Illerich

Illerich is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kaisersesch, whose seat is in the like-named town.GeographyLocationThe municipality, characterized by agriculture, lies in the Eifel some 50 km southwest of Koblenz, near the Moselle valley.Neighbouring municipalitiesLandkern lies just to the west, and Wirfus to the east.HistoryAbout 1180, Illerich had its first certain documentary mention in the St. Matthias Mirakeln, which mentioned a “wonderful event” in villa Elrecha. The first documentary mention with an exact date comes from 1256; it is a document under whose terms Archbishop Arnold II of Isenburg approved the transfer of bondsmen from Ilriche to Himmerod Abbey. A document dated 15 August 1324, in which Sir Paul von Eich, Electoral-Trier Burgrave at Neuerburg, is named as the owner of holdings in Illerich, mentions the donation of an estate in Illerich to Rosenthal Monastery in 1321. It was also mentioned in 1331 that Himmerod Abbey had holdings here. Further holdings in Illerich (1331 and 1338) were owned by, among others, the noblemen Hermann von Bachem and Johann von Pommern. Illerich belonged along with Landkern to the Klotten High Court, and then later to the Electoral-Trier Amt of Cochem, eventually being grouped into the Cochem district in 1815.