Carmelites
The Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or Carmelites is a Catholic religious order perhaps founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel, hence its name. However, historical records about its origin remain uncertain...

monastery (monumental zone) – three-naved hall church
Hall church
A hall church is a church with nave and side aisles of approximately equal height, often united under a single immense roof. The term was first coined in the mid-19th century by the pioneering German art historian Wilhelm Lübke....

, begun 1691, bears yeardate 1738, design by Friar Franz Wynant, Springiersbach Monastery, whole building complex with monastery buildings, graveyard and walled monastery area, monastery buildings/rectory: plastered buildings from 1686-1692 and 1687 respectively, latter with cellar portal; Klostertreppe 56: Baroque
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

pavilion; in the graveyard three grave crosses, 1663, 18th century, 19th century, Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

grave cross, 1887.
Fortifications – begun in early 14th century, originally tied in with the castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

, with 5 gates and with towers; two round towers preserved: at the southwest corner (Moselstraße 3/4) and the northwest corner (Alte Wehrstraße 19); two overbuilt gates (Alte Wehrstraße and Bachstraße 19).
Village centre, Alte Wehrstraße, Auf dem Teich, Bachstraße, Fürst-Metternich-Straße, Klosterstraße, marketplace, Moselstraße, Schloßstraße, Weingasse (monumental zone) – historical village structure with remnants of the old fortifications down to the Moselle waterfront, including a vineyard pavilion in the north, a former school in the east and castle ruins in the south.
Alte Wehrstraße – town wall gate, on top of which a quarrystone house.
Alte Wehrstraße 19 – building with mansard roof
Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...

and tower stump with timber-frame
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...

structure built on top, essentially late mediaeval
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....

; converted in 18th century.
At Alte Wehrstraße 22 – Baroque vineyard pavilion, 18th century, whole complex with quarrystone house, 19th century, garden and pavilion.
Bachstraße 8 – building with mansard roof, partly timber-frame, 18th century.
Bachstraße 32 – three-floor timber-frame house, partly solid, 18th century.
At Bachstraße 39 – town wall gateway arch.
Bachstraße 50 – building with mansard roof, partly timber-frame, 18th century.
Fürst-Metternich-Straße 28 – building with half-hipped roof, partly timber-frame, from 1757.
Fürst-Metternich-Straße 37 – Haus Sausen, three-floor building with half-hipped roof, partly timber-frame, slated, from 1726.
Im Mühlental 17 – building with half-hipped roof, partly timber-frame, from about 1800.
Klostertreppe 29 – building with mansard roof, partly timber-frame, from 1757.
Klostertreppe 30 – Haus Ekartz, three-floor building with half-hipped roof, partly timber-frame, slated, from 1714.
Klostertreppe 31 – building with half-hipped roof, partly timber-frame, from 1726.
Klostertreppe 39 – timber-frame house, partly solid, marked 1747, 1761 and 1826.
Marktplatz (marketplace) – tithe house, quarrystone building with polygonal staircase and half-hipped roof, 1537, conversion 1759.
Marktplatz 1 – former Saint Christopher
Saint Christopher
.Saint Christopher is a saint venerated by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, listed as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd century Roman Emperor Decius or alternatively under the Roman Emperor Maximinus II Dacian...

’s Catholic Parish Church, so-called “Old School”, aisleless church
Aisleless church
An Aisleless church is a single-nave church building that consists of a single hall-like room. While similar to the hall church, the aisleless church lacks aisles or passageways either side of the nave separated from the nave by colonnades or arcades, a row of pillars or columns...

from 1732 with parts of the building from the 16th century, portal with yeardate 1578, fountain 19th century.
Marktplatz 3 – former Metternich estate, three-floor building with hipped mansard roof, partly timber-frame, from 1727 and 1770.
Marktplatz 34 – building with mansard roof, partly timber-frame, from 18th century, cast-iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

pump from 19th century.
Marktplatz 35 – three-floor plastered building with timber-frame top floor, about 1800.
Moselstraße (no number) – old tollhouse with hipped mansard roof, partly timber-frame, formerly bore yeardate 1634, conversion (?) in 18th or early 19th century.
Moselstraße 1 – inn Zur Burg (“At the Castle”), building with mansard roof, crow-stepped gable; tower with tent roof from old fortifications, Baroque addition.
Moselstraße 2a – building with mansard roof, from 18th century.
Moselstraße 2 – former Amtshaus, solid building, partly with twinned windows, 17th/18th century (?).
Moselstraße 3/4 – no. 3: plastered building, possibly essentially late mediaeval, made over in Baroque, 18th century; no. 4: building with mansard roof, from 18th century.
Schloßstraße – wayside chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...

, open chapel, 17th century, Baroque stone Madonna
Madonna (art)
Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains...

.
Schloßstraße 37 – three-floor quarrystone building, 18th century.
Schloßstraße 38 – quarrystone building, 19th century.
At Schloßstraße 56 – Classicist
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

door leaf, earlier half of 19th century.
At Weingasse 10 – back wall part of wall-gable combination, Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

windows, possibly essentially 15th/16th century.
Weingasse 12 – former synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

, three-floor quarrystone building, 18th/19th century.
Weingasse 13 – three-floor building with mansard roof, partly timber-frame, 18th/19th century.
Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

graveyard, on the south ridge of the castle mountain above the Moselle – opened in the 17th century, 104 stele-type gravestones.
Chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...

, above the castle near the Jewish graveyard – aisleless church, 1652, before the chapel two crosses, 18th/19th century and 1942 respectively; in the vineyard wall two sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

reliefs.

Beilstein in film

The municipality has been the setting in a number of German films, such as the 1958 film version of Der Schinderhannes, about the well known outlaw

Schinderhannes

Johannes Bückler , nicknamed Schinderhannes, was a German outlaw who orchestrated one of the most fascinating crime sprees in German history. He was born at Miehlen, the son of Johann and Anna Maria Bückler. He began an apprenticeship to a tanner, but turned to petty theft. At 16 he was arrested...

starring Curd Jürgens

Curd Jürgens

Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.-Early life:...

, Nazi filmmaker Carl Froelich

Carl Froelich

Carl August Froelich was a German film pioneer and film director.-Apparatus builder and cameraman:...

’s 1936 work Wenn wir alle Engel wären (“If We Were All Angels”) starring Heinz Rühmann

Heinz Rühmann

Heinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann was a popular German film actor.-Life and work:Rühmann was born in Essen, Westphalia. His role in the 1930 movie Die Drei von der Tankstelle led him to film stardom. He remained highly popular as a comedic actor throughout the 1930s and early 1940s...

and the 1938 film Das Verlegenheitskind starring Ida Wüst

Ida Wüst

Ida Wüst was a German stage and film actress, whose career was most prominent in the 1920s and 1930s with Universum Film AG .-Life and career:...

and Paul Klinger.

Honorary citizens

Journalist and author Walter Henkels (1906–1987) was awarded honorary citizenship on 4 September 1981.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Municipal council

Coat of arms

Sightseeing

Buildings

Beilstein in film

Honorary citizens

Further reading

External links