Ellscheid
Encyclopedia
Ellscheid is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality
belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district
in Rhineland-Palatinate
, Germany
. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Daun
, whose seat is in the like-named town
.
”) in the middle of the Vulkaneifel
, a part of the Eifel
known for its volcanic history, geographical and geological features, and even ongoing activity today, including gases that sometimes well up from the earth. The Mürmes nature conservation area is a well known outing destination. The Mürmes is a wetland area between Ellscheid, Saxler
and Mehren
.
around Ellscheid (Starkenbruch, Rothreiser, Jungholz‚ Hügelchen). These graves come from the early Iron Age
, Hallstatt times
in the 7th century BC. The best known Celtic remnant, though, is the ringwall on the Steineberger Ley some 4 km away.
Beginning about 400 BC, the Celts migrated away from the region, leaving the land to the Treveri
, and then about 20 BC, the Romans
came. The Eifel belonged to the province of Gallia Belgica
.
The Romans were followed in the 5th century by a Germanic
tribe, the Franks
, who moved into the Eifel using the Romans’ own roads. Roman rule ended. The population did not become much denser until about 900, during which time Hedelscheit (now Ellscheid) came into being.
The name Ellscheid points to a founding sometime in the second wave of Frankish settlement between 800 and 1200, as the villages that arose in the first wave generally have names ending in —feld or —rath. The Franks liked to settle on sheltered slopes near water. Ellscheid might have arisen in the rural area now known as Struthsuhr, where wall remnants have been found. According to the Ellscheid school chronicle, the village there, at the foot of the Seidenklopp, was sacked and destroyed by the French
in the Thirty Years' War
. The slope sheltered it from the cold north wind and the site had water from the nearby Laubach. After the village was destroyed by the French, the villagers fled to the area known as Hunzestall, which lies off to the side in a side valley of the Mürmes. In two deep trenches that can still be seen today, the villagers and their livestock are said to have lived through this hard time. Thereafter, the village was built anew, this time on the spot where it still stands now. Its focal point was apparently the estate (the former Saxlerhaus), about which the new houses gathered. The name itself refers to the location. Hedelscheit was mentioned in the Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der jetzt die preußischen Regierungsbezirke Coblenz und Trier bildenden mittelrheinischen Territorien (“Document Book about the History of the Middle-Rhenish Territories Now Forming the Prussian Governmental Regions of Coblenz and Trier”) by Heinrich Beyer, in which Beyer stated that Hedelscheit had belonged in 1136 to the holdings of the Foundation of “Our Lady at Prüm”. This Hedelscheit is apparently the origin of the modern-day Ellscheid.
Hedelscheit is made up of two words. Hedel means “alder
” and Scheit comes from the old Celtic
word keito-n, meaning “wood” or “forest” (cf. Welsh
coedwig and Breton
koadeg). Therefore, freely translated, the name Hedelscheit means “Alderwood” (or Erlenwald as it would commonly be expressed in German
). On the wet valley floodplain, there might quite possibly once have been a natural alder wood, at whose edge the first Ellscheiders might have settled. When this might have happened, though, is hardly traceable.
The municipality’s arms
might in English heraldic
language be described thus: Per bend sinister argent a cross tau, hanging from each arm a bell, gules, and azure three fish fesswise in bend sinister of the first.
The T-shaped cross is Saint Anthony
’s attribute, and is thus a reference to the village’s and the church’s patron saint. It is shown here with two bells, a bell also being one of Saint Anthony’s attributes. The three fish stand for the three Electoral fishing ponds within Ellscheid’s limits (Mürmesweiher, Finkenweiher and Mittelweiher). The villagers were once obliged to do compulsory labour for the Elector by catching fish and cleaning the ponds.
villa rustica
have been unearthed.
Many barrows
are to be found around Ellscheid. The biggest, cone-shaped tumuli lie in the “Starkenbruch”. These Celtic gravesites stand about two metres high and have a circumference of some 30 m. They might have been Celtic princes’ graves, as they stand at one of the highest points in the area. They can easily be spotted in the woods. The barrows in the “Rothreisern” are not quite as mighty. These graves come from the early Iron Age
, Hallstatt times
in the 6th century BC. They are classified as part of the Eifel-Hunsrück culture.
