Keidelheim

Keidelheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Simmern, whose seat is in the like-named town.GeographyLocationThe municipality lies in the middle of the Hunsrück between Simmern and Kastellaun, right on the Schinderhannes-Radweg (cycle path) at a mean elevation of 320 m above sea level. The Külzbach marks the boundary between Keidelheim and the neighbouring village of Kümbdchen.HistorySometime between 1330 and 1335, Keidelheim was first mentioned in a document in the taxation register kept by the Count of Sponheim. The register listed a whole series of taxes and other comital levies, among which were the soul tax, the head tax and tithes.Another compilation of taxes from about 1400 lists for the first time the village’s inhabitants . The monasterial lordship over Keidelheim ended in 1566 with the dissolution of the Ravengiersburg Augustinian Canonical Foundation. The Duchy of Simmern passed as an Oberamt to the Electorate of the Palatinate. Over the next 120 years, the countryside was heavily stricken with many wars, bad harvests and sicknesses. The villages of Nannhausen, Fronhofen, Biebern, Reich, Wüschheim, Eichkülz and Keidelheim together formed a Schultheißerei. In 1683, Michel Huth from Keidelheim was the Schultheiß.