Lindenholzhausen
Encyclopedia
Lindenholzhausen has been a district of the Town of Limburg an der Lahn
since 1972. The population on the 31st Jan. 2007 was 3,377. Lindenholzhausen has an average elevation of 170 metres above sea level and an area of 831.7 hectare
s (ha), making it the largest district of Limburg an der Lahn, the others being Ahlbach, Blumenrod, Dietkirchen, Eschhofen, Linter, Offheim and Staffel.
The name Lindenholzhausen is a compound noun
comprising the nouns Holz, Hausen, and Linde. Holz, meaning timberBrE
/lumberAE
, probably originates from the Old Saxon
"holt" meaning forest, wood, timber/lumber and the Old High German
"hulta" also meaning timber/lumber. The noun Hausen which in standard German
is only found as a suffix in place names (the verb
hausen means to dwell, to reside) probably originates from the Old High German "husen" meaning hamlet
or settlement. The compounds "holtshusen", "hultshusen" and similar would mean hamlet/settlement (in the clearing) in/[at the edge of] the forest/wood. Linde, meaning limeBrE/lindenAE
tree, would extend the compound Holzhausen to mean hamlet/settlement with the lime/linden tree (in the clearing) in/[at the edge of] the forest/wood.
Although this method of identifying a location may seem somewhat arbitrary, it does uniquely identify the village within the whole of Germany; a query for Holzhausen in the online postal code index (PLZ suchen)http://www.deutschepost.de of the German Post returns 71 results, whereas a query for Lindenholzhausen returns just one. As if rendering homage to its distinguishing nature, a single lime/linden tree is depicted on the escutcheon of the village's coat of arms.
Lindenholzhausen lies to the southeast of the town of Limburg an der Lahn approximately three kilometres (1⅞ miles) from town limits. The village is two kilometres (1¼ miles) southeast of exit 43 ("Limburg-Süd") of the German Motorway A3. Lindenholzhausen is traversed by a historical trading route, now a Federal road called the B8. In addition, Lindenholzhausen is connected by a secondary road depicted as the "L 3484" with the Bundesstraße B 417, the federal road connecting the cities of Wiesbaden
and Limburg an der Lahn.
The Inter-City Express
Station Limburg-Süd
which is located about half-way between Limburg an der Lahn and Lindenholzhausen and which opened for operations on 1 August 2002, provides access to the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line. The Inter-City Express connects the district of Limburg-Weilburg
with the city of Cologne
(55 minutes), the Cologne-Bonn Airport (40 minutes), the city of Frankfurt
(35 minutes) and Frankfurt Airport
(20 minutes). Lindenholzhausen also has a local railway station on the Limburg line which connects the village to towns and villages in the vicinity. Despite these convenient road and rail connections, Lindenholzhausen has managed to retain a predominantly rural character.
(1618–1648) from pillage
, famine
and plague. By 1697 the village had a population of 382. In 1750 a serious fire destroyed 93 buildings. Between 1768 and 1780 the trading route between Koblenz and Frankfurt (am Main) was built (now the B8). In 1801 another serious fire destroyed 63 smallholding
s together with their harvested crops and left two thirds of the population homeless and destitute. Considering the entirety of its 1,235 years of existence, Lindenholzhausen has been rather uneventful from an international viewpoint.
The Cäcilia comprises a male, a female and a youth choir, a Pop
and Jazz
choir, a young choir and the "Schrägen Acht" (a unit of the male choir that performs mostly at local events and whose name plays on the ambiguous German adjective "schräg" implying both mischievous and off-key; the "Acht" (eight) designates its headcount when it was founded in 1968 and has remained in spite of its current (2007) headcount of seventeen). The Harmonie comprises The Male Choir, The Young Harmonists and The Small Choir.
Throughout the years, these choirs have won multiple national and international prizes and rank among the best amateur choirs in the world. Accordingly, Lindenholzhausen is often referred to by the press as "Germany's Largest Village of Vocalists". Although local events include the annual Funfair
(German: "Kirmes") and associations' anniversaries (German: "Vereinsjubiläen"), the choral and folklore
festivals remain by far the village's major events with participants and visitors totalling between 10,000 and 20,000 from all around the world.
Lindenholzhausen has the fortune of having its own mineral spring
, known in standard German
as the Sauerbrunnen and in local dialect as the Sauborn.
