Norath
Encyclopedia
Norath is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality
belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district
) in Rhineland-Palatinate
, Germany
. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Emmelshausen
, whose seat is in the like-named town
.
nestled within a greenbelt of woodland and meadowland, roughly 3 km southeast of Emmelshausen
, right on Schinderhannes
-Radweg (cycle path).
verb roden, meaning “clear (woods, trees)”. When early settlers began to move into the Hunsrück seeking new lands for living and raising crops, they at first settled at the place now known as Hungenroth
, some 10 km west of Sankt Goar
on the Hunsrück heights. After only a few years, though, it had become quite clear to the settlers that the soil there was too infertile and boggy. Even hard work never yielded harvests that were good enough to keep the settlers fed. This led them to call their new home Hungerrodung (“Hunger Clearing”). A further clearing only 3 km to the east, however, held greater promise of agricultural bounty. This became known as Neurodung (“New Clearing”). Over time, the pronunciation changed to “Norath”.
and the Pyrenees
on the other. Germanic peoples
from east of the Rhine, however, eventually crossed the river, too, invaded the Celts’ lands and dislodged them therefrom. The Germanic conquerors then themselves settled these lands. Between 60 and 50 BC, Julius Caesar
extended the Roman Empire
’s hegemony from the west over to the Rhine. The Romans
called the lands between the Rhine and the Atlantic Ocean Gallia (rendered “Gaul
” in English
), and their rule lasted more than 500 years. They farmed land that in places had been considered wasteland, built paths and in places roads. Even today, an old Roman road runs from Bingen
by way of Rheinböllen
, Kisselbach
, Maisborn
, Pfalzfeld
, Norath, Dörth
and Pfaffenheck
to Koblenz
.
In the 4th century AD, the Franks
appeared on the Lower Rhine. These were tribes that had long held the lands on the Middle Rhine’s right bank, but now, down on the Lower Rhine, they were beginning to settle on the left bank. From their new foothold there, they pushed south towards the Moselle, later spreading across that river into the Hunsrück. In 455, under Merovingian
King Childeric I
, the Franks put an end to Roman rule throughout the Middle Rhine region and established their own ascendancy over it. Under Childeric’s son, Clovis I
, Christianity
was introduced throughout the Frankish Empire, including Norath. In those days, there were royal palaces in Koblenz, Boppard
and Oberwesel
. The Franks divided their whole empire up into dukedoms, which themselves were further divided into Gaue (singular, Gau; roughly, a region), and these further still into Hundertschaften.
In the early 9th century, and thus in Charlemagne
’s and his successors’ time, the Norath area belonged to the Dukedom of Moselania. After the partition
of the Carolingian Empire
in the 843 Treaty of Verdun
, Norath passed to the Dukedom of Lotharingia
, named after Emperor Lothair I
. After Lothair II’s
death, Charles the Bald
of France and Louis the German
agreed in the 870 Treaty of Meerssen
that all the late Lothair’s lands on the Moselle’s and the Meuse’s left bank were to pass to Charles, while all those east of these rivers were to belong to the German Empire.
In Emperor Otto I’s
time, the Dukes of Lotharingia revolted against the Emperor. To break their power, the Dukedom was sundered in 959 into two parts, Upper and Lower Lotharingia, lying south and north of Andernach
respectively. Norath lay in Upper Lotharingia, which was put under the Emperor’s immediate authority. The Emperor enfeoffed Gaugrafen (roughly, “regional counts”) with the area. These counts held judicial and military power, although these rights were later transferred to bishops, and thus grew the bishops’ lordly power. Many counts proved too weak to guard their holdings against robber knights, and chose to hand them over to the bishops and then had themselves enfeoffed with their own former holdings. Among the knights in the Norath area were the Knights of Brunshorn, whose castle stood near today’s Braunshorn
. This put Norath within the Knights’ territory, which was a fief from the Electors of Trier. Later, the fiefs passed back to Trier, and the Lords of Metternich received the Elector’s blessing as the new feudal lords. Thereafter, Norath was ruled by the Lords of Metternich-Beilstein.
