Bruschied

In the Middle Ages, the village of Bruschied belonged to a great landhold of Saint Maximin's Abbey near Trier, which comprised, besides Bruschied itself, also Hausen near Rhaunen, Woppenroth, Blickersau, Kaffeld (two now vanished villages that once lay within Woppenroth's limits), Bundenbach and Schneppenbach, and was presumably subject to the Hof Hausen (the manor). Bruschied formed together with Schneppenbach a single municipal area and had its first documentary mention in 1023 under the name Prubesdervot in the directories of holdings. In 1282 it was called Probsterade and in 1426 Proistrot. Placename researchers interpret the name as meaning “clearing (—rade, —rot) laid out on a provost’s estate”. The two villages’ municipal area was at the same time in the Middle Ages a “court region”, where the Schultheiß and Schöffen (roughly “lay jurists”) exercised low jurisdiction (that is, they did not have the power to impose the death penalty) within this Ingericht. The Ingericht was itself part of the high court region of Rhaunen, which was originally under the Waldgraves’ ownership, and unlike the lower court, it could sentence wrongdoers to death. After the permanent transfer of Castle Schmidtburg to the Prince-Archbishop-Elector of Trier, Bruschied and Schneppenbach belonged, beginning in the mid 14th century to the lordship of Schmidtburg, which later formed the Amt of Schmidtburg, which itself existed until the late 18th century. The lordship over both Bruschied and Schneppenbach was held in equal shares by the Electorate of Trier and the Lords of Wiltberg. In 1563, there were ten families living in Bruschied, of whom six were subject to taxes and service demanded by the Elector and the other four were likewise subject to the Lords of Wiltberg. Ecclesiastically, Bruschied and Schneppenbach belonged to the parish of Hausen, where about 1555, the Reformation was introduced. Since the Electora-Trier Amtmann Nikolaus Schenk von Schmidtburg converted to the new belief, all the villagers in Bruschied, too, had to adopt Protestantism. After various denominational changes, back and forth, during the Thirty Years' War, the villages of Bruschied, Schneppenbach and Bundenbach ended up in the course of the Counter-Reformation becoming Catholic again. After the French Revolutionary territorial and administrative reform in 1798, Bruschied was grouped into the newly formed mairie de Kirn (mayoralty), to which it belonged until the end of the Napoleonic occupation in 1814. The village, however, remained in this municipal grouping on into Prussian times, although in 1815, it became known by the more German name Bürgermeisterei Kirn, also meaning “mayoralty”. After this entity had for a while belonged to the Simmern and Oberstein districts, Bruschied was in 1817 made part of the Bürgermeisterei of Gemünden, itself belonging to the Simmern district, which was later known as Amt, and eventually Verbandsgemeinde. In the latest round of territorial and administrative reform in Rhineland-Palatinate, the Verbandsgemeinde of Gemünden was dissolved on 8 November 1970 and Bruschied, along with the municipalities of Kellenbach, Königsau, Schneppenbach and Schwarzerden, was grouped into the Verbandsgemeinde of Kirn-Land in the Bad Kreuznach district.[4][5]

Foremost among Bruschied's buildings under monumental protection is Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church (Kirche St. Franz Xaver), built in 1892/1893 to plans drawn up by Freiburg Cathedral Master Builder Max Meckel on the site of a smaller church from the 18th century as a Gothic Revival, one-naved, plastered building with a five-eighths quire. A thorough restoration of the church's interior was undertaken in 1969/1970. Among the objects restored were several artworks from about 1700.[7] As at 31 August 2013, there are 267 full-time residents in Bruschied, and of those, 73 are Evangelical (27.341%), 154 are Catholic (57.678%), 2 (0.749%) belong to other religious groups and 38 (14.232%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.[8]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bruschied.

• Bruschied in the collective municipality’s webpages (in German)
• Brief portrait of Bruschied in the SWR Fernsehen programme Hierzuland (in German)