Haschbach am Glan

Haschbach lies on the Henschbach's right bank, somewhat downstream from Trahweiler and on the other side. The elevation at the bottom of the valley is roughly 240 m above sea level. Towards the south, the slope of the Klopfberg climbs steeply to 380 m above sea level. Some of the land on the slope is wooded. Haschbach does not lie right on the Glan. The tag “am Glan” merely serves to distinguish the Henschtal Ortsteil from the self-administering Ortsgemeinde of Haschbach am Remigiusberg, which lies in the same district.^[4]

Trahweiler

Trahweiler stretches along a road running parallel to the Henschbach and along a side valley of the Henschbach. The valley floor here lies at an elevation of slightly more than 240 m above sea level, and some of the houses on higher ground stand at about 250 m above sea level. Towards the north, the land climbs steeply, reaching an elevation of 478 m above sea level. The land towards the municipal limit with Wahnwegen is wooded. West of Trahweiler, into Steinbach am Glan’s municipal area, the Hodenbach empties into the Hengsbach. The Hodenbach valley, which along the brook’s northern reaches touches Trahweiler’s (former) municipal area, is held to be a popular recreational area.^[5]

Haschbach am Glan

Haschbach was originally a linear village (by some definitions, a “thorpe”). The built-up area mostly runs along Bundesstraße 423, locally known as Hauptstraße (“Main Street”). Today, other streets branch off Hauptstraße towards the south, into a side valley of the Henschbach. The shapes that the houses take make it quite clear that the village was once mostly characterized by agriculture. The former schoolhouse stands not far from the bridge linking the Ortsteil of Haschbach with the Ortsteil of Trahweiler. West of the village lies the graveyard.^[7]

Trahweiler

Trahweiler was originally settled along the valley road, which can still be made out today in the simple farmhouses that were built mostly in the 19th century to the general design that characterizes such houses in the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France. Newer building can be found along this road's extensions and on two sidestreets that branch off towards the north. The graveyard lies west of the village.^[8]

Haschbach am Glan

Even as far back as prehistoric times, the broader area around the village was settled by man, bearing witness to which are archaeological finds. A row of barrows runs from within Steinbach am Glan's limits into Haschbach. It is unknown, though, from what time these date. The area was also settled in Gallo-Roman times, although there have been no finds to confirm this.^[9]

Trahweiler

The area around Trahweiler was settled in both prehistoric times and Roman times, bearing witness to which are many barrows in the municipal areas of neighbouring villages and Gallo-Roman finds in the area.^[10]

Haschbach am Glan

From the contiguous Free Imperial Domain (Freies Reichsland) around Castle Lautern (Kaiserslautern), kings split certain areas off to give as donations to both ecclesiastical and secular lordships. Great parts of it came into the Salian dynasty’s ownership. Count Werner I from the Salian noble family endowed Hornbach Abbey in 737, whose first abbot was Saint Pirmin. Werner furnished this monastery richly with estates and lands, among which was the Münchweiler Tal (dale), which itself included the Henschbach valley, to which Haschbach belonged. As a fief from Hornbach Abbey with Glan-Münchweiler as its hub, all villages in this valley first passed to the Raugraves in the Nahegau, and thereafter to the Archbishop of Trier in 1344 and to the Breidenborns in 1338. In connection with the Münchweiler Tal, both the now vanished village of Frensweiler and also Haschbach are named repeatedly in documents. Thus it says in the Weistum of Glan-Münchweiler (a Weistum – cognate with English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times), which was handed down about 1330 and written in both Latin and Middle High German, that the Raugraves’ representative (a bailiff or a beadle) was entitled to, among other things, a piece of land in Hagenspach. In Latin, the text reads: "habet idem pedellus in Haschbach in inferiore mansu dimidietatem ex parte dominorum quidquid cedit." The Middle High German text reads: "Item hat auch derselbig büttel von der herren zu Hagenspach im underen mansu den halben theil, was da felt." Then, in the 1456 Glan-Münchweiler Weistum, it says: "Da soll ein apt zu Hornbach von sant Pirmans wegen denselben budel den zehenden zu Haspach zuschen den zwein grunden geben und zustellen nach wisung des orteils." Also appearing in this Weistum as a witness is someone named “Clais von Frynswillr”, who is also named in another Glan-Münchweiler Weistum from 1461 as “Claz von Frinßwiller”. Whoever he was, he was apparently from Frenzweiler, as indicated by his name, a village that has long since vanished, but which likely lay within what are now Henschtal's limits. Furthermore, a man named Konrad von Vrodenswilre – another reference to the same village – had appeared in 1313 in the Mauchenheim cartulary. It is likely that the Lords of Frenzweiler were distinguished members of the lower nobility. With Georg I's marriage to Eva von Mauchenheim in 1456, the House of Leyen came into ownership of the Bliesgau, and by inheritance in 1486 that family also came to own a share in the castle at Blieskastel. At the same time, Abbot Ulrich of Hornbach Abbey granted Jörge von der Leyen, a Burgmann from Castle Lautern, the Münchweiler Tal. The Lords of Leyen had their roots in the lower Moselle area and kept their seat as early as the High Middle Ages at their castle near Gondorf on the Moselle. They stood mostly in the service of the Archbishops of Trier, and indeed in 1556, Johann von der Leyen-Saffig was chosen to be the Archbishop of Trier. Besides the House of Leyen, until 1533, the Leyens’ kin, the Mauchenheims were also enfeoffed in turn with parts of the Abbey's holdings in the Münchweiler Tal.^[11]

