Faid
Encyclopedia
Faid 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...

.

Location

The municipality lies at the edge of the Eifel
Eifel
The Eifel is a low mountain range in western Germany and eastern Belgium. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the south of the German-speaking Community of Belgium....

 near the river Moselle, 6 km west of the district seat of Cochem
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...

. Faid’s municipal area comprises 823 ha, of which 363 ha is wooded and another 261 ha is used for agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

. The nearby mountain, the “Galgenkopf” (“Gallows Head”), has an elevation of 413 m above sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...

.

History

About Faid’s beginnings, nothing can be said with any certainty. According to a legend, the village’s name comes from FettGerman
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 for “fat” – from the story that holds that the village once had to supply the lordly kitchen with fat
Fat
Fats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and generally insoluble in water. Chemically, fats are triglycerides, triesters of glycerol and any of several fatty acids. Fats may be either solid or liquid at room temperature, depending on their structure...

. It seems likelier, though, that the name comes from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 word feudum, which means “fief” (and which also yields the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 word “feudal”). Another scholarly opinion, however, holds that the name is indeed of Latin origin, but that it rather comes from fagus, the word for “beech
Beech
Beech is a genus of ten species of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America.-Habit:...

”.

In 943, Faid had its first documentary mention in a donation document made out for the Stablo Monastery. A further document from 1255 states that a lady was donating her holdings at Vyde to Himmerod Abbey
Himmerod Abbey
Himmerod Abbey is a Cistercian monastery in the community of Großlittgen in the Verbandsgemeinde of Manderscheid in the district of Bernkastel-Wittlich, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, located in the Eifel, in the valley of the Salm.-First foundation:Himmerod Abbey was founded in 1134 by Saint...

. In a 1518 agreement between Feudt and townsmen from Klotten
Klotten
Klotten is a winemaking centre and an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...

, the latter party ceded a piece of land lying before Serberg to the Feudter (the former party). For this service, Faid was obliged to deliver to the church in Klotten three fourths of a pound of wax each year.

Faid formed together with Cochem a single municipality. In a 1678 Electoral decree, it was declared that the Faid dwellers were fellow townsmen of the town of Cochem, and as such, they were spared levies imposed by the Amt, although they had to do compulsory labour in Cochem. As seen in a bill that has come down from 17 November 1695, any townsman from Faid who went to live in Cochem needed to pay only half for this privilege that those from other places paid.

Faid shared woodlands and wilderness with the town of Cochem, and from time to time, this caused problems. On 29 March 1546, Elector Ludwig von Hagen decreed that each townsman from Faid who wanted to build a new house had leave to remove from the communal forest two cartloads of wood; however, he had to announce his intention beforehand to the mayor in Cochem, who then sent along a sworn forestry officer who would then score each of the trees that the villager was allowed to cut. Firewood
Firewood
Firewood is any wood-like material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not highly processed and is in some sort of recognizable log or branch form....

 seemed to be a particular problem in the communal forest, so much so that in 1744 Cochem town council saw fit to refuse Faid dwellers the privilege of gathering firewood in the parts of the communal forest known as Daustert and Heinterwald, restricting their firewood gathering to Serberg, and then only on established firewood gathering days. The villagers, for their part, refused the new decree and kept gathering firewood in Daustert and Heinterwald, bringing about various incidents between the authorities and the townsmen. In one incident, a squad of armed men led by Cochem’s chronicler forced their way into a household whose owner’s daughter had been caught unlawfully gathering firewood, threw all his belongings about, and seized a calf that they found in a stall, it being the only thing of value. The Elector’s response in the face of the villagers’ complaints does not seem to have been very helpful, for they eventually went along with the decree.

Even when the forest was partitioned in 1793, the Faiders complained that they had not been given their fair share in the deal. The French Revolutionary Wars
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...

, however, soon put an end to any pursuit of the village’s claims. In 1828, a further attempt at settling the dispute over the woodlands came to an end when Cochem withdrew its offer of one fourth of the forest district of Schleimet once Faid had angrily turned it down, insisting on the village’s claim to the whole of Schleimet. The last chapter in this saga came in 1832 when the municipality of Faid turned to the Royal Government at Koblenz
Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...

, which ruled that since the Faiders had been using their part of the forest without any apparent problem since the partition, they obviously agreed with it.

Grazing rights were one more thing that brought the village into disputes. In an effort to soothe the villagers’ worries about losing them, Elector Jakob von Eltz decreed in 1571 that Faid had grazing rights right up to the edge of Cochem’s vineyard
Vineyard
A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...

s, but only in winter. In summer, the village’s herdsmen had to keep their stock on the mountain. In 1575, when the young lord Pfilipp zu Winneburg built a sheep farm at Winneburg (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...

) and his shepherds often led their flocks across Faid’s limits, the Faiders took his wethers, rams and goats away and sold them, as the bailiff of Cochem had advised them to do. This they kept doing until the grazing incursions stopped.

Faid was somewhat less successful in keeping its grazing rights in Cochem’s wild lands. About 1840, Cochem claimed that Faid had no such rights, and forbade the villagers to graze their livestock there. Nevertheless, they once again ignored an official pronouncement, and the village shepherd continued to graze his sheep in the wild lands, for which offence he was booked and subsequently penalized by the court. The village then decided to send a delegation to Trier
Trier
Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....

 to seek the old documents granting them grazing rights in the wild lands in the old Electoral archive. The delegates were turned away and told that the more recent 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...

n administration had had all such documents transferred to Koblenz. No such thing was to be found there, however, and Faid thereby lost its grazing rights in Cochem’s wild lands. As it later turned out, no delegation had ever needed to go anywhere. In 1887 – somewhat too late for the delegation’s purposes – the document that had been sought was found – in Faid’s own municipal chest.