At the time of the Reformation
, Lord of Beilstein and Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel Philip I’s
conversion
to Lutheran
teaching meant that everyone on the Vogt
ei of Pfalzfeld, and therefore in Norath, too, had to do the same
. These lords forced their subjects to forswear their old beliefs.
In 1581, the Plague broke out. Many people died, and Norath’s population, too, shrank. The Thirty Years' War
brought Norath hardship and misery, as was so throughout Germany. Soldiers came robbing and plundering villages, and then set many of them on fire. In some places, people were massacre
d. In the Vogtei of Pfalzfeld, only ten of originally forty families are said to have survived the onslaught.
In 1650, Norath had been utterly destroyed and nobody lived there. In the century that followed, many people settled there and repopulated it. In 1793, the village fell into French
hands. What there was left to destroy, the French destroyed. After they had occupied the whole left bank of the Rhine, Norath belonged to the subprefecture of Simmern, the canton of St. Goar and the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Pfalzfeld. For a time, between 1813 and 1842, the mayor had his official seat in Norath (the Mayoralty was by now called a Bürgermeisterei under the Prussia
ns), but as of 1843, the mayor’s office had moved back to Pfalzfeld
. It cannot be denied that the French under Napoleon
did much for the Rhineland
. For example, they built a road along the Rhine, now known as Bundesstraße
9. Nevertheless, Rhinelanders did not like French rule. It ended quickly enough with the War of the Sixth Coalition
and then the Congress of Vienna
, under which the Rhine’s left bank was assigned in 1815 to the Kingdom of Prussia
, and along with it, so was Norath. More locally, Norath found itself in the Rhine Province
, the Regierungsbezirk
of Koblenz, the district of St. Goar and the mayoral Amt of Pfalzfeld. After the Second World War, Norath found itself in the French zone of occupation. In 1949, when the Federal Republic (in its initial form, West Germany
) was formed, Norath became part of the then newly founded state
of Rhineland-Palatinate
.
The Wirtschaftswunder
since the Second World War changed the village forever. Whereas before everyone worked small farm plots and thought merely about their daily bread, more and more families now let their fields and meadows out and either move to the great industrial centres or become craftsmen and craftswomen at big and small businesses in the neighbouring towns and cities. Modern amenities, such as watermains, sewers, tarred streets and freezing facilities have changed the village’s face. The Hunsrück has become a recreational region for city dwellers, which has prompted Norath to lay on good, comfortable lodging and supplies for those from the Rhineland and the Ruhr
industrial areas seeking recreation. There are several inn
s and pension
s.
and zinc
mine, was built in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The mineshaft up which the ore
was lifted was about 200 m deep. At the 50 and 100 m levels, galleries were driven out towards Badenhard
. By the early 1960s, though, the ore yield had shrunk to unprofitable proportions and as a result, the mine was closed. Norath’s coat of arms
still bears the hammer and pick
as a charge
in reference to the Grube Camilla. The mine was owned by Stolberger Zink AG
, which also ran two ore mines in Werlau
.
at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
The municipality’s arms
might in English heraldic
language be described thus: Per fess, argent a book azure surmounted by three bezants, the whole between a hammer bendwise and a pick bendwise sinister sable, and gules three bugle-horns of the first.
The central charge
in the escutcheon’s upper field, the book, is Saint Nicholas
’s attribute, thus representing the municipality’s and the church’s patron saint. This is flanked by a hammer and a pick, together a traditional symbol for mining, which was once undertaken at the Grube Camilla, a lead and zinc mine, where prospecting
was being done as early as the 18th century. The escutcheon’s lower half is a reference to the village’s former allegiance to the Lordship of Braunshorn.
’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:
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 Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (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 Emmelshausen
Emmelshausen (Verbandsgemeinde)
Emmelshausen is a Verbandsgemeinde in the Rhein-Hunsrück district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Its seat is in Emmelshausen....
