The Remigiusberg in the county of

Kusel Kusel (; written ''Cusel'' until 1865) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and is also the district seat. The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was ...

in the German state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

is a hill, 368 metres high, which belongs to the western part of the

North Palatine Uplands The North Palatine Uplands (german: Nordpfälzer Bergland), sometimes shortened to Palatine Uplands (''Pfälzer Bergland''), is a low mountain range and landscape unit A natural region (landscape unit) is a basic geographic unit. Usually, it i ...

and only stands above the surrounding terrain by 120 metres. On its summit dome are the

priory church A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of mon ...

St. Remigius Remigius (french: Remi or ; – January 13, 533), was the Bishop of Reims and "Apostle of the Franks". On 25 December 496, he baptised Clovis I, King of the Franks. The baptism, leading to about 3000 additional converts, was an important event ...

, the only surviving building of the old eponymous priory, and the ruins of Michelsburg Castle, which are close to one another and only separated by a shallow basin.

Geography

The hill rises in the extreme northwest of the

Palatinate region The Palatinate (german: Pfalz; Palatine German: ''Palz'') is a region of Germany. In the Middle Ages it was known as the Rhenish Palatinate (''Rheinpfalz'') and Lower Palatinate (''Unterpfalz''), which strictly speaking designated only the wes ...

. It is the centre of the area known as the Remigiusland and extends west of the River Glan in the parish of the village of Haschbach; 3 kilometres east on the far side of the Glan is the 562-metre-high

Potzberg The Potzberg, known as "King of the Westrich" (''König des Westrich''), is a wooded hill, (), in the North Palatine Uplands in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Geography & history The Potzberg is one of the "Palatine Domes" (''P ...

. Access to the Remigiusberg is from the north via the ''

Kreisstraße A Kreisstraße (literally: "district road" or "county road") is a class of road in Germany. It carries traffic between the towns and villages within a '' Kreis'' or district or between two neighbouring districts. In importance, the ''Kreisstraße ...

69'', which branches off ''Kreisstraße 21'' between Haschbach and

Rammelsbach Rammelsbach is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Kusel-Altenglan, ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Ku ...

. South of the summit of the Remigiusberg, the ''

Landesstraße ''Landesstraßen'' (singular: ''Landesstraße'') are roads in Germany and Austria that are, as a rule, the responsibility of the respective German or Austrian federal state. The term may therefore be translated as "state road". They are roads ...

362'' runs from west to east connecting Haschbach and Theisbergstegen. LuftRemigiusb01

History and sights

Priory church – a predecessor castle from the 11th century had to give way in 1127 to the construction of an abbey. It was a branch of the

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , found ...

Abbey of Saint-Remi An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

Reims Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded ...

and was consecrated to Saint Remigius. Both the priory church and the local area were named after Remigius, even though the saint, who lived in the 5th and 6th centuries, had never visited the area Das Kloster bestand bis zum Jahr 1526, als es im Gefolge der

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

aufgelöst wurde. The bones of 15 members of the House of Palatinate-Veldenz (

County of Veldenz The County of Veldenz was a principality in the contemporary Land Rhineland-Palatinate. The county was located partially between Kaiserslautern, Sponheim and Zweibrücken, partially on the Mosel in the Archbishopric of Trier. A municipality of ...

) rest in the priory church. Michelsburg – In 1260, a second castle was built near the abbey which took its name from the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholic Church, Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocacy, advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, ...

of the castle chapel, St. Michael and which, today, is a ruin. The castle belonged initially to the

, later to the Wittelsbach Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. The castle was badly damaged both during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battl ...

and in the

War of the Palatine Succession The Nine Years' War (1688–1697), often called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg, was a conflict between France and a European coalition which mainly included the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monar ...

. After it had been finally laid to waste in the 1790s by

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

ary troops, in 1794 permission was granted to use it as a quarry. In 1973/74, restoration work was carried out.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Mountains and hills of Rhineland-Palatinate Kusel (district)