Wendelsheim

Wendelsheim
Coat of arms
Wendelsheim
Location of Wendelsheim within Alzey-Worms district
Coordinates: 49°50′08″N 08°03′05″E / 49.83556°N 8.05139°E / 49.83556; 8.05139Coordinates: 49°50′08″N 08°03′05″E / 49.83556°N 8.05139°E / 49.83556; 8.05139
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Alzey-Worms
Municipal assoc.	Wöllstein
Area
• Total	12.56 km2 (4.85 sq mi)
Elevation	127 m (417 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	1,393
• Density	110/km2 (290/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	55234
Dialling codes	06734
Vehicle registration	AZ

Wendelsheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

As a winegrowing centre, Wendelsheim lies in Germany’s biggest winegrowing district, in the middle of the wine region of Rhenish Hesse, 10 km west of Alzey. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Wöllstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality. Through the municipality flow the rivers Wiesbach and Finkenbach. These two brooks drove several watermills in the Late Middle Ages.

In 766, Wendelsheim (Wenilsheim) had its first documentary mention in the Lorsch codex (other sources refer to a donation document for Fulda Abbey from 841). Celtic finds, however, establish that the area was already settled in prehistory. As with all places whose names end in —heim (cognate with English home), it might have been a Frankish settlement.

Wendelsheim might well have been among the Waldgraves’ oldest landholdings. It is supposed that it belonged to the estate of office with which the Emichonen, as the Salians’ “undercounts”, had been furnished. From 1370, it is evident that Count Palatine Ruprecht I held landlordly rights to Wendelsheim. About 1380, the village was pledged to Count Palatine Ruprecht the Young, and from 1438 to 1452 to Count Palatine Ludwig IV.