Feilbingert

Location

Feilbingert lies on a high plateau near the northernmost edge of the North Palatine Uplands amidst vineyards and woodlands, about 5 km south of Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg and some 10 km away from the district seat, Bad Kreuznach. It has some 1,750 inhabitants.

Neighbouring municipalities

Clockwise from the north, Feilbingert’s neighbours are the town of Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg and the municipalities of Altenbamberg, Hochstätten, Hallgarten, Oberhausen an der Nahe and Niederhausen. Feilbingert also comes within several metres of the municipality of Alsenz in the neighbouring Donnersbergkreis but does not meet it at a boundary. A similar situation exists between Feilbingert and its near neighbour the municipality of Duchroth.

Constituent communities

Feilbingert’s Ortsteile are Bingert and Feil, two formerly separate villages that have been united, as have their names. Also belonging to Feilbingert are the outlying homesteads of Lemberghaus, Lemberghütte, Lüßerttal and Waldhof.

History

When a village arose at what is now Feilbingert has not yet been determined with any certainty. Modern readers can but make do with first documentary mentions from the earliest time of settlement. Feil made its first appearance in written history in 1212 under the name Vilde, which meant “Location at treeless, even, farmed field” (and indeed it is cognate with the English word “field”). Through sound shifts and misunderstandings of the name’s meaning, the form Fyle arose by 1440, and by 1788, this had become Feil, the form still used today for that part of the municipality. In 1071, Bingert had its first documentary mention in the Codex Laureshamensis, the book of documents kept by the former Imperial Abbey at Lorsch, as Binegarten or Bingarden (depending on the source). This wealthy monastery had holdings all up and down the Rhine and up its tributaries as well, from Switzerland down to the Netherlands. These towns, villages and estates contributed to the monks’ livelihood, and Binegarden was no exception. Sound shifts had by 1837 yielded the form Bingert, also still in use today. Bingert formed together with Feil, Ebernburg and Norheim the “Lordship of Ebernburg”. The Ebernburg passed from the Rhenish-Franconian Dukes to the Salians, and from them as a fief and by other ways to various comital houses. For example, in 1212, the church at Ebernburg was transferred to the Neuhausen Foundation near Worms, together with the great tithes that it commanded from Feil’s and Bingert’s municipal areas. It was at this time that Feil had its first documentary mention. By inheritance, the Vogtei of Ebernburg passed in 1214 to the Counts of Leiningen from the House of Saarbrücken. Conrad V, the Prince-Bishop of Speyer, concluded an hereditary treaty between the brothers Friedrich and Emich of Leiningen on 18 October 1237:

Conrad, by God’s grace Bishop of Speyer, offers compliments in the Lord to all whom this writing reaches … Thus, belonging to Friedrich, the Count of Leiningen, is Castle Hartenberg … Belonging to his brother Emich, however, is Castle Frankenstein with the incomes from the “curacy” of Businsheim … likewise Bingert (Binegardin), Ebernburg and Feil (Vilde) … This is given before our faces and the castellans and the ministerial officials … in the Lord’s year 1237 on the morning of the Feast of Luke the Evangelist.