There is a sport club which is itself subdivided into sections for football, walking, tennis
and volleyball
. Furthermore, there is a singing circle and a few clubs, such as the village development working group, that busy themselves with shaping the municipality’s appearance.
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 Vulkaneifel 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 Daun
Daun (Verbandsgemeinde)
Daun is a collective municipality in the Vulkaneifel district of Rhineland-Palatinate. The seat of the Daun Verbandsgemeinde is in the municipality of Daun.- Constituent municipalities:# Betteldorf# Bleckhausen# Brockscheid...
, whose seat is in the like-named town
Daun, Germany
Daun is a town in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the district seat and also the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde of Daun.- Location :...
.
Location
Ellscheid lies on the Pulvermaar (“Powder MaarMaar
A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater that is caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption, an explosion caused by groundwater coming into contact with hot lava or magma. A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallow crater lake. The name comes from the local Moselle...
”) in the middle of the Vulkaneifel
Vulkan Eifel
The Vulkan Eifel is a region in the Eifel Mountains in Germany, that is defined to a large extent by its volcanic geological history. Characteristic of the Vulkan Eifel are its typical explosion crater lakes or maars, and numerous other signs of volcanic activity such as volcanic tuffs, lava...
, a part 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....
known for its volcanic history, geographical and geological features, and even ongoing activity today, including gases that sometimes well up from the earth. The Mürmes nature conservation area is a well known outing destination. The Mürmes is a wetland area between Ellscheid, Saxler
Saxler
Saxler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
and Mehren
Mehren, Vulkaneifel
Mehren is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
.
History
Clear signs of what might have been the first permanent settlement of the area are the Celtic barrowsTumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
around Ellscheid (Starkenbruch, Rothreiser, Jungholz‚ Hügelchen). These graves come from the early Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
, Hallstatt times
Hallstatt culture
The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC , developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC and followed in much of Central Europe by the La Tène culture.By the 6th century BC, the Hallstatt culture extended for some...
in the 7th century BC. The best known Celtic remnant, though, is the ringwall on the Steineberger Ley some 4 km away.
Beginning about 400 BC, the Celts migrated away from the region, leaving the land to the Treveri
Treveri
The Treveri or Treviri were a tribe of Gauls who inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle from around 150 BCE, at the latest, until their eventual absorption into the Franks...
, and then about 20 BC, the Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
came. The Eifel belonged to the province of Gallia Belgica
Gallia Belgica
Gallia Belgica was a Roman province located in what is now the southern part of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, northeastern France, and western Germany. The indigenous population of Gallia Belgica, the Belgae, consisted of a mixture of Celtic and Germanic tribes...
.
The Romans were followed in the 5th century by a Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
tribe, the Franks
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...
, who moved into the Eifel using the Romans’ own roads. Roman rule ended. The population did not become much denser until about 900, during which time Hedelscheit (now Ellscheid) came into being.
The name Ellscheid points to a founding sometime in the second wave of Frankish settlement between 800 and 1200, as the villages that arose in the first wave generally have names ending in —feld or —rath. The Franks liked to settle on sheltered slopes near water. Ellscheid might have arisen in the rural area now known as Struthsuhr, where wall remnants have been found. According to the Ellscheid school chronicle, the village there, at the foot of the Seidenklopp, was sacked and destroyed 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...
in 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....
. The slope sheltered it from the cold north wind and the site had water from the nearby Laubach. After the village was destroyed by the French, the villagers fled to the area known as Hunzestall, which lies off to the side in a side valley of the Mürmes. In two deep trenches that can still be seen today, the villagers and their livestock are said to have lived through this hard time. Thereafter, the village was built anew, this time on the spot where it still stands now. Its focal point was apparently the estate (the former Saxlerhaus), about which the new houses gathered. The name itself refers to the location. Hedelscheit was mentioned in the Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der jetzt die preußischen Regierungsbezirke Coblenz und Trier bildenden mittelrheinischen Territorien (“Document Book about the History of the Middle-Rhenish Territories Now Forming the Prussian Governmental Regions of Coblenz and Trier”) by Heinrich Beyer, in which Beyer stated that Hedelscheit had belonged in 1136 to the holdings of the Foundation of “Our Lady at Prüm”. This Hedelscheit is apparently the origin of the modern-day Ellscheid.
