History of the city of Montabaur
 
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Location of Montabaur |
The history of Montabaur and in particular its historical mentions (sources) are closely linked to the history of the fort on the hill in the Montabaurer depression .
Prehistory and early history
The oldest traces of settlement in the region were found on the Malberg north of the city and outside the present-day urban area in the form of Celtic ring walls . Montabaur probably developed because the Via Publica old road crossed the Gelbach Valley at this point and the place was also about a day's walk from Koblenz and Limburg an der Lahn on this route.
middle Ages
In the years between 931 and 949, Duke Hermann von Schwaben had a wooden church built under his castle in the settlement first documented in 959 and donated it to the Marienkloster in Koblenz, which later became St. Florin's Abbey . The monastery built a stone church in its place, which was consecrated to the Apostles Peter and Saint George in 959. The tithe realm of the Church at that time was very extensive. It extended east along the Gelbach to its confluence with the Lahn near Obernhof and in the north to the Saynbach . To the west and south it was bounded by the territories of Bad Ems , Nassau and other manors so that the border ran within the forest area, which is still extensive today, at this point. The fortification was called "Castellum Humbacense". The medieval place name Humbach or Hunback for the Franconian village is probably made up of Hun (= Huno) and Back (= right), which means, for example, place where the knight Huno speaks right .
The castle with the village and large areas of the Westerwald fell to the archbishops of Trier in the 11th century . Their original territory around Trier, later known as the “upper ore pen”, was expanded considerably in 1018. Emperor Heinrich II transferred the Franconian royal court of Koblenz together with the associated imperial property to the Archbishop of Trier Poppo von Babenberg . The lower Westerwald and thus Humbach and the land at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers now formed the "lower ore pen". At that time, Montabaur was apparently already the center of an extensive sphere of influence. In addition to the extensive tithe of the church, the settlement was the main town of the Reichswald Spurkenberg, which stretched between the Lahn, Rhine, Saynbach and Gelbach and its eastern source brooks and was probably given as a fief to the Archdiocese of Trier since the 12th century at the latest .
The Archbishop Dietrich II. Von Trier (1212-1242) was the "Castellum Humbacense" into a solid bulwark against his enemy, the Count of Nassau expand. In 1212 there was a bloody dispute between the two sovereigns on a small hill in front of Humbach. In the costly battle, the Archbishop of Trier , Dietrich von Wied, was captured in Nassau for two years and knight Albert von Koblenz was killed among many others . The victorious Count of Nassau had the castle destroyed.
After his release from captivity in Nassau in 1214, Archbishop Dietrich II of Wied (1212-1242) took part in a crusade and went to the Holy Land . After his return he saw certain similarities between the Humbach Hill and the Mount Tabor in the Holy Land , which is considered the place of the Transfiguration of Christ . He then had the destroyed castle rebuilt in 1217 and named the hill Mons Tabor , from which the current city name Montabaur later developed. A mention from 1227 calls the castle "Muntabur".
The fortifications, manned by soldiers and a castle captain, had the task of controlling the settlement and the surrounding area ( Spurkenberg forest between Lahn, Rhine, Gelbach and Sayn). Officials and administrators of the archbishop also lived in the castle, who collected taxes, fines, pensions and levies. Several Burgmann families were settled there. The castle was initially headed by a burgrave appointed by the archbishop. From 1341 onwards, the term “bailiff” prevailed for this function. From 1335 cellars are guaranteed for the tax administration. For a long time, the Montabaur fort retained its importance as the administrative center, even after the conflict between Kurtrier and Nassau had been largely resolved in the middle of the 14th century.
In the years between 1280 and 1290, the still existing keep was erected at Montabaur Castle . On May 29, 1291 gave King Rudolf von Habsburg (1218-1291) at the request of Archbishop Boemund von Trier Montabaur together with Welschbillig , Mayen , Bernkastel and Saarburg the town charter .
The city itself legally separated increasingly from the castle district. If there was initially a court court set up by the archbishop at the castle, which was also responsible for the city, the citizens established a lay judge from their own ranks in 1300 at the latest, which also exercised blood jurisdiction by 1520 at the latest and completely ousted the court court. A political leadership class quickly emerged from the Schöffenkolleg. A city council is guaranteed for 1442, which in 1491 was composed of 14 lay judges and 14 other citizens. A mayor is first mentioned in 1359. Presumably there was already a council then. There was also a mayor who was installed directly by the archbishop. The city was divided into five neighborhoods ( city districts ), as well as three neighborhood rural communities, which were represented to the city council by neighborhood servants. There were 13 organized guilds in the city, of which the wool weavers , tanners , bakers and shopkeepers were the most important. The noble castle garrison apparently remained small and never developed a significant influence in the city.
