Wiesbaum

Wiesbaum is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Hillesheim, whose seat is in the like-named town.GeographyLocationThe municipality lies in the Vulkaneifel, a part of the Eifel known for its volcanic history, geographical and geological features, and even ongoing activity today, including gases that sometimes well up from the earth.Constituent communitiesThe outlying centre of Mirbach is said to have been the seat of an old Rhenish noble family, the Lords of Mirbach, who in the early 20th century built a castle folly and the Chapel of the Redeemer there. On 17 March 1974, Mirbach, which until then had been self-administering, was amalgamated with Wiesbaum.HistoryIn 804, Wiesbaum had its first documentary mention in a document that dealt with a territorial swap between Abbot Tankrad and a man named Beringar. Some holdings in Wiesbaum in the Eifelgau, which had earlier been given Tankrad’s monastery along with fields, cropland, woods, meadows, grazing land and standing and flowing waters by a man named Gunthar, were now given Beringar, against which Beringar yielded up his holdings in Sefferweich in the Bitgau, some of which were his own, while others he had inherited from his mother Gomalinde. These consisted of lands, woods, fields, meadows, grazing land and standing and flowing waters. The document was drawn up by a monk named Landohic and dated 25 July “in the 30th year of our Lord and King Karl’s rule and in the 4th year of his empire”. The “Karl” named here is Charlemagne.