Bechtheimer Gebück
The Bechtheimer Gebück is an old, almost 19 kilometer long Landwehr of the Nassau-Idstein rule , which stretched between Bad Camberg and the town of Zollhaus .
course
The Bechtheimer Gebück began roughly where the Bad Camberg motorway exit is today. From there a wall with a ditch ran along the Wörsbach valley to the vicinity of the Beuerbacher Untermühle. It went through the narrow gorge of the Wörsbach in a line that roughly corresponds to today's border between the districts of Limburg Weilburg and Rheingau-Taunus as well as the communities of Huenelden and Hünstetten , in a south-westerly direction to the vicinity of Ketterschwalbach . There it made a curve and turned again to the northwest in the direction of the customs house.
construction
The border installation consisted of a two to three meter deep trench followed by a wall. This system was also designed twice in sections. The ramparts were partly created by human hands. Wherever possible, the builders made use of natural cuts in the terrain. On the “inland” slope of the ramparts seen from the Nassau-Idsteinian side, the builders had the actual 20 to 30 meter wide structure made of hornbeams and thorn bushes. These plants were "bent over". That meant bend the shoots downwards and interweave them so that they grew together and formed an impenetrable undergrowth.
The neighboring villages of Beuerbach, Bechtheim and Ketternschwallbach were obliged to maintain the border system. Once a year a stately delegation walked along the hedge and checked whether the work had been carried out conscientiously. "Shark courts" could impose penalties for damaging the bridle.
Trade had to remain possible despite the overhang, especially on Hühnerstraße , the predecessor of today's Bundesstraße 417 , also known as “Bubenheimer Straße” in the region. At that time it still ran on today's country road between the Hünstetten district of ears and Hünstetten-Bechtheim. There the peg had a passage with a turnpike, on which the sovereign levied customs until the beginning of the 19th century. The area is still known today as the “Bechtheimer Schlag”. It is possible that there was a fortification a little further to the northeast, perhaps only a wooden shelter for a few armed men. That would explain the current name of the district "Schanzenkopf". Further customs stations were at the eastern end of the Gebück near Bad Camberg to control Hohe Strasse (Cologne-Frankfurt), and at the western end at Zollhaus.
history
The author of the Bechtheimer Gebück was probably Count Gerlach I of Nassau around 1355 . He wanted to reduce the threat to his domain from the numerous feuds of that time. Above all, the Nassau found themselves in disputes with the Archdiocese of Trier , which ruled over Montabaur, Camberg and from 1344 half over Limburg. There were also repeated disputes with the Counts of Diez , Eppstein and Katzenelnbogen as well as with other branches of the Nassau family. With the increasing expansion of the House of Nassau, especially at the expense of the Counts of Diez, which died out at the end of the 14th century, Nassau possessions were soon also outside the pontoon, so that the fortification was supposed to prevent opponents from penetrating deeper into the domain . In the course of the numerous Nassau inheritance divisions, the hedge strip also formed the delimitation between different Nassau territories.
The customs station was popularly known as the " Gypsy stick " because the traveling people and other marginalized social groups were denied access to the Nassau territory.
With the advancement of military technology, the peg lost its importance. At the end of the 17th century, the route of the trade route changed to the west, so that the customs station lost its importance. The last customs collector is guaranteed for 1805. At the end of the 18th century, the neighboring communities bought the protective hedge and had it largely cut down.
Today only a few remains of the ramparts are preserved as ground monuments . The Hünstetten Historical Association has replanted and maintained a short section of this historic border system since 2004. Around 400 hornbeams were planted over a width of two to three meters at around 60 meters on the “Bechtheimer Schlag”.
See also
literature
- Karl August von Cohausen : The Rheingau Gebück . In: Nassau Annals . Yearbook of the Association for Nassau Age Studies and Historical Research , Volumes 13–14, Wiesbaden 1874, pp. 149–178, on this: p. 171
- Georg Dehio, Folkhard Cremer, Ernst Gall: Dehio. Handbook of German Art Monuments: Hessen II. Administrative Region Darmstadt . 1st edition of the new edition, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03117-3 . P. 64
- Rudolf Peter Wuschek: The Bechtheimer Gebück on the border of Nassau-Idstein . In: Nassauische Annalen , Volume 117, 2006, pp. 47-64