Medard () 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 Verbandsgemeinde Lauterecken-Wolfstein.
Geography
Location The municipality lies on the river Glan in the Western Palatinate at an elevation of some 160 m above sea level, mainly on the river's left bank for a stretch of about a kilometre towards the northeast. The elevations around the village reach heights of roughly 300 m above sea level (Ohlbachskopf 316 m, Marialskopf 290 m). The municipal area measures 599 ha, of which roughly 25 ha is settled and 138 ha is wooded. The village is surrounded by slopes with meadow orchards. From Medard, outings for hikers and canoeists are possible.Location
Neighbouring municipalities Medard borders in the north on the municipality of Breitenheim, in the east on the municipality of Odenbach, in the southeast on the municipality of Cronenberg, in the southwest and west on the town of Lauterecken, in the west on an exclave belonging to the municipality of Grumbach and in the northwest on the municipality of Kappeln.
Constituent communities Also belonging to Medard is the outlying homestead of Bärenhof.Constituent communities
Municipality’s layout Most of Medard's houses are found standing either side of the through road, Bundesstraße 420, branching off which are smaller sidestreets. The most important of these branching off to the south are a street leading to the former railway station and another leading to the former mill. In the area around the mill, nowadays known as Medardusquelle (“Saint Medardus’s Spring”), a bridge crosses the river Glan, which leads to the few houses that stand on the river's right bank, and also to the sporting ground and to lands used for agriculture and forestry. Here on the right bank, two shaft kilns for making quicklime, in operation between 1820 and 1900, are preserved. The pretty old village church in the middle of the graveyard, the former school and the former Roman archaeological dig sites lie at the ends of the sidestreets that branch off the through road to the north. Here, too, a great new building zone spreads out. A very old gymnasium stands on the through road. Houses in the village core are as a rule simple houses, but there are also Einfirstbauernhäuser (farmhouses with single roof ridges), which are typical of the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France. The inn and hotel of the Bärenhof stands at the side of the road leading to Odenbach and Meisenheim left of Bundesstraße 420. Once found in this area was a knacker’s yard. Medard was once also noted for its great number of houses with crow-stepped gables, of which nowadays only a single example is preserved; it stands on Mühlenstraße.Municipality’s layout
History
Antiquity The municipality of Medard has yielded a wealth of archaeological finds from prehistoric and Roman times. The Marialskopf in the southeast was in the time when the area was settled by the Celts ringed by walls and palisades, a refuge castle. The remnants of this settlement within the ringwall can still clearly be seen. In 1973 and 1983, archaeological digs unearthed and secured potsherds from vessels made by the Hunsrück-Eifel Culture. Significant was the recovery of a silver coin struck in Pannonia, a quarter-stater with Zeus’s head on the obverse and an image of a rider on the reverse. Splinters and shards of old ceramic vessels are still to be found on those lands today. It is likely that the Celtic settlement remained once the Romans had conquered Gaul. Near Medard’s mediaeval church, foundations from a settlement built in Gallo-Roman times were discovered in 1973. It turned out to be a villa rustica from the turn of the 4th century AD. In 1979, 1980 and 1984, under Diethelm Malitius’s leadership, some outbuildings were also partly unearthed. The archaeologists also discovered fragments of sculptures, one showing a female figure, grapevine shoots and a horn of plenty full of fruits. In the Middle Ages, it is likely that many stone reliefs still lay all around in the ground, perhaps explaining the spolia from Roman times that can still be seen in the church walls today, showing such things as grapes and another female figure. Taken out of the church’s walling were the fragments of a relief that shows Medea on a wain drawn by snakes. Of Medea’s children, whom she killed out of jealousy, only the lower part of a boy’s body can still be seen. The image’s background shows her unfaithful husband, Jason. The relief was supposedly once part of a grave monument. During renovation work on the church, three sandstone blocks from Roman times were discovered near the portal in 1988, of which one was originally used as an ossuary (repository for bone ash). One side of this stone bears a well-preserved inscription that reads “[D M (for Dis Manibus)] ... us Ammosus et Amandia Mandina Conjux Regulo filio [su]orum et suo vivi