Trahweiler

Trahweiler might have arisen in the 12th century, but an earlier founding cannot be ruled out. It is certain that the village lay within the so-called Remigiusland, which defined its later history. The oldest document that had been preserved from the Middle Ages, from 1446, was lost to the ravages of war. Another document from 1458, a book of accounts of payments by subjects owed the lords, says that Trahweiler was liable to the Remigiusberg Monastery in such matters, and listed the payments in money and in kind owed by not only Tragewillr but also Quirnbach and Frutzweiler. Trahweiler was included in the founding of the County of Veldenz under Count Gerlach I in 1112. In 1444, Frederick III, Count of Veldenz, the last from the Hohengeroldseck family to rule the county, died without a male heir; the county passed to his son-in-law Stephen, Count Palatine of Simmern-Zweibrücken, widower of Frederick's daughter, Anna of Veldenz. Stephen, combining his lands, created the new County Palatine of Zweibrücken, which in the fullness of time came to be known as the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken.

Even before Trahweiler's first documentary mention, the now vanished village of Frensweiler was being mentioned in documents. The documentary mentions of Conrad von Vrodenswilre and Clais von Frynswilr, both named after the former village, are discussed above.^[12]

Haschbach am Glan

Until the French Revolution, the lordly structure did not change again. Like all villages in the area, Haschbach, too, was stricken with the hardships and horrors of the Thirty Years' War and the Plague. By the 1648 end of that war, only a few people survived in the area. Newcomers settled, though, as in the neighbouring village of Trahweiler, there may have been no more than five families living in Haschbach, even into the 18th century. A few years after the Thirty Years' War, the Family von der Leyen began to expand their holdings on the rivers Blies, Saar and Glan. The villages of the Münchweiler Tal within these scattered holdings were gathered together administratively into an Unteramt of the lordship as a whole. Only in 1773 did the comital couple Franz Karl von der Leyen and Marianne, née Dalberg, move the comital residence from Koblenz to Blieskastel. After Count Franz Karl's death in 1775, his beloved, and now widowed, wife Marianne took on the regency for their underage son, Philip Francis, Prince of Leyen.^[13]

Trahweiler

Wolfgang, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken introduced the Reformation according to Martin Luther into his county in 1537, and in 1588, John I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken forced his subjects to convert to the Reformed faith according to John Calvin (Calvinism). In 1609, according to the ecclesiastical visitation protocol of Baumholder, 50 persons in 10 families lived in Trahweiler. During the 17th century, the Thirty Years' War and French King Louis XIV's wars of conquest claimed many victims, and for a time, the village was almost empty of people. Newcomers raised the population figures back up, and beginning in the 18th century, there were once more people migrating out of the village.^[14]

Recent times

Haschbach am Glan

As can still be seen today in the building style of the village's houses, the greater part of the population in the 19th century earned their living at agriculture. This changed in the 20th century as ever more farmers sought work outside the village, either working the land as a secondary occupation or giving farming up altogether. Thus, agriculture today plays a subordinate role, and the village is first and foremost a residential community for people in the most varied of occupations.

