Welgesheim
Encyclopedia
Welgesheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality
belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
, a kind of collective municipality – in the Mainz-Bingen
district in Rhineland-Palatinate
, Germany
.
and Bad Kreuznach
. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Sprendlingen-Gensingen
, whose seat is in Sprendlingen
.
settlement in what is now Welgesheim’s municipal area.
The place called Wellingesheim itself had its first documentary mention in770 in the Lorsch codex
. In 874 it appeared under the name Willengisheim and in 1178 as Wellengesheim. Under its current name it appeared about 1194, when Werner von Bolanden was enfeoffed with the church treasure at Welgesheim by Count Lon.
Later, Welgesheim belonged to the lordly domain of the Counts Palatine of the Rhine, with whom the place remained until the late 18th century.
Under Napoleon
, Welgesheim belonged as part of the department of Mont-Tonnerre
(Donnersberg) from 1801 to 1814 to France
, with its attendant laws, such as the Napoleonic code
.
In the wake of the Congress of Vienna
in 1814 and 1815, the Rhenish-Hessian area was awarded to Hesse-Darmstadt, thereby likewise putting Welgesheim in the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt
, which was surrounded by the Bavaria
n Palatinate in the south, the Prussia
n Governmental Region of Koblenz
in the west and the Duchy of Nassau in the north.
This was the case for a hundred years, until Germany’s defeat in the First World War, when the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt was dissolved. Thereafter the region of Rhenish Hesse belonged to the People's State of Hesse, which existed until 1945.
After the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in the wake of the Second World War, Welgesheim belonged to the newly founded state
of Rhineland-Palatinate
(Rheinland-Pfalz), and, now also lying within the district of Mainz-Bingen
, it still does.
(as at municipal election held on 13 June 2004)
might be described thus: Or an arrow sable palewise, in chief sinister a crown azure with merlons fleuretty.
church and a Catholic church.
, gymnastics
, badminton
and dancing, there are in Welgesheim team handball
players who mostly play in Zotzenheim/St. Johann/Sprendlingen. The Schneider family, above all, turns out many talented team handball players.
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 Mainz-Bingen
Mainz-Bingen
Mainz-Bingen is a district in the east of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are Rheingau-Taunus, the district-free cities Wiesbaden and Mainz, the districts Groß-Gerau, Alzey-Worms, Bad Kreuznach, Rhein-Hunsrück.-History:During the French occupation under Napoleon the district...
district 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...
.
Location
Welgesheim lies in Rhenish Hesse between MainzMainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
and Bad Kreuznach
Bad Kreuznach
Bad Kreuznach is the capital of the district of Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is located on the Nahe river, a tributary of the Rhine...
. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Sprendlingen-Gensingen
Sprendlingen-Gensingen
Sprendlingen-Gensingen is a Verbandsgemeinde in the district Mainz-Bingen, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated approx. 10 km south-east of Bingen, and 25 km south-west of Mainz...
, whose seat is in Sprendlingen
Sprendlingen
Sprendlingen is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.- Location :...
.
History
Welgesheim lies on the spot where once the old military road crossed the river Wiesbach. During excavation work several graves were unearthed, leading to the conclusion that there was once 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....
settlement in what is now Welgesheim’s municipal area.
The place called Wellingesheim itself had its first documentary mention in770 in the Lorsch codex
Lorsch codex
The Lorsch Codex is an important historical document created between about 1175 to 1195 AD in the Monastery of Saint Nazarius in Lorsch, Germany. It consists of 460 pages in large format containing more than 3800 entries...
. In 874 it appeared under the name Willengisheim and in 1178 as Wellengesheim. Under its current name it appeared about 1194, when Werner von Bolanden was enfeoffed with the church treasure at Welgesheim by Count Lon.
Later, Welgesheim belonged to the lordly domain of the Counts Palatine of the Rhine, with whom the place remained until the late 18th century.
Under Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
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...
, Welgesheim belonged as part of the department of Mont-Tonnerre
Mont-Tonnerre
Mont-Tonnerre is the name of a département of the First French Empire in present Germany. It is named after the highest point in the Rhenish Palatinate, the Donnersberg. It was the southernmost of four départements formed in 1798, when the west bank of the Rhine was annexed by France...
(Donnersberg) from 1801 to 1814 to France
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...
, with its attendant laws, such as the Napoleonic code
Napoleonic code
The Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified...
.