The medieval city fortifications stretched around the medieval town center at the foot of the castle hill, with the town hall at the Großer Markt and the Kleiner Markt . A city wall is already depicted on a seal from the end of the 13th century, which does not prove the existence of that time, but suggests. The mightiest tower of the city wall was the Wolfsturm, clearly visible from the fort. The city wall had many towers and 13 gates, with the main gate in the south, near the Catholic Church. This so-called Peterstor, which is mentioned for the first time in 1324, had two passages, the Elberter and the Hollerer gate. As was customary in the Middle Ages, the gates were guarded and the guard was instructed that he “would not let anyone in or out without the mayor's orders. That he diligently paid attention to gate money, interest, customs and other charges, noted the customs signs and wanted to carry his rifle with him at all times ”. The other main gates were the Schöffen-, Allmanshäuser-, and Sauertalerpforte.
A Jewish community already existed in the early 14th century, as persecution of Jews in the city has been recorded for 1336.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, Montabaur became a very wealthy city with an important leather and cloth trade. A permanent marketplace in the city is occupied for 1387. In the middle of the 14th century, cloth merchants from Montabaur were represented at trade fairs in Frankfurt, Mainz and Friedberg. The wool weavers' guild had its own trading office in Frankfurt . There is evidence of its own annual markets for 1478, but the market for the consecration of the Church of St. Peter and St. George already had some privileges and is therefore likely to be considerably older. However, urban development was slowed down by three major city fires in 1491, 1534 and 1667. The fire of 1491 destroyed all buildings in the city, including the towers of the city walls, within three hours. Numerous houses and most of the medieval towers and gates were also destroyed in the other fires. In the 19th century, other parts of the medieval city fell into disrepair, so that today little of the city fortifications apart from four towers has been preserved.
In 1452 there was a school in the city.
Modern times
In the 16th century , the core of the palace was built, which still defines the appearance of the city today. Around 1520, the medieval castle was expanded into a four-wing Renaissance castle under Archbishop Richard von Greiffenklau zu Vollrads . The castle only got its current appearance under Archbishop and Elector Johann Hugo von Orsbeck , who ruled the Archdiocese of Trier from 1676 to 1711 . Between 1687 and 1709, Montabaur Castle received its baroque floor plan and remained one of the residences of the Electors of Trier until 1802 . As early as 1586, six annual fairs have been recorded, an unusually large number for a city of this size. In 1779 the number was increased to twelve.
In the 16th century the trials against witchcraft reached a high point in the town and office of Montabaur . For example, 30 people were executed in 1592/93. The peak was between 1629 and 1631, when 80 women, men and children were sentenced to death for witchcraft.
In 1628, Montabaur was connected to the network of the Imperial Post Office with a post office.
Since Montabaur belonged to Kurtrier, it was spared the early chaos of the Thirty Years' War . Only with the entry of the Swedes did the situation change. In 1631 a Swedish army occupied the city. In the following years the city was repeatedly occupied by various warring factions. When the Peace of Westphalia was concluded , of the almost 2,000 inhabitants, only 150 were still living and a few hundred other residents.
Since 1627, an increasing number of Franciscans from the Limburg convent have been employed as pastors in Montabaur. In response to the “beheading of Johannes” on August 29, 1641, the city council requested the establishment of its own convent. This was justified with the inadequate pastoral care as a result of the Thirty Years War. In the following years a residence was built in the rooms of the city hospital, initially for two monks. As early as 1653 the residence was upgraded to an independent convent. At the convent there was an additional tertiary order "From the Holy Belt of Francis"
From 1661 the Franciscans took over the supervision of the pilgrimage to Wirzenborn, the proceeds were intended for the expansion of the convent, which had grown to eight monks. The convent also built a grammar school in Montabaur.
The first pharmacy opened in Montabaur in 1789. Around 1790 the road from Trier via Koblenz, Montabaur to Limburg, the forerunner of today's B49 , was built.
19th century until today
In the course of the dissolution of the old empire , Montabaur was provisionally occupied on November 2, 1802, and officially on September 13, 1806, by the two Nassau principalities of Usingen and Weilburg , which united in 1806 to form the Duchy of Nassau . Just like before under Kurtrier, Montabaur remained under the Nassauer seat of an office that was reclassified several times until 1816. The castle was converted into a hunting lodge for the Dukes of Nassau, who never lived there. The castle lost its importance and was used as a teachers' college from 1851 onwards.