, whose seat is in the like-named town
Emmelshausen
Emmelshausen is a town in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde, to which it also belongs...
.
Location
The municipality lies in the eastern HunsrückHunsrück
The Hunsrück is a low mountain range in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the river valleys of the Moselle , the Nahe , and the Rhine . The Hunsrück is continued by the Taunus mountains on the eastern side of the Rhine. In the north behind the Moselle it is continued by the Eifel...
nestled within a greenbelt of woodland and meadowland, roughly 3 km southeast of Emmelshausen
Emmelshausen
Emmelshausen is a town in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde, to which it also belongs...
, right on Schinderhannes
Schinderhannes
Johannes Bückler , nicknamed Schinderhannes, was a German outlaw who orchestrated one of the most fascinating crime sprees in German history. He was born at Miehlen, the son of Johann and Anna Maria Bückler. He began an apprenticeship to a tanner, but turned to petty theft. At 16 he was arrested...
-Radweg (cycle path).
Name
Norath’s name comes from the old word rod, from the same stem as the GermanGerman 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....
verb roden, meaning “clear (woods, trees)”. When early settlers began to move into the Hunsrück seeking new lands for living and raising crops, they at first settled at the place now known as Hungenroth
Hungenroth
Hungenroth is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.-Location:...
, some 10 km west of Sankt Goar
Sankt Goar
Sankt Goar is a town on the left bank of the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Sankt Goar-Oberwesel, whose seat is in the town of Oberwesel....
on the Hunsrück heights. After only a few years, though, it had become quite clear to the settlers that the soil there was too infertile and boggy. Even hard work never yielded harvests that were good enough to keep the settlers fed. This led them to call their new home Hungerrodung (“Hunger Clearing”). A further clearing only 3 km to the east, however, held greater promise of agricultural bounty. This became known as Neurodung (“New Clearing”). Over time, the pronunciation changed to “Norath”.
History
About 1000 BC, it seems that the Celts, coming from the east, crossed the Rhine and settled the lands between that river on the one side and the Atlantic OceanAtlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
on the other. Germanic peoples
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...
from east of the Rhine, however, eventually crossed the river, too, invaded the Celts’ lands and dislodged them therefrom. The Germanic conquerors then themselves settled these lands. Between 60 and 50 BC, Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
extended the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
’s hegemony from the west over to the Rhine. 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....
called the lands between the Rhine and the Atlantic Ocean Gallia (rendered “Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
” in 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...
), and their rule lasted more than 500 years. They farmed land that in places had been considered wasteland, built paths and in places roads. Even today, an old Roman road runs from Bingen
Bingen am Rhein
Bingen am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.The settlement’s original name was Bingium, a Celtic word that may have meant “hole in the rock”, a description of the shoal behind the Mäuseturm, known as the Binger Loch. Bingen was the starting point for the...
by way of Rheinböllen
Rheinböllen
Rheinböllen is a town in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde, and also belongs to it.-Location:...
, Kisselbach
Kisselbach
Kisselbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, Maisborn
Maisborn
Maisborn is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, Pfalzfeld
Pfalzfeld
Pfalzfeld is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, Norath, Dörth
Dörth
Dörth is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
and Pfaffenheck
Nörtershausen
Nörtershausen is a municipality in the district of Mayen-Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany....
to 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...
.
In the 4th century AD, 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...
appeared on the Lower Rhine. These were tribes that had long held the lands on the Middle Rhine’s right bank, but now, down on the Lower Rhine, they were beginning to settle on the left bank. From their new foothold there, they pushed south towards the Moselle, later spreading across that river into the Hunsrück. In 455, under Merovingian
Merovingian dynasty
The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region largely corresponding to ancient Gaul from the middle of the 5th century. Their politics involved frequent civil warfare among branches of the family...
King Childeric I
Childeric I
Childeric I was a Merovingian king of the Salian Franks and the father of Clovis.He succeeded his father Merovech as king, traditionally in 457 or 458...