Towards the end of the 17th century, the village of Faid did not stand on quite the same spot as today, but rather somewhat to the northwest. The church stood at the village’s east end. Old writings suggest here and there that the churchyard was surrounded by such a high wall that the villagers used it in times of need as a refuge. Furthermore, in 1689, after the conquest of the town of Cochem in the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession), eleven townsmen from Cochem were held in the churchyard by the 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...

, who had taken them hostage. The siege of Cochem had also wrought great hardship in Faid, which sometime between 1680 and 1684 had been almost utterly destroyed in a great fire, just before the French came. Once there, their efforts to defend against the German Emperor’s forces eventually brought about yet another great fire, which burnt the village to the ground; only the church was left standing. When Faid was built anew, the building was done around the old church, essentially moving the village to the southeast, and even leaving one street once wholly within the village – Bohrgasse – wholly outside it.

The bad luck continued into the 18th century with yet another great fire, this one set off by lightning
Lightning
Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...

, on 13 July 1714. This time, the church was not spared, and all but a few houses burnt down, along with a great deal of livestock. A plea was made to the Elector to lift certain levies for a period of three years to ease the great “poverty and ruin” that the fire had brought down on the village.

In 1718, on the Elector’s orders, all land was measured, and the information yielded by this survey was compiled into a Grund- und Extraktbuch, a catalogue not only of land measurements, but also ownership. Non-resident owners at this time were Himmerod Abbey
Himmerod Abbey
Himmerod Abbey is a Cistercian monastery in the community of Großlittgen in the Verbandsgemeinde of Manderscheid in the district of Bernkastel-Wittlich, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, located in the Eifel, in the valley of the Salm.-First foundation:Himmerod Abbey was founded in 1134 by Saint...

, Stuben Monastery, Sieburg Monastery, the Foundation at Pfalzel (nowadays an outlying centre of Trier) and the virgins’ convent at Karden
Treis-Karden
Treis-Karden is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde to which it also belongs...

. Hunting rights were held by the Lords of Metternich-Winneburg, as were fishing rights on the Ellerbach, although these were actually jointly held with the Elector of Trier. The monastic institutions were later stripped of their landholdings in 1794 when the French Revolutionary occupation
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...

 began.

The Seven Years' War
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...

 was particularly hard on Faid, then known as Faith (this was pronounced more like “fight” than like the English word spelt the same way, as is the name’s modern form, too). The villagers were forever having to supply and billet troops, a very costly and burdensome exercise.

In 1815 Faid 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
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 ....

.

Municipal council

The council is made up of 16 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

The German blazon reads: Zweimal gespaltener Schild im roten Feld ein aus dem Schildfuß wachsender goldener Abtsstab, silbernes Feld mit schwarzem, rot bewehrten Wolf mit roter Zunge. Rotes Feld mit goldener Palme.

The municipality’s 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...

 might 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 be described thus: Gules a pale argent surmounted by a wolf rampant sable armed and langued of the first, the whole between an abbot’s staff issuant from base Or and a palm leaf palewise of the same.

The gold abbot’s staff refers to the monastic institutions at Pfalzel, Himmerod, Springiersbach, Siegburg and Stuben, which all owned holdings in Faid, although in the early 19th century, these were auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

ed off by the French. The central 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...

 on the pale, the wolf, is borrowed from the arms borne by Stavelot
Stavelot
Stavelot is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège. On January 1, 2006, Stavelot had a total population of 6,671. The total area is 85.07 km² which gives a population density of 78 inhabitants per km².-History:...

 in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

. The Monastery there was the first one to receive a donation of a holding in Faid, in 943. The palm leaf is Saint Stephen
Saint Stephen
Saint Stephen The Protomartyr , the protomartyr of Christianity, is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches....

’s attribute, thus representing the church’s patron saint, who was mentioned as being such as early as 1470, and then again in 1656. As early as Romanesque times, a church stood in Faid.

The arms were designed by A. Friderichs of Zell
Zell (Mosel)
Zell is a town in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Zell has roughly 4,300 inhabitants and is the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde.-Location:...

.

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites 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 ....

’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:
  • Saint Stephen
    Saint Stephen
    Saint Stephen The Protomartyr , the protomartyr of Christianity, is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches....

    ’s Catholic Parish Church (Pfarrkirche St. Stephan), Dorfstraße 36 – Romanesque
    Romanesque architecture
    Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...

     (?) west tower, 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...

     1750; eight grave crosses, 17th and 18th century
  • Dorfstraße – Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street)
  • Dorfstraße 15 – Quereinhaus; 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...

     building, partly solid, from 1750
  • Dorfstraße 19 – Quereinhaus; timber-frame building, partly solid, from 1839
  • Near Dorfstraße 36 – 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,...

    graveyard cross, from 1847
  • Entepfuhl – well with well house
  • Stiergass 1 – Quereinhaus; timber-frame building, partly solid, plastered, 18th or 19th century

External links

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