In contrast to most of the monasteries in the Duchy of Nassau, the convent of the Franciscans was not secularized until 1813. The reason for this was the commitment of the order in the grammar school, as well as the very low wealth. The monastery chapel was demolished in 1824 because it was in disrepair.
As a result of the conflict between Prussia and the Habsburgs , the Duchy of Nassau fell to Prussia in 1866. In 1867 they set up the Montabaur District Court , which is to administer the courts to be formed in the former Duchy of Nassau . It was housed in a building of the former Franciscan monastery in the so-called Amtmannsgarten. It was not until 1910 that today's office building was built and occupied.
In the 1870s, the historic parish church of St. Peter was comprehensively renovated and redesigned in a neo-Gothic style. During the renovation, the plaster was removed from the building.
After Germany's liberation from National Socialism by the Allies in 1945, the Unterwesterwaldkreis and three other districts of the former Hesse-Nassau province belonged to the French occupation zone . The district court building was used as the Gouvernement Militaire by the French army. From these four districts, the administrative district of Montabaur emerged in 1946 , which formed one of the five administrative districts into which the newly formed state of Rhineland-Palatinate was divided in 1946. This district was dissolved in 1969 and incorporated into the Koblenz administrative district. During this time the castle served as the seat of the district administrator and the district government . It was then sold to the Deutsche Genossenschaftskasse, which has been using it as a training center for employees since 1975. Cultural events continue to take place there.
In the 1950s the parish church was renovated again. The neo-Gothic additions to the renovation of the 1870s were partially withdrawn. The renovation of the 1990s and early 2000s led to another change in appearance. During this renovation, the building was also plastered again.
The Westerwald , which was still rather poor in the 1950s, is one of the more prosperous regions in Germany today, not least thanks to its favorable location to the economic areas of Cologne and Frankfurt. Despite the still rural structure has in the past two decades by inflows and road (ring roads) in the Westerwald countryside consumption continued to increase, but mainly at the expense of agricultural land (for housing and transport 1980: 12.9%, 2005 : 18.7%).
On April 22, 1972, the seven previously independent communities of Bladernheim , Elgendorf , Eschelbach , Ettersdorf , Horressen , Reckenthal and Wirzenborn were incorporated into Montabaur.
Until the beginning of 2004, Montabaur with the Westerwald barracks was a Bundeswehr location where the 350 rocket artillery battalion of III. Corps and repair units were stationed.
Population development
The oldest information about the Montabaur population dates from 1548 and shows 215 fire places.
| year | Residents |
|---|---|
| 1800 | 2,000 |
| 1844 | 2,727 |
| 1871 | 3,200 |
| 1910 | 4,000 |
| 1945 | 4,200 |
| 1969 | 7,500 |
| 2004 | 14,000 |
literature
- Vogel, Christian Daniel: Description of the Duchy of Nassau . Beyerle, Wiesbaden 1844 ( [1] ).
- KAA Meister: History of the city and Montabaur Castle. Edited and published according to documented sources. Reprint of the Montabaur 1876 edition. Ed .: FJ Löwenguth. Montabaur 1977.
- The parish church "St. Peter in Ketten" in Montabaur. For the millennial return of the inauguration of the first stone church in Montabaur in 959. Ed. By the association for the care of the home Catholic. Churches Montabaur. Montabaur 1959.
- 700 years of city rights for six Electoral Trier cities. 1291-1991. Bernkastel, Mayen, Montabaur, Saarburg, Welschbillig, Wittlich. Edit v. Dietmar Flach u. Jost Hausmann. Catalog for the anniversary exhibition of the State Main Archives Koblenz on the occasion of the Rhineland-Palatinate Day on May 24, 1991 in Montabaur. Koblenz 1991
- History of the city of Montabaur. 1st part: Humbach - Montabaur. By Bernd Schwenk, Hermann Josef Roth a. Michael Hollmann. Ed .: City of Montabaur. Montabaur 1991.
- Dieter Fries: Montabaur. Pictures from yesterday and today. City of Montabaur (Ed.) 1992
- Hans Frischbier: Montabaur is changing. From the Electorate of Trier to the Duchy of Nassau. 1768-1819. Ed .: City Archives Montabaur. Montabaur 1998 (= series of publications on the town history of Montabaur, issue 5).
- Hellmuth Gensicke : State history of the Westerwald . 3. Edition. Historical Commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-922244-80-7 .