, the Franks put an end to Roman rule throughout the Middle Rhine region and established their own ascendancy over it. Under Childeric’s son, Clovis I
Clovis I
Clovis Leuthwig was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the leadership from a group of royal chieftains, to rule by kings, ensuring that the kingship was held by his heirs. He was also the first Catholic King to rule over Gaul . He was the son...
, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
was introduced throughout the Frankish Empire, including Norath. In those days, there were royal palaces in Koblenz, Boppard
Boppard
Boppard is a town in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, lying in the Rhine Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It belongs to no Verbandsgemeinde. The town is also a state-recognized tourism resort and is a winegrowing centre.-Location:Boppard lies on the upper Middle...
and Oberwesel
Oberwesel
Oberwesel is a town on the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Sankt Goar-Oberwesel, whose seat is in the town.-Location:...
. The Franks divided their whole empire up into dukedoms, which themselves were further divided into Gaue (singular, Gau; roughly, a region), and these further still into Hundertschaften.
In the early 9th century, and thus in Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
’s and his successors’ time, the Norath area belonged to the Dukedom of Moselania. After the partition
Partition (politics)
In politics, a partition is a change of political borders cutting through at least one territory considered a homeland by some community. That change is done primarily by diplomatic means, and use of military force is negligible....
of the Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...
in the 843 Treaty of Verdun
Treaty of Verdun
The Treaty of Verdun was a treaty between the three surviving sons of Louis the Pious, the son and successor of Charlemagne, which divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms...
, Norath passed to the Dukedom of Lotharingia
Lotharingia
Lotharingia was a region in northwest Europe, comprising the Low Countries, the western Rhineland, the lands today on the border between France and Germany, and what is now western Switzerland. It was born of the tripartite division in 855, of the kingdom of Middle Francia, itself formed of the...
, named after Emperor Lothair I
Lothair I
Lothair I or Lothar I was the Emperor of the Romans , co-ruling with his father until 840, and the King of Bavaria , Italy and Middle Francia...
. After Lothair II’s
Lothair II of Lotharingia
Lothair II was the second son of Emperor Lothair I and Ermengarde of Tours. He was married to Teutberga, daughter of Boso the Elder. He is the namesake of the Lothair Crystal, which he probably commissioned, and of the Cross of Lothair, which was made over a century after his death but...
death, Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald , Holy Roman Emperor and King of West Francia , was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith.-Struggle against his brothers:He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder...
of France and Louis the German
Louis the German
Louis the German , also known as Louis II or Louis the Bavarian, was a grandson of Charlemagne and the third son of the succeeding Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious and his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye.He received the appellation 'Germanicus' shortly after his death in recognition of the fact...
agreed in the 870 Treaty of Meerssen
Treaty of Meerssen
The Treaty of Meerssen or Mersen was a partition treaty of the Carolingian Empire concluded on 8 August 870 by the two surviving sons of Emperor Louis the Pious, King Charles the Bald of West Francia and Louis the German of East Francia, at Meerssen north of Maastricht, in the present-day...
that all the late Lothair’s lands on the Moselle’s and the Meuse’s left bank were to pass to Charles, while all those east of these rivers were to belong to the German Empire.
In Emperor Otto I’s
Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor
Otto I the Great , son of Henry I the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim, was Duke of Saxony, King of Germany, King of Italy, and "the first of the Germans to be called the emperor of Italy" according to Arnulf of Milan...
time, the Dukes of Lotharingia revolted against the Emperor. To break their power, the Dukedom was sundered in 959 into two parts, Upper and Lower Lotharingia, lying south and north of Andernach
Andernach
Andernach is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, of currently about 30,000 inhabitants. It is situated towards the end of the Neuwied basin on the left bank of the Rhine between the former tiny fishing village of Fornich in the north and the mouth of the...
respectively. Norath lay in Upper Lotharingia, which was put under the Emperor’s immediate authority. The Emperor enfeoffed Gaugrafen (roughly, “regional counts”) with the area. These counts held judicial and military power, although these rights were later transferred to bishops, and thus grew the bishops’ lordly power. Many counts proved too weak to guard their holdings against robber knights, and chose to hand them over to the bishops and then had themselves enfeoffed with their own former holdings. Among the knights in the Norath area were the Knights of Brunshorn, whose castle stood near today’s Braunshorn
Braunshorn
Braunshorn is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
. This put Norath within the Knights’ territory, which was a fief from the Electors of Trier. Later, the fiefs passed back to Trier, and the Lords of Metternich received the Elector’s blessing as the new feudal lords. Thereafter, Norath was ruled by the Lords of Metternich-Beilstein.
At the time of the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, Lord of Beilstein and Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel Philip I’s
Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse
Philip I of Hesse, , nicknamed der Großmütige was a leading champion of the Protestant Reformation and one of the most important of the early Protestant rulers in Germany....
conversion
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
to Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
teaching meant that everyone on the Vogt
Vogt
A Vogt ; plural Vögte; Dutch voogd; Danish foged; ; ultimately from Latin [ad]vocatus) in the Holy Roman Empire was the German title of a reeve or advocate, an overlord exerting guardianship or military protection as well as secular justice...
ei of Pfalzfeld, and therefore in Norath, too, had to do the same
Cuius regio, eius religio
Cuius regio, eius religio is a phrase in Latin translated as "Whose realm, his religion", meaning the religion of the ruler dictated the religion of the ruled...
. These lords forced their subjects to forswear their old beliefs.
In 1581, the Plague broke out. Many people died, and Norath’s population, too, shrank. 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....
brought Norath hardship and misery, as was so throughout Germany. Soldiers came robbing and plundering villages, and then set many of them on fire. In some places, people were massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
d. In the Vogtei of Pfalzfeld, only ten of originally forty families are said to have survived the onslaught.
In 1650, Norath had been utterly destroyed and nobody lived there. In the century that followed, many people settled there and repopulated it. In 1793, the village fell into 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...
hands. What there was left to destroy, the French destroyed. After they had occupied the whole left bank of the Rhine, Norath belonged to the subprefecture of Simmern, the canton of St. Goar and the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Pfalzfeld. For a time, between 1813 and 1842, the mayor had his official seat in Norath (the Mayoralty was by now called a Bürgermeisterei under the 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...
ns), but as of 1843, the mayor’s office had moved back to Pfalzfeld
Pfalzfeld
Pfalzfeld is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
. It cannot be denied that the French under Napoleon
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
did much for the Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
. For example, they built a road along the Rhine, now known as Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße , abbreviated B, is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.-Germany:...
9. Nevertheless, Rhinelanders did not like French rule. It ended quickly enough with the War of the Sixth Coalition
War of the Sixth Coalition
In the War of the Sixth Coalition , a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and a number of German States finally defeated France and drove Napoleon Bonaparte into exile on Elba. After Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, the continental powers...
and then 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,...
, under which the Rhine’s left bank was assigned in 1815 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...
, and along with it, so was Norath. More locally, Norath found itself in the Rhine Province
Rhine Province
The Rhine Province , also known as Rhenish Prussia or synonymous to the Rhineland , was the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, from 1822-1946. It was created from the provinces of the Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg...
, the Regierungsbezirk
Regierungsbezirk
In Germany, a Government District, in German: Regierungsbezirk – is a subdivision of certain federal states .They are above the Kreise, Landkreise, and kreisfreie Städte...
of Koblenz, the district of St. Goar and the mayoral Amt of Pfalzfeld. After the Second World War, Norath found itself in the French zone of occupation. In 1949, when the Federal Republic (in its initial form, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
) was formed, Norath became 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 ....
.
