Kusel
Kusel is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Kusel-Altenglan Verbandsgemeinde and is also the district seat.
The well-known operatic tenor Fritz Wunderlich was born in Kusel.Geography
Location
Kusel lies on the Kuselbach in Rhineland-Palatinate's southwest, in the North Palatine Uplands roughly 30 km northwest of Kaiserslautern. The Kuselbach rises in the outlying centre of Diedelkopf where the Bledesbach and the Pfeffelbach meet. The dale is hemmed in by a row of mountains, on the left bank the Ödesberg, and on the right the Gaisberg, the Roßberg and the Herrchenberg. The floor of the dale lies roughly 220 m above sea level. Prominent landmarks just beyond the town's limits are Lichtenberg Castle to the west and the Remigiusberg and the Potzberg to the east. With roughly 5,000 inhabitants, Kusel challenges Cochem for the title of Germany's smallest district seat.Neighbouring municipalities
Kusel borders in the north on the municipalities of Körborn and Blaubach, in the northeast on the municipality of Altenglan, in the east on the municipality of Rammelsbach, in the southeast on the municipality of Haschbach am Remigiusberg, in the south on the municipality of Schellweiler, in the southwest on the municipality of Ehweiler, in the west on the municipality of Pfeffelbach and in the northwest on the municipality of Ruthweiler.Constituent communities
The town of Kusel is divided foremost into the Kernstadt and the historic Altstadt, with the former ringing the latter, and also into the Stadtteil of Diedelkopf, which has melded onto the Inner Town, the residential area “Am Holler” and a further Stadtteil, Bledesbach.Town’s layout
The town was from the Middle Ages until the 19th century ringed with a town wall that had three town gates and five towers. In the town core, the mediaeval street layout has been preserved to this day, although the old buildings were burnt out almost utterly in a great fire in 1794. The town centre is characterized by buildings from the 19th century bearing the marks of Classicism and Historicism. Spreading out over the town's west end in the dale, from the mid-19th century until the end of the Second World War, was a major industrial area whose main focus was clothmaking. Some of the old industrial buildings have remained, but are no longer used by industry. A new major industrial area arose after the war in the town's east end. New residential areas were built as early as the 19th century in the neighbourhoods around Bahnhofstraße and Tuchrahmstraße, with others following in the 20th century, such as Am Holler, In der Haischbach and around the outlying centre of Diedelkopf. The most important administrative buildings stand on Trierer Straße and on the Marketplace. The Evangelical church likewise stands on Marktplatz, while the Catholic church stands on the edge of the Old Town on Lehnstraße. Since 1980, a cultural centre has stood on the Roßberg with a school centre and the great Fritz-Wunderlich-Halle. Further schools are scattered across the town, the Gymnasium in the west on Walkmühlstraße, the Realschule on Lehnstraße, the Luitpoldschule near the Marketplace on Luitpoldstraße, the Hollerschule and the Jakob-Muth-Schule, both on Hollerstraße. The new hospital was built in 1984 and stands west of town, just beyond the limit in the municipality of Ruthweiler. Barracks arose in 1965 at the Windhof near the Ödesberg in the town's north end. Various sports facilities are spread over the town's whole area. The main thoroughfare is Bundesstraße 420, which runs through town by way of Glanstraße, Fritz-Wunderlich-Straße and western Trierer Straße. Until the time after the Second World War, a railway line also ran through the town, roughly parallel to Bundesstraße 420. Today, Kusel only has an end-of-line station on the Kusel—Landstuhl line. The railway station in the town's east end has since been torn down.Climate
Yearly precipitation in Kusel amounts to 863 mm, which is rather high, falling into the highest third of the precipitation chart for all Germany. At 74% of the German Weather Service's weather stations lower figures are recorded. The driest month is April. The most rainfall comes in December. In that month, precipitation is 1.8 times what it is in April. Precipitation varies moderately. At 50% of the weather stations, lower seasonal swings are recorded.History
Antiquity