Hedelscheit is made up of two words. Hedel means “alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...
” and Scheit comes from the old Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
word keito-n, meaning “wood” or “forest” (cf. Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
coedwig and Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
koadeg). Therefore, freely translated, the name Hedelscheit means “Alderwood” (or Erlenwald as it would commonly be expressed in German
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....
). On the wet valley floodplain, there might quite possibly once have been a natural alder wood, at whose edge the first Ellscheiders might have settled. When this might have happened, though, is hardly traceable.
Municipal council
The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.Mayor
Ellscheid’s mayor is Albert Borsch, and his two deputies are Karl Schlimpen and Wilfried Borsch.Coat of arms
The German blazon reads: Von Silber und Blau schräglinks geteilt; oben ein rotes Antoniuskreuz mit 2 Glöckchen unten 3 (1:1:1) silberne Fische.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: Per bend sinister argent a cross tau, hanging from each arm a bell, gules, and azure three fish fesswise in bend sinister of the first.
The T-shaped cross is Saint Anthony
Anthony the Great
Anthony the Great or Antony the Great , , also known as Saint Anthony, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Abba Antonius , and Father of All Monks, was a Christian saint from Egypt, a prominent leader among the Desert Fathers...
’s attribute, and is thus a reference to the village’s and the church’s patron saint. It is shown here with two bells, a bell also being one of Saint Anthony’s attributes. The three fish stand for the three Electoral fishing ponds within Ellscheid’s limits (Mürmesweiher, Finkenweiher and Mittelweiher). The villagers were once obliged to do compulsory labour for the Elector by catching fish and cleaning the ponds.
Archaeology
In Ellscheid, the foundations of a RomanAncient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
villa rustica
Villa rustica
Villa rustica was the term used by the ancient Romans to denote a villa set in the open countryside, often as the hub of a large agricultural estate . The adjective rusticum was used to distinguish it from an urban or resort villa...
have been unearthed.
Many barrows
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
are to be found around Ellscheid. The biggest, cone-shaped tumuli lie in the “Starkenbruch”. These Celtic gravesites stand about two metres high and have a circumference of some 30 m. They might have been Celtic princes’ graves, as they stand at one of the highest points in the area. They can easily be spotted in the woods. The barrows in the “Rothreisern” are not quite as mighty. These graves come from the early Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
, Hallstatt times
Hallstatt culture
The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC , developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC and followed in much of Central Europe by the La Tène culture.By the 6th century BC, the Hallstatt culture extended for some...
in the 6th century BC. They are classified as part of the Eifel-Hunsrück culture.
Buildings
- Saint AnthonyAnthony the GreatAnthony the Great or Antony the Great , , also known as Saint Anthony, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Abba Antonius , and Father of All Monks, was a Christian saint from Egypt, a prominent leader among the Desert Fathers...
’s Catholic Church (branch church), Hauptstraße 38, Four-axis aisleless churchAisleless churchAn 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 1772, west tower from 1811. - Hauptstraße 36 – Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street), plastered, possibly partly timber-frameTimber framingTimber 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...
. - Wayside cross, north of the village in the woods.
Clubs
In Ellscheid there are many clubs not only for sporting interests but for other leisure activities as well.There is a sport club which is itself subdivided into sections for football, walking, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
and volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
. Furthermore, there is a singing circle and a few clubs, such as the village development working group, that busy themselves with shaping the municipality’s appearance.
External links
- Municipality’s official webpage
- http://www.swr.de/landesschau-rp/hierzuland/-/id=100766/nid=100766/did=2353240/a40p7v/index.htmlBrief portrait of Ellscheid with film at SWR FernsehenSWR FernsehenSWR Fernsehen is a German regional television channel targeting the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. It is produced by Südwestrundfunk and is one of eight regional "third channels" broadcast by the ARD members....
]