The Wirtschaftswunder
Wirtschaftswunder
The term describes the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II . The expression was used by The Times in 1950...
since the Second World War changed the village forever. Whereas before everyone worked small farm plots and thought merely about their daily bread, more and more families now let their fields and meadows out and either move to the great industrial centres or become craftsmen and craftswomen at big and small businesses in the neighbouring towns and cities. Modern amenities, such as watermains, sewers, tarred streets and freezing facilities have changed the village’s face. The Hunsrück has become a recreational region for city dwellers, which has prompted Norath to lay on good, comfortable lodging and supplies for those from the Rhineland and the Ruhr
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...
industrial areas seeking recreation. There are several inn
INN
InterNetNews is a Usenet news server package, originally released by Rich Salz in 1991, and presented at the Summer 1992 USENIX conference in San Antonio, Texas...
s and pension
Pension (lodging)
A pensione is a family-owned guest house or boarding house. This term is typically used in Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, other Continental European countries, in areas of North Africa and the Middle East that formerly had large European expatriate populations, and in some parts of South America...
s.
Grube Camilla
The Grube Camilla, a leadLead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
and zinc
Zinc
Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
mine, was built in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The mineshaft up which the ore
Ore
An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....
was lifted was about 200 m deep. At the 50 and 100 m levels, galleries were driven out towards Badenhard
Badenhard
Badenhard is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
. By the early 1960s, though, the ore yield had shrunk to unprofitable proportions and as a result, the mine was closed. Norath’s coat of 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...
still bears the hammer and pick
Hammer and pick
The hammer and pick is a symbol representing the industrialised working classes, similar to the more famous hammer and sickle. It was used in the flag of the Marxist People's Republic of Congo between 1970 and 1991....
as a 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...
in reference to the Grube Camilla. The mine was owned by Stolberger Zink AG
Aktiengesellschaft
Aktiengesellschaft is a German term that refers to a corporation that is limited by shares, i.e. owned by shareholders, and may be traded on a stock market. The term is used in Germany, Austria and Switzerland...
, which also ran two ore mines in Werlau
Sankt Goar
Sankt Goar is a town on the left bank of the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Sankt Goar-Oberwesel, whose seat is in the town of Oberwesel....
.
Municipal council
The council is made up of 8 council members, who were elected by majority votePlurality 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.
Mayor
Norath’s mayor is Arno Morschhäuser, and his deputies are Robert Michel and Hubert Stahl.Coat of arms
The German blazon reads: Von silber über rot geteilt, oben ein mit drei goldenen Kugeln belegtes blaues Buch, begleitet vorne schrägrechts ein schwarzer Schlägel, hinten schräglinks ein schwarzer Hammer, unten drei silberne Hifthörner.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 fess, argent a book azure surmounted by three bezants, the whole between a hammer bendwise and a pick bendwise sinister sable, and gules three bugle-horns of the first.
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...
in the escutcheon’s upper field, the book, is Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas , also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker...
’s attribute, thus representing the municipality’s and the church’s patron saint. This is flanked by a hammer and a pick, together a traditional symbol for mining, which was once undertaken at the Grube Camilla, a lead and zinc mine, where prospecting
Prospecting
Prospecting is the physical search for minerals, fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens, and is also known as fossicking.Prospecting is a small-scale form of mineral exploration which is an organised, large scale effort undertaken by mineral resource companies to find commercially viable ore...
was being done as early as the 18th century. The escutcheon’s lower half is a reference to the village’s former allegiance to the Lordship of Braunshorn.
Culture and sightseeing
Buildings
The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-PalatinateRhineland-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 NicholasSaint NicholasSaint Nicholas , also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker...
’s Catholic Parish Church (Pfarrkirche St. Nikolaus), Hauptstraße 12: Gothic RevivalGothic Revival architectureThe Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
quarrystone 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...
, towards 1859 - Hauptstraße 10: former schoolSchoolA school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
; quarrystone building, about 1840, emulating Johann Claudius von Lassaulx - Hauptstraße 25: estate complex along the street; 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...
house, partly slated, earlier half of the 19th century; whole complex of buildings