In 1338, Raugrave Rubrecht von Altenbaumburg cropped up as owner of Castle Ebernburg. He pledged the castle, with the exceptions of Feil and Bingert, in 1347 to Count Wolfram of Sponheim against a loan of 2,500 Rhenish guilders. In 1381, Raugrave Heinrich ceded ownership of the castle and the village, and somewhat later also Feil and Bingert, to Count Simon III at Sponheim – Kreuznach line – and in 1394, even the Schenk von Erbach forsook all rights of claim against it. Thus, the Ebernburg, together with its appurtenances Feil, Bingert and Norheim, passed to the Counts of Sponheim. The last Count of Sponheim, named Johann, pledged the castle, with its appurtenances in 1430 to the House of Winterbach because he owed them 1,200 guilders, but reserved the right to cancel the pledge on six months’ notice and refund the money. Although the 1440 agreement between Electoral Palatinate, Baden and the County of Veldenz explicitly repeated that Ebernburg, the castle and the dale, along with the villages of Feil, Bingert and Norheim, were not to be alienated, the House of Winterbach nonetheless transferred their pledge rights to Dietrich Knebel von Katzenellenbogen, whose wife was Eva von Winterbach. The Sickingens acquired from Count Palatine Friedrich at Simmern and Margrave Jakob of Baden in 1448 leave to take the official pledge upon themselves. By the upheavals of history, Feil and Bingert passed in the 15th century as a pledge to Reinhard of Sickingen, Franz’s grandfather. From this time, too, come the first accounts of mining on the Lemberg. Mentioned in them is the recovery of cinnabar from the pits “Geiskammer” and “Ernesti Glück”. Franz von Sickingen was born in 1481 at Castle Ebernburg. He was a follower of the Reformation and replaced Catholic church services at the church in Feil with Protestant ones. At the time of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), the Feilbingert area was devastated by Spanish troops. They ruled the whole region for almost 12 years. When Swedish King Gustav II Adolf conquered Kreuznach in March 1632, beating the Spanish, the Spaniards’ allies, the Croats, under Captain Matthias Gallas’s leadership, latched onto the village of Bingert. These events brought the mining on the Lemberg to an end. Franz von Sickingen’s descendents wanted to reestablish Catholicism in the 17th century, which led to the Frankfurt religious troubles, and indeed even to an insurrection. The upshot was that the church at Feil was closed, the church property was seized, and then the church was torn down, about 1720. The last of the von Sickingen-Ebernburgs died in 1768 and bequeathed his earthly goods and jurisdiction to Electoral Palatinate, whose government then granted the Protestants in Feil leave to build a new church where the old one had been torn down with Saint Michael as its patron. The Catholics were granted simultaneum rights at this church, and services were held by Carmelites from Kreuznach. The two villages’ combined population in those days was 590. Feil and Bingert lay right near each other, but there was still unbuilt land between them at that time. Nevertheless, they already formed a united municipality. The quicksilver mines on the Lemberg were opened again. At one of the mines, “Drei Züge”, alone, 20 men worked, whereas there were six at the “Geiskammer”. At another pit near Feil, eight workers worked a coal seam. There was considerable economic growth at the time. After the Congress of Vienna, Feilbingert belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria, and this did not change until after the Second World War, although Bavaria, along with the Palatine exclave in which Feilbingert found itself, became a “Free State” when the kingdom itself met its end when the Kaiser was overthrown and along with him Bavaria’s last king. The current municipality of Feilbingert came into being when the municipalities of Feil and Bingert agreed to a merger. Until about 1950, there was still a greenbelt between the two centres, but since then, new building zones have been laid out there, and the two centres have thus fused into one. As a result of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate in 1969, the village was transferred from the old Rockenhausen district to the Bad Kreuznach district, within which it was grouped into the Verbandsgemeinde of Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg. It was formerly also part of the Regierungsbezirk of Koblenz, until Rhineland-Palatinate abolished its Regierungsbezirke. Ecclesiastically, Feilbingert belongs, as it long has, to the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer.

Historical figures’ visits

Today, Feilbingert presents itself as a modern, but at the same time tradition-minded, village. Martin Luther even visited what is now the municipality, at the foot of the Lemberg, the highest peak on the Nahe (421 m above sea level), about the time when he refused Franz von Sickingen’s offer of asylum at the Ebernburg. Centuries later, Kaiser Wilhelm I’s journey through the region was thwarted by a storm and he had to abide in the village overnight at an inn.

Population development

Feilbingert’s population development since Napoleonic times is shown in the table below. The figures for the years from 1871 to 1987 are drawn from census data:

Religion

As at 31 August 2013, there are 1,615 full-time residents in Feilbingert, and of those, 716 are Evangelical (44.334%), 615 are Catholic (38.08%), 18 (1.115%) belong to other religious groups and 266 (16.471%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.

Municipal council

The council is made up of 16 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman. The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:

Mayor

Feilbingert’s mayor is Arno Bumke.

Coat of arms

The municipality’s arms might be described thus: Quarterly first chequy of twenty-five Or and azure, second sable five roundles in saltire argent, third sable a hammer and pick in saltire and fourth Or a beehive vert.

The coat of arms also appears on the municipal flag, which otherwise consists of two horizontal stripes in green and white.

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:

Bingert

Feil

Clubs

Feilbingert has a great number of clubs. Currently active in the municipality are the following:

Sport and leisure

Since 2006 there has been a panorama path around Feilbingert.

Winegrowing

Feilbingert belongs to the “Nahetal Winegrowing Area” within the Nahe wine region. In business in the village are three winegrowing operations, and the area of vineyard planted is 20 ha. Some 71% of the wine grown here (as at 2007) is white wine varieties. In 1979, there were still 46 winegrowing operations, and the vineyard area, at 53 ha, was more than twice what it is now.

Transport

Running through Altenbamberg less than 2 km to Feilbingert’s east is Bundesstraße 48, which leads to both Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg and Bad Kreuznach. Running through Feilbingert itself is Landesstraße 379. This joins Bundesstraße 48 in Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg. Serving nearby Altenbamberg is a railway station on the Alsenz Valley Railway (Alsenztalbahn).