Hahnweiler

Hahnweiler
Coat of arms
Hahnweiler
Location of Hahnweiler within Birkenfeld district
Coordinates: 49°34′N 7°13′E / 49.567°N 7.217°E / 49.567; 7.217Coordinates: 49°34′N 7°13′E / 49.567°N 7.217°E / 49.567; 7.217
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Birkenfeld
Municipal assoc.	Baumholder
Government
• Mayor	Dietmar Schmitt
Area
• Total	2.29 km2 (0.88 sq mi)
Elevation	500 m (1,600 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	191
• Density	83/km2 (220/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	55776
Dialling codes	06789
Vehicle registration	BIR
Website	www.hahnweiler.de

Hahnweiler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Baumholder, whose seat is in the like-named town.

The municipality lies in the Hunsrück at the southwesternmost end of the Birkenfeld district and the Verbandsgemeinde of Baumholder. In the south it borders on the Saarland. With its 218 inhabitants – which includes those who hold only a secondary residence here – (as at 31 January 2011), Hahnweiler is the third smallest municipality in the Verbandsgemeinde. By land area – the municipal area measures only 228.5 ha – it is the smallest. Its elevation ranges between 450 and 552 m above sea level.

Hahnweiler borders in the northeast on Rückweiler, in the south on Freisen in the Saarland, in the west on Gimbweiler and Nohfelden-Wolfersweiler, also in the Saarland, and in the north on Leitzweiler.

Hahnweiler, or Hanwilre as it was known in the Middle Ages, belonged to the comital House of Tholey holdings in the Moselgau (a territory that stretched along the Moselle). The Vogtei rights over the Moselgau were granted Count Gerlach V in 1235 by the Bishop of Verdun. By 1397, Count Friedrich von Veldenz had bought from Geretrud Broich, her son Emmerich and his wife the estate, along with its serfs, interests and rights at Hanwilre and Moysberg (now Mosberg, part of Mosberg-Richweiler, itself an outlying centre of Nohfelden) for 50 Rhenish guilders. In the time that followed, the village belonged to the Amt of Nohfelden and thereby to the Oberamt of Lichtenberg. After the Nohfelden Gerichtsweistum (a Weistum – cognate with English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times; Gericht means “court”), the rightful judges of the high court were deemed to be the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken. Hahnweiler was part of the great fief given Wirich II of Oberstein in 1432 by the Duke of Lorraine. The 1480 Bede register (the Bede was a kind of taxation) lists for Hahnweiler two inhabitants who had to pay the May Bede and three who had to pay the autumn Bede. Wendel Gelzenleichter, his wife Agnes, son Nickel and daughter Elisa from Hahnweiler were Oberstein serfs in 1603. Wendel performed “along with the thresher at Hanwiller and his fellow heirs at Berßwiller a goods transport for the Count of Oberstein. As to further compulsory service, the said Wendel yearly gave the Count some money, about 1 Thaler. What else he yearly gave in money and produce in levies has not been determined.”