Ernst

Ernst is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The winegrowing centre belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Cochem, whose seat is in the like-named town.GeographyLocationThe municipality lies in a bow in the river Moselle only 4 km from Cochem, going towards Trier. Over on the other side of the Moselle lies Valwig. Ernst’s municipal area comprises 418 ha, of which 90 ha is vineyards and 227 ha is wooded. Ernst has 617 inhabitants who maintain their main residence in the municipality and another 40 who have a secondary residence there.Constituent communitiesErnst’s Ortsteile are Oberernst and Unterernst.HistoryA grain grater from La Tène times may well be evidence that Ernst was already settled by 250 BC, and that it is therefore of Celtic origin. Even the earliest documentary mention of Ernst as Arnesche shows the village’s Celtic beginnings. In AD 670, “Hilduin” bequeathed vineyards in Ernst to his brother-in-law. Ernst was made up of two constituent centres then, Oberernst and Niederernst, but was always a unified municipality. In the Middle Ages, lower court jurisdiction was exercised through the Valwig-Ernst court. When Ernst passed along with the Rhineland to Prussia, the Prussian government decreed that Oberernst, where the parish church and the old town hall stood, and Niederernst were to grow together into one centre, a project that, as can be seen today, was at least successful on the road alongside the Moselle, if nowhere else.