Hahnweiler

Hahnweiler, or Hanwilre as it was known in the Middle Ages, belonged to the comital House of Tholey holdings in the Moselgau (a territory that stretched along the Moselle). The Vogtei rights over the Moselgau were granted Count Gerlach V in 1235 by the Bishop of Verdun. By 1397, Count Friedrich von Veldenz had bought from Geretrud Broich, her son Emmerich and his wife the estate, along with its serfs, interests and rights at Hanwilre and Moysberg (now Mosberg, part of Mosberg-Richweiler, itself an outlying centre of Nohfelden) for 50 Rhenish guilders. In the time that followed, the village belonged to the Amt of Nohfelden and thereby to the Oberamt of Lichtenberg. After the Nohfelden Gerichtsweistum (a Weistum – cognate with English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times; Gericht means “court”), the rightful judges of the high court were deemed to be the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken. Hahnweiler was part of the great fief given Wirich II of Oberstein in 1432 by the Duke of Lorraine. The 1480 Bede register (the Bede was a kind of taxation) lists for Hahnweiler two inhabitants who had to pay the May Bede and three who had to pay the autumn Bede. Wendel Gelzenleichter, his wife Agnes, son Nickel and daughter Elisa from Hahnweiler were Oberstein serfs in 1603. Wendel performed “along with the thresher at Hanwiller and his fellow heirs at Berßwiller a goods transport for the Count of Oberstein. As to further compulsory service, the said Wendel yearly gave the Count some money, about 1 Thaler. What else he yearly gave in money and produce in levies has not been determined.”

The 1675 description of the Oberamt compiled by D. König after the Thirty Years' War counted two families in Hahnweiler, while 115 years later, there were 18 families in the village. In 1816, 13 houses, 14 families and 94 souls were counted. The village’s Reformed parishioners were parochially bound with Wolfersweiler before French Revolutionary times, and thereafter with Berschweiler. The Catholics belonged to the parish of Freisen. Until 1793, Hahnweiler was part of the Zweibrücken Amt of Nohfelden. The municipal boundary between Hahnweiler and Rückweiler was also the old boundary between the Rohrbach and Nohfelden court regions. During the French occupation, the village belonged to the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Nohfelden in the canton of Baumholder. Beginning in 1819, after the Congress of Vienna, it was part of the Bürgermeisterei (also “Mayoralty”) of Berschweiler. In 1819, Hahnweiler had 13 families and 107 souls; by 1843, these figures had grown to 21 and 131 respectively.[3]

Hahnweiler has a village community centre.

• Hahnweiler in the collective municipality’s webpages (in German)
• Municipality’s official webpage (in German)