fecer[unt]”, or in English, “...us Ammosus and his wife Amandia Mandina set [this grave monument] to their son Regulus and themselves to their lifetime.” The digs at the Roman settlement site resumed very extensively in 1995 and 1996 under Wolfgang Heinzelmann’s leadership on assignment from the Alt-Medard (“Old Medard”) Promotional Association and the State Office for Monument Care. This work fully brought to light the former Roman settlement's main house, the atrium house, together with other structures built up around it and the villa's girding wall. It was apparently a great, certainly two-floor building with corner risalti at the front, of which one could be heated by a hypocaust facility. The house's footprint measured 30 m in length and 20 m in breadth. The archaeologists found a column fragment, remnants of flooring and plastering in Pompeian red. A bathing facility was only partially unearthed, but a drainage ditch was fully dug up, revealing a further series of single finds. All together, three different building periods were identified. It is presumed that this great villa rustica with its many outbuildings covered an area of some 3 ha. It may therefore be that this Roman estate unearthed on Medard's outskirts is by far the biggest that has ever come to light in the whole Western Palatinate. To preserve them, the digs have once more been filled with earth.Antiquity
Middle Ages The Gallo-Roman settlement near today's village may have vanished in the 5th century. The archaeological discoveries suggest that there was an epoch during which the area was not settled, but it was quite soon that more settlers came and founded another settlement. Nevertheless, it is unknown just when this village was founded. Indeed, during the digs at the villa rustica, the archaeologists also found the outlines of six small pit-houses from the Middle Ages. It is to be assumed that the village's first houses arose very early after the Franks took the land, on the mountainside, likely near a wooden church. The pit-houses that were unearthed, going by what is known about such things by archaeology, likely date from the 10th or 11th century. They must not have been the oldest buildings from the time of post-Roman settlement. Originally, the estate of Medard lay in the Free Königsland, but was given by a Merovingian king into the ownership of the Bishops of Verdun, although it is unknown when this donation happened. The Counts of Veldenz as successors to the Counts of the Nahegau founded out of their own small holdings and out of extensive territories that they safeguarded as Vögte belonging to the Bishoprics of Mainz, Worms, Verdun and Reims their new county, the County of Veldenz. In a 1235 document, the fiefs held by the Counts of Veldenz from the Bishops of Verdun were listed: Veldenz, Medard, Baumholder, Wolfersweiler, Freisen, Sankt Wendel, Tholey and Neunkirchen an der Nahe. Since Medard is named right after Veldenz, the estate might have been of special importance to Verdun. Bit by bit, the Counts of Veldenz managed to suppress the influence wielded by the Bishops of Verdun. The Counts lent them knights with official duties, and also with benefices and rights from Verdun holdings, and thus also with rights from Saint Medardus’s Estate (Medard). In the applicable enfeoffment documents, until the mid 14th century, a note appeared stating that the enfeoffment's origin was Verdun, but by the late 14th century, this note was being left out, leading to the conclusion that by this time, Verdun's ownership rights no longer meant very much. Nevertheless, the Bishopric of Verdun remained the landholder, which could be clearly seen whenever a new prince took power or a new bishop was installed. When the last Count of Veldenz died in 1444, the Bishops of Verdun held the Vogtei of the Counts of Veldenz to be extinct along with the Counts, and no longer wanted to recognize Stephen, Count Palatine of Simmern-Zweibrücken as their rightful successor. However, Archbishop of Trier Jacob managed to negotiate the reinstatement of the original arrangement in 1454. The feudal arrangement between Verdun and Veldenz was then confirmed in 1497 by Emperor Maximilian I. Until about 1000, the estate of Medard, along with Meisenheim and Lauterecken, were held to be the more important centres in the Glan valley. Bit by bit, it was outstripped in importance by the two other centres, which later became towns. Lauterecken arose only about 1000 at a castle and was likely granted town rights in 1349. Meisenheim, which was a town as of 1315, was also raised as early as the 12th century to residence town by the Counts of Veldenz. Between 1124 and 1444, Medard lay in the County of Veldenz, within which it belonged to the Oberamt of Meisenheim. After the Counts died out in 1444, it belonged to Count Palatine Stephen.Middle Ages
Modern times