In the area around the town, many Celtic graves from the Iron Age have been unearthed. The Celtic population adopted Roman culture once Julius Caesar had conquered Gaul, and there have been Gallo-Roman archaeological finds throughout the region as well as in Kusel itself. In the time of the Migration Period, the area was first conquered by the Burgundians and then later by the Alemanni. As a result of the 496 Battle of Tolbiac, Kusel found itself under Frankish hegemony, and became, either by sale or donation, part of the Imperial domain around Kaiserslautern.In the 7th century, a Frankish kingly estate was built on the ruins of an old Roman estate. This served as a lodging, the Curtis Cosla. Since the name Cosla is of Celtic origin, it cannot be ruled out that there might have been continuous habitation here since prehistoric times. Thus, it is assumed that the town already existed when the so-called Remigiusland was given to the Bishopric of Reims. A royal donation to Reims did not come about through King Clovis I’s efforts towards Saint Remigius as it is claimed in Flodoard’s account of the history of the Bishopric of Reims, but rather more likely through Merovingian King Childebert II’s efforts towards Archbishop Egidius of Reims sometime between 575 and 590. In 850, the estate had its first documentary mention. In the 9th century, the estate and the surrounding lands found themselves in the ownership of the Archbishopric of Reims, whose founder was Saint Remigius. The formerly kingly estate underwent changes by monks, who made of it a monastic estate, and thus it became the centre of ecclesiastical and economic interests in the Remigiusland. A preserved altar text bears witness to a church consecration performed in 902 by Archbishop Herive from Reims. It was an earlier church, Saint Remigius’s Church, that stood where the Evangelical church now stands, on the marketplace. Herive declared it the first “mother church” for the whole area. In 931, the estate at Kusel along with the surrounding area was transferred to the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims. In 1127, the monks from Reims built a Benedictine collegiate foundation on the nearby Remigiusberg, which made the Remigiusberg into the ecclesiastical hub of the whole Remigiusland. The estate at Kusel, represented by a court Schultheiß, became an administrative seat. From the beginning, Kusel was the centre of the Remigiusland. After the Carolingian Empire had been partitioned, however, Reims had a great deal of difficulty exerting its claims over its more distant holdings in Germany. In 10th-century documents, Kusel is described as an abbatia and once as a curtis. Kusel must thus in the 10th century still have been the location of a monastery and an estate. The town's and the Remigiusland’s ownership by the Archbishopric of Reims was acknowledged by all German kings into the High Middle Ages, as was ownership by the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims beginning in 952. Kusel, as an abbey and estate town, must have been a key location for the Archbishopric of Reims at this time. It is not known when the abbey was dissolved. It obviously no longer existed about 1125 when the new Benedictine provostry was founded on the Remigiusberg east of town. This founding stripped Kusel of its importance to the Archbishopric of Reims as an estate. Further information from the High Middle Ages is sparse. If the “mystery poet” Cäsarius von Heisterbach's poem can be taken seriously, Kusel Market was plundered in the early 13th century, and this deed would surely have been perpetrated by vassals of neighbouring counts attacking Reims holdings. About 1112, a scion of the Nahegau counts named Gerlach was hired as an Advocatus to protect the Remigiusland. As Vogt over further ecclesiastical holdings of the Archbishopric of Reims and the Bishopric of Verdun, and as holder in his own right of lands in the Nahegau, he founded the County of Veldenz. Thus arose a power struggle between the owners of the Remigiusland – since 952 the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims – and the Counts of Veldenz. Clear signs of the power struggle were the castles, built unlawfully by the Counts of Veldenz, Castle Lichtenberg and Michelsburg on the Remigiusberg. The former was built nearby about 1214, and is nowadays known as Germany's biggest castle ruin. In 1387, Kusel was mentioned in a document from the Counts of Veldenz as Cuscheln der Stat, the last word being an archaic form of Stadt, the German word for “town”. Town fortification with moats, walls, towers and gates began. In 1444, Kusel was transferred to the Duchy of Palatine Zweibrücken, for the Counts of Veldenz had died out in the male line. Castle Lichtenberg became the Oberamt of Lichtenberg. The struggle over the small Reims area was also pursued by the Dukes of Zweibrücken. This struggle ended only in 1552, when the Remigiusland was sold to Zweibrücken for 8,500 Rhenish guilders. Kusel is known to have been granted town rights on the Kaiserslautern model in 1347 by Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, as witnessed by a text in the Obermoschel town book. No document of the actual deed is preserved, however. Information appearing in some sources, according to which Kusel already had town rights in the 12th century, cannot be confirmed. In 1386, Kusel was first described as a town in a document that has survived to the present day. After the monastery on the Remigiusberg was founded and Castle Lichtenberg was built, the so-called Kuseler Oberhof continued to exist. This was a court of Schöffen that kept its function as a legal institution even after the Remigiusland was sold to the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken. In 1758, Zweibrücken administration of the Oberamt of Lichtenberg was moved back to Kusel.