Mandel, Germany

Mandel

Coat of arms

Mandel

Location of Mandel within Bad Kreuznach district

Coordinates: 49°51′20″N 7°46′20″E / 49.85566°N 7.77224°ECoordinates: 49°51′20″N 7°46′20″E / 49.85566°N 7.77224°E

Country

Government

• Mayor

Karin Gräff

Area

• Total

6.34 km² (2.45 sq mi)

Elevation

200 m (700 ft)

Population (2015-12-31)

• Total

895

• Density

140/km² (370/sq mi)

CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)

55595

0671

Website

www.gemeinde-mandel.de

Mandel is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Rüdesheim, whose seat is in the municipality of Rüdesheim an der Nahe. Mandel is a winegrowing village.

Mandel lies in the Naheland (the region either side of the River Nahe), south of the Hunsrück, some 5 km west of Bad Kreuznach amidst vineyards, meadows and woodland. Mandel sits at an elevation of 200 m above sea level and its municipal area measures 6.33 km².

Clockwise from the north, Mandel’s neighbours are the municipalities of Sankt Katharinen, Roxheim, Rüdesheim an der Nahe, Weinsheim, Sponheim and Braunweiler, all of which likewise lie within the Bad Kreuznach district.

Mandel (then Mannendal) had its first documentary mention in 962 as an Imperial fief of Saint Maximin’s Abbey in Trier in a document purportedly from Emperor Otto I (although this document is known to be falsified). Given the job of Vögte over the holdings in Mandel by the abbey were the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves. A church, which may well have been consecrated to Saint Maximin himself, had its first documentary mention in 1140 in a document from Pope Innocent II. In 1196, independently from the abbey’s holdings, Imperial ministerialis Werner von Bolanden was enfeoffed by the Empire with the jurisdiction, the right to appoint clergy and the tithes. Subsequently, split off from the jurisdiction, the right to appoint clergy and the tithes passed to the heirs of the Bolandens, the Counts of Sponheim-Dannenfels and the Princes of Nassau-Saarbrücken. The Counts of Sponheim enfeoffed their ministeriales with their share of the right to appoint clergy. In 1370, the fiefholder was the knight Sir Heinrich Zymar von Sponheim, called von Mannendal. Landholds in Mandel were also among the holdings made over to Sponheim Abbey in 1101 when the Counts endowed that institution. In 1439, the lordship over Mandel cropped up as a holding of the Family von Dalberg, who were the Chamberlains of Worms. They transferred the village as a fief to the Family von Koppenstein. This family had arisen from a liaison between Count Johann II of Sponheim-Kreuznach and the daughter of one of his Burgmannen, one not legitimized by wedlock. This Sponheim sideline named itself after their castle in the Hunsrück, Koppenstein. They were in the service of various territorial lords over time, as knights, clergy or officials, even Obermarschall in the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen, and even under the Counts of Sponheim themselves. The Family von Koppenstein was split into two lines, the Kirchberg Line, which was Catholic, and the Mandel Line, which was Lutheran. The village of Mandel, however, was owned by all family members. The administrative seat – and at times also the residential seat – was the palace built by the von Koppensteins. Held in fief by the von Koppensteins from Nassau-Saarbrücken was a half share of the tithe. About the middle of the 16th century, the Lutheran faith was introduced into the village. Several members of the Family von Koppenstein were buried in the old church. Bearing witness to this is Michael von Koppenstein’s still preserved tomb slab from the 16th century. When Jacob Adolf von Koppenstein died in 1768 with no heir, the Family von Koppenstein was no more, and the village of Mandel passed back to the overlords, the Barons of Dalberg. In 1786, they sold the village, along with all the rights, to Imperial Count Carl-August von Bretzenheim. In 1801, with the Treaty of Lunéville, Mandel too, along with all the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank, was incorporated into the French state after having been overrun by French Revolutionary troops. From 1815, Mandel was part of the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Prussian Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Mandel-Hüffelsheim was named after it and one other village. Mandel remained Prussian right through Imperial, Weimar and Nazi times, only becoming part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate after the Second World War.

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Wikipedia