Leienkaul

Leienkaul 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 lies in the Eifel just southeast of Laubach. Leienkaul’s elevation is 500 m above sea level.HistoryAlthough the Maria Martental Monastery in the municipality is believed to have been founded about 1141 by the Springiersbach Monastery, soon thereafter becoming an important pilgrimage site, Leienkaul is quite a new settlement as places in this part of Germany go. It was founded only in the late 18th century by slate miners and their families who wanted to live near the pits where they earned their livelihood. These were found on the east side of the Kaulenbach (brook) and in the upper reaches of the Sesterbach within neighbouring Laubach’s municipal limits. The new village’s name was drawn from one used for a rural cadastral area, Auf den Leyenkaeulen, which comes from the early Germanic word Lei (also spelt Lay or Lai), meaning “stone” or “crag” and the dialectal word Kaul for “mine” or “pit”.