In the wake of 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,...
in 1814 and 1815, the Rhenish-Hessian area was awarded to Hesse-Darmstadt, thereby likewise putting Welgesheim in the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt
Grand Duchy of Hesse
The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine , or, between 1806 and 1816, Grand Duchy of Hesse —as it was also known after 1816—was a member state of the German Confederation from 1806, when the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt was elevated to a Grand Duchy, until 1918, when all the German...
, which was surrounded by the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n Palatinate in the south, 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...
n Governmental Region of Koblenz
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...
in the west and the Duchy of Nassau in the north.
This was the case for a hundred years, until Germany’s defeat in the First World War, when the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt was dissolved. Thereafter the region of Rhenish Hesse belonged to the People's State of Hesse, which existed until 1945.
After the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in the wake of the Second World War, Welgesheim belonged to the 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 ....
(Rheinland-Pfalz), and, now also lying within the district of Mainz-Bingen
Mainz-Bingen
Mainz-Bingen is a district in the east of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are Rheingau-Taunus, the district-free cities Wiesbaden and Mainz, the districts Groß-Gerau, Alzey-Worms, Bad Kreuznach, Rhein-Hunsrück.-History:During the French occupation under Napoleon the district...
, it still does.
Municipal council
The council is made up of 13 council members, counting the parttime mayor, with seats apportioned thus:| SPD Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany... |
CDU | FWG Free Voters Free Voters is a German concept in which an association of persons participates in an election without having the status of a registered political party. Usually it is a locally organized group of voters in the form of a registered association . In most cases, Free Voters are active only at the... |
Total | |
| 2004 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 12 seats |
(as at municipal election held on 13 June 2004)
Coat of arms
The municipality’s armsCoat 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 be described thus: Or an arrow sable palewise, in chief sinister a crown azure with merlons fleuretty.
Buildings
Welgesheim has three Heiligenhäuschen (small, chapellike wayside buildings each consecrated to a saint), a monument, an EvangelicalEvangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
church and a Catholic church.
Sport
Besides table tennisTable tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight, hollow ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net...
, gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
, badminton
Badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
and dancing, there are in Welgesheim team handball
Team handball
Handball is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each pass a ball to throw it into the goal of the other team...
players who mostly play in Zotzenheim/St. Johann/Sprendlingen. The Schneider family, above all, turns out many talented team handball players.
Transport
- The Autobahn A 61Bundesautobahn 61is an autobahn in Germany that connects the border to the Netherlands near Venlo in the northwest to the interchange with A 6 near Hockenheim. In 1965, this required a re-design of the Hockenheimring....
runs through the municipal area. The nearest interchangeInterchange (road)In the field of road transport, an interchange is a road junction that typically uses grade separation, and one or more ramps, to permit traffic on at least one highway to pass through the junction without directly crossing any other traffic stream. It differs from a standard intersection, at which...
is Bad KreuznachBad KreuznachBad Kreuznach is the capital of the district of Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is located on the Nahe river, a tributary of the Rhine...
, some 3 km away. - Welgesheim lies within the area served by the Rhein-Nahe-Nahverkehrsverbund (local transport association). In the municipality stands the railway station Welgesheim-ZotzenheimZotzenheimZotzenheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.-Location:The municipality lies in Rhenish Hesse...
on the Rheinhessenbahn between BingenBingen (Rhein) Hauptbahnhofis the Hauptbahnhof of the German city Bingen am Rhein on the West Rhine Railway. Contrary to its name, it is not located in the city centre, but in the borough of Bingerbrück...
and WormsWorms, GermanyWorms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River. At the end of 2004, it had 85,829 inhabitants.Established by the Celts, who called it Borbetomagus, Worms today remains embattled with the cities Trier and Cologne over the title of "Oldest City in Germany." Worms is the only...
. This is served hourly by DB RegioDB RegioDB Regio AG is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn which operates short and medium distance passenger train services in Germany, and operates light and heavy rail infrastructure in the United Kingdom.-Germany:...
RegionalbahnRegionalBahnThe Regionalbahn is a type of local passenger train in Germany.-Service:Regionalbahn trains usually call at all stations on a given line, with the exception of RB trains within S-Bahn networks, these may only call at selected stations...
trains.
Public institutions
- Edith SteinEdith SteinSaint Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, sometimes also known as Saint Edith Stein , was a German Roman Catholic philosopher and nun, regarded as a martyr and saint of the Roman Catholic Church...
Catholic kindergartenKindergartenA kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school... - Weindorfhalle at the old school building (mayor’s seat with council chamber and municipal library)
- Weedestubb, a pleasantly comfortable room for festivals and family celebrations, which before its conversion housed the volunteer fire brigade. The name came about in the local speech from the building’s location on the central square in Welgesheim, the Weedeplatz.