The following table shows population development over the centuries for Haschbach am Glan, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:^[18]

Trahweiler

The following table shows population development over the centuries for Trahweiler, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:^[19]

Haschbach am Glan

Haschbach is among the many villages with names ending in —bach (“brook”) that arose at streams at the time when the Franks were taking over the land. The derivation of the name Haschbach is otherwise uncertain. The first syllable, Hasch—, or, to use its older form, Has—, according to placename researchers Ernst Christmann and Kaufmann, refers to the hare (in German, Hase; or in Proto-Germanic, Haso). Researchers Dolch and Greule concur, but do not rule out that the syllable might refer to Hasa, a name for a body of water. Over the ages, Haschbach has borne the following names: Haschbach (1330), Haspach (1456 and 1460), Haßbach (1587), Aschbach (1797) and Hasbach (1824).^[20] According to a village chronicle, the name was written Haspach in 1589 and Aspach in 1712, even though other places spelt their names —bach, with a B.^[21]

Trahweiler

The village's name, Trahweiler, has the common German placename ending —weiler, which as a standalone word means “hamlet” (originally “homestead”), to which is prefixed a syllable that goes back to a man's name, either “Trago” or “Drago”. According to this derivation, Trahweiler arose from “Trago’s (or Drago’s) Homestead”. The name first appeared in documents still preserved today in the form Tragewylre in 1446. Over the ages, Trahweiler has borne the following names, among others: Tragewillr (1458 and 1460), Trawiler (1480) and Trahweiler, (1824).^[22]

Henschtal

The modern name for the merged municipality was coined in 1969. The name is drawn from the one borne by the brook that flows through the municipality, the Henschbach. The ending —bach (“brook”) was simply dropped and replaced with —tal (“dale” or “valley”). The first syllable, Hensch—, derives from the German Hengst (“stallion”; compare the development of the English word henchman^[23]), and indeed for a while, the brook was called the Hengstbach. Henschtal, therefore, is, according to its name, the place in the valley of the Hengstbach/Henschbach.^[24]

Haschbach am Glan

• Hauptstraße 26 – former school; sandstone-framed plastered building and barn, 1876, architect Johann Schmeisser, Kusel
• Hauptstraße 27 – one-floor Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street), 1855/1856

Trahweiler

• Sangerhof 4 – sandstone-framed Quereinhaus, 1876

Haschbach am Glan

Even in an economic sense, Haschbach and Trahweiler today form a unit. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, ever more workers were having to seek livelihoods outside the village. Projections for tourism are expected to expand in the future. Haschbach is otherwise, first and foremost, a residential community.^[36]

Haschbach am Glan

About schooling in the Münchweiler Tal at the time of the Counts of Leyen hardly anything is known. What is certain is that at that time, there was no collaboration in education with the neighbouring village of Trahweiler. Only after the cession to the Kingdom of Bavaria after the Congress of Vienna did the government put forth efforts, right from the beginning, to build a school for both the villages on each side of the Henschbach. In 1822, the district government in Speyer wrote: “Even though the two places are separated by the brook, in two Landkommissariate and two cantons, this hinders the common school cooperative in no way, and Trahweiler gets the same advantage from the separation from Quirnbach as Haschbach does from the separation from Münchweiler.” The inhabitants of Trahweiler did not share this opinion, because they had already paid in advance to have a school built in Quirnbach, and moreover, they refused to join a school cooperative. The upshot was that Haschbach ended up building its own schoolhouse in 1828 in the village itself. When the government in Speyer nonetheless tried to force the formation of such a body in 1829, Trahweiler once more raised an objection, saying that it wished to build its own schoolhouse. Once again, the government would not allow it and wrote: “The municipality of Trahweiler is much too small to build its own schoolhouse and remunerate its own schoolteacher.” The Landkommissariat of Kusel took the same view and in 1832 announced: “The municipality of Trahweiler has at last stepped back from its intention to build its own schoolhouse.” Although a school cooperative was now established, there were once more differences of opinion, this time about who would pay how much in fees for the school. Haschbach council wanted to use the general taxation as a basis for the calculations, whereas Trahweiler council thought it would be fairer to use the number of schoolchildren from each village as the basis (see the table under Trahweiler, below). Haschbach's 1828 schoolhouse soon could not meet the village's demands, and so both municipalities built a new schoolhouse in 1874 with a teacher's dwelling downstairs and a classroom upstairs. The cost of this new school was 20,336 marks and 92 pfennigs, of which Trahweiler bore 12,140 marks and 30 pfennigs and Haschbach 8,196 marks and 62 pfennigs. By 1939, the one classroom was no longer enough to serve the two villages’ needs, and the teacher's dwelling was converted into another classroom. The local school had to be closed in the course of school restructuring in 1970. Since then, primary school pupils and Hauptschule students have been attending school in Glan-Münchweiler. The nearest Gymnasien are in Kusel and Landstuhl. University towns in the greater region are Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken, Trier and Mainz.^[38]