Bornheim (Rheinhessen)

Bornheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is known as the "Gateway to the Rhenish-Hessian Switzerland", as the region is called.GeographyLocationBornheim is nestled in a hollow, sheltered by the Oswaldshöhe . The municipality lies in Rhenish Hesse.Its main winemaking appellation – Weingroßlage – is Adelberg.HistoryIn 767 or 768, Bornheim had its first documentary mention in a donation document from Lorsch Abbey. Archaeological finds, however, make it clear that the village existed earlier. Graves for cremated remains and a Frankish row graveyard from about AD 500 have been found in the municipality. The Oswaldshöhe is thought to have served as an early gathering place for Germanic peoples.The church was first mentioned in 1241 and partly destroyed by French troops in 1690. The tower with its wall paintings from the 13th century, however, remained standing. It also houses Rhenish Hesse’s oldest bell.Like the surrounding municipalities, Bornheim belonged to the Waldgraves in the Early Middle Ages, and beginning in 1671 to their kin, the Rheingrafen (“Rhine Counts”). After the Napoleonic Wars, the municipality passed, as part of Rhenish Hesse, to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt.