Pre 1500

The plain was watered by streams flowing down from the foothills and the largest of these, the River Wetter, gave the region the name by which it became known, the Wetterau, in whose northern heartland would arise the village of Nieder-Weisel.

Four hundred million years ago the Taunus Ranges were formed by the crumpling of the soft surface of the earth in Central Europe, and to the east of these mountains was formed a depression which later became an extension of the silted flood plains of the Rhine-Main river system.

Much further along the geological time scale, lava from the massive volcano known as Vogelsberg flooded this plain to the foothills of the Taunus Mountains. The action of wind, water and ice over millions of years weathered the mineral-rich basalts and mixed them with the sands and silts from the rivers, forming soil as fertile as any in Europe.

The plain was watered by streams flowing down from the foothills and the largest of these, the River Wetter, gave the region the name by which it became known, the Wetterau, in whose northern heartland would arise the village of Nieder-Weisel.

The origin of the name Nieder-Weisel is not clear; it may have been a corruption of

• the name of the Roman settler, Wizili, whose villa was built on the site, or
• Weisse, meaning white. The village was sited at the confluence of two rivulets, where “white water” would be generated, hence Nieder-Weisse-lar, “the town below the white (water)”.

The layout of the village was determined by the Roman (“Stone”) road which ran from Butzbach to Friedberg in a south-easterly direction; the village High Street – now Butzbacherstrasse – roughly paralleled this road. The houses and later public buildings stretched along either side of the street to the north and south.

There were two classes in Frankish society, the free – that is, the chieftain, nobles and the common citizens, and the bonded – bondsmen and slaves. Bondsmen were those who had been honourably defeated in battle. They lost their possessions and had to work part of the time for their patron, but they kept their personal freedom and worked the rest of the time on holdings that could eventually become their own. The slaves, reviled because they had surrendered without any resistance, were treated as chattels; they worked full-time for their masters who provided only sustenance.

In Nieder-Weisel the Franks became the rulers and their conquered foes – Chatti, Alemanni, Gauls, Romans, part-Romans and mercenaries – were the bondsmen and slaves.

Boniface, the Archbishop of Mainz, set up “daughter” churches at Strassheim, Lauterbach and Rossdorf, each with an archpriest responsible to the archdiocese. The Wetterau province was split into three “Hundreds”, each centred on one of these churches. Each hundred was further segmented into three districts known as Tenths.

In time, the hundreds courts took over the power of the provincial court, including the right to impose death penalties; the role of the district courts, such as the ones at Butzbach and Lich, widened correspondingly. At the same time, further gifts of property and grants of knightly fees strengthened the power of the chieftains and eroded those of the provincial governors. This set the scene for the rise of the powerful noble families that would play such an important part in the future of Nieder-Weisel and other settlements in the Wetterau.

The Chatti, now Christians, re-emerged under the name Hessens. Their land was later combined with the Wetterau to form the state of Hesse. The settlements of the Wetterau developed into German villages – described as “the most German of all German inventions”. By day, the farmers worked their fields of grain, hoed their market gardens of cabbages and beets, and pruned their groves of apple and pear trees; and at dusk they retired to their homes in the village proper. On Sundays they worshipped in their Christian chapels.

The Munzenberg family became pre-eminent in the Nieder-Weisel region – their family seat was a massive castle built on a barren outcrop at Munzenberg. Even in ruins, its spectacular bulk, surmounted by twin towers, and with multiple gallows flanking the access road, continued to be a striking reminder of the enormous power wielded by this family from the 11th to the 14th century.

The first Baron Munzenberg, Kuno, ruled for 60 years over a domain that included Nieder-Weisel and Butzbach and many other towns in the Wetterau. Kuno was adviser to the Emperor Friedrich and treasurer to Henry VI, for which his rewards included half of the brassage revenues from the Imperial Mint at Frankfurt-on-Main. The villages used a local currency of silver and gold coins carrying the likeness of “Cuno de Liche”.

Such a defence system was too costly for a village like Nieder-Weisel, which relied instead on another common form of protection – the boscaged moat. This was excavated with steeply sloping banks on either side, densely planted with trees and inter-twining hedge plants. Two creeks flowing from the Taunus foothills that supplied the village with water were used to keep the moat full in times of danger. Artificial lakes at either end of the village were used to control the height of water in the moat, and the flow through the aqueducts.

At the points where the High Street entered the village from the Butzbach Road and exited to the Ostheim Road, drawbridges that were operated from watchtowers could be used to seal off the village in the case of attack. There was also a portcullis at the Oppershofener Road exit on the east boundary.

The tower of the village church was part of the defence system also; its sandstone walls were a metre thick and its high narrow windows provided observation points for the defenders. This tower, constructed in about 1100, was built on a hill made from the material excavated from the moat, in order to give the maximum range of vision around the village.

Nieder-Weisel’s new ruler became influential in German politics, representing Wetterau on occasions of state, collecting the king’s taxes, appointing the village and town magistrates, and sitting on the bench of the High Court; his daughter married the king’s son. Philipp and the six Philipps who followed him were responsible for a great dynasty that extended the Münzenberg influence into the 15th century.

The ending of the Munzenberg dynasty coincided with the arrival in Nieder-Weisel of an organisation destined to have a major influence on the life of the villagers for the next 600 years – the Order of St John.

To assist with the defences of the village, a stone wall, following the contours of the moat, was built around the western and southern boundaries of this property, which occupied nearly one-third of the total area of the village. For security reasons the south gate was used as the entrance to the Commandery.

The Falkensteins quickly realised how important it was to remain on good terms with an organisation as influential and wealthy as the Order of St John. As early as 1265 Philipp, by deed of gift, gave the Order a pathway on its northern boundary, from the south lake to the High Street, thus guaranteeing its immunity from trespass by the villagers. He also gave the Order joint control with himself over the corn-mill at Griedel; the right to graze its sheep on the common pastures and the right to be present when any pasturage matter was being discussed by the community. However, the most important concession was the granting to the Order in 1355 by his cousin, then Archbishop of Trier, the sole right of nominating the village priest, which gave the Commander a powerful influence over the villagers.

During the busy seasons of ploughing and harvesting the entire family became involved, the older children working in the fields and the younger ones attending to the animals and helping to prepare and deliver meals to the field-workers. The small animals – goats, rabbits, pigs and poultry – were kept in compounds behind the houses; the community employed herders to graze the flocks of sheep and horned animals, and to take the swine into the woods to feed on acorns.

Guards patrolled the fields by day and night – it was not uncommon for wolves to come out of the forests in search of food. During the colder weather, the animals were kept inside the compounds, or even in the houses, for warmth.

Infant baptism was an integral part of church rites, and the practice of requiring that the baby being baptised should take the given name of its sponsor resulted in a very limited number of names being used. Six or seven for either sex would have covered 90% of the population – Margaretha, Elisabetha, Juliana, Katharina, Susanna, Dorothea, Konrad, Georg, Jakob, Philipp, Adam, and Johannes. Sometimes the name was preceded by a courtesy saint’s name, which had to be Johann for boys and could be Anna or Maria for girls. Even so, it became increasingly difficult to make identification of an individual unambiguous (even with the use of unflattering aliases such as “Brick Bun Bernhard the Baker”!). To overcome this problem, the use of family names came into vogue in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The origins of most of the names that came into use in Nieder-Weisel are not generally known. Some people took the names of the occupations they followed, e.g. Muller the miller; Schmidt the blacksmith; Schaefer the shepherd. However, these names were never widespread in the village.

Some surnames may have been simply modifications of baptismal names – Wilhelmi from Wilhelm; Philippi from Philipp; Adami from Adam. Some were suggestive of personal characteristics – Klein ‘tiny’; Fett ‘fat’; Schimpf ‘jester’. Some of the families in Nieder-Weisel are known to have been immigrants from other villages, e.g. Rumpff from the early Romb family of Butzbach; Knipper from the affiliated village of Eberstadt; Kissler from Steinbach. It is also possible that some families were brought into the Commandery from Malta.

One Nieder-Weisel family owes its name to a French holy man; the name Jost was derived from the place of worship dedicated to St Jodocus, the son of a king of Brittany, who renounced his royal rights and inheritance to enter a hermitage near Calais.

The powers of the Court of Jurors were extended so that it could examine and impose penalties for misdemeanours and minor felonies, such as creating a public nuisance by swearing in the open or trespassing on a neighbour’s land. Penalties were usually by way of small fines but, in more serious cases, a guilty verdict could result in incarceration in the cells in the watch-house.

The magistrate’s bailiff supervised the watchmen, whose job it was to patrol the perimeter of the village periodically during the night, as well as those who guarded the fields. The men who lived in the watchtowers also came under his control.

Go to the history of the periods 1500-1750 or post 1750.