Although documented in 1323 it was first put to commercial use in 1894, when Baron August von Rottkay leased the spring from the parish
of Lindenholzhausen, named it the Lubentiusbrunnen (Brunnen = spring
, well
) and sold its produce as "superb, savory and salubrious table and medicinal water" ("hervorragendes, wohlschmeckendes und bekömmliches Tafel- und Medicinal-Wasser").
Its commercial use continued under different owners until about 1914. Today, the spring is back in municipal possession and the citizens of Lindenholzhausen happily exercise their right
to help themselves to "their" free mineral water
. A connection between the consumption of the spring water and the singing has yet to be established.
About a 1/2 km (5/16 mile) southeast of Lindenholzhausen beside the B8 is a historical hourstone (Stundenstein). As opposed to a milestone
, an hourstone informs travellers that they are a specific number of hours away from a particular location. Travellers of the day knew the time designated referred to a fully loaded cart being drawn by a single horse. This particular hourstone informs travellers that they are X
(10) hours from Coblenz
and XI (11) hours from Franckfurt
. The 21 hour duration of the 105 km (65⅝ mile) journey from Koblenz to Frankfurt (am Main) implies that the average speed of a fully loaded horse-drawn cart was between 4 and 6 km/h (2½ and 3¾ m/h).
This hourstone is one of 14 that were erected between Koblenz and Würges (a district of Bad Camberg
) following a decree issued in 1789 (date on the hourstone) by the last Bishop and Prince-elector
of Trier
, Clement Wenceslaus of Saxony. Although only 8 of the initial 14 hourstones remain, these monuments of Germany's more distant past are not under preservation order.
The inscription
"CT" beneath the symbolised Elector's Crown stands for "Chur Trier", now known as "Kurtrier" (Electorate of Trier). The route from "Coblenz" to "Franckfurt" lead through different territories, including the Electorate of Trier, the Principality of Nassau-Oranien, the Principality of Nassau-Usingen, the Electorate of Mainz
and the Imperial City
of Frankfurt and it was not uncommon for a territory to have its own system of length units. In order to avoid laborious conversions between the different systems, the down-to-earth dimension of "average distance covered by a fully loaded horse-drawn cart per" hour was introduced, which was much more useful to the common traveller of the day. It also had the advantage that speed variations due to mountain crests and valleys could be incorporated.
Limburg an der Lahn
Limburg an der Lahn is the district seat of Limburg-Weilburg in Hesse, Germany.-Location:Limburg lies in western Hesse between the Taunus and the Westerwald on the river Lahn....
since 1972. The population on the 31st Jan. 2007 was 3,377. Lindenholzhausen has an average elevation of 170 metres above sea level and an area of 831.7 hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
s (ha), making it the largest district of Limburg an der Lahn, the others being Ahlbach, Blumenrod, Dietkirchen, Eschhofen, Linter, Offheim and Staffel.
Etymology
During its history, the village has had numerous variations of its current name: Hultshusin prope Ribesangin, Holtshusen bi Ribesangen, Holtzhusen prope Lympurg, Hulzhusen zo der lynden and Lynnenholzhausen.The name Lindenholzhausen is a compound noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
comprising the nouns Holz, Hausen, and Linde. Holz, meaning timberBrE
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
/lumberAE
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, probably originates from the Old Saxon
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is the earliest recorded form of Low German, documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples...
"holt" meaning forest, wood, timber/lumber and the Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
"hulta" also meaning timber/lumber. The noun Hausen which in standard German
Standard German
Standard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
is only found as a suffix in place names (the verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
hausen means to dwell, to reside) probably originates from the Old High German "husen" meaning hamlet
Hamlet (place)
A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...
or settlement. The compounds "holtshusen", "hultshusen" and similar would mean hamlet/settlement (in the clearing) in/[at the edge of] the forest/wood. Linde, meaning limeBrE/lindenAE
Tilia
Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The greatest species diversity is found in Asia, and the genus also occurs in Europe and eastern North America, but not western North America...
tree, would extend the compound Holzhausen to mean hamlet/settlement with the lime/linden tree (in the clearing) in/[at the edge of] the forest/wood.
Although this method of identifying a location may seem somewhat arbitrary, it does uniquely identify the village within the whole of Germany; a query for Holzhausen in the online postal code index (PLZ suchen)http://www.deutschepost.de of the German Post returns 71 results, whereas a query for Lindenholzhausen returns just one. As if rendering homage to its distinguishing nature, a single lime/linden tree is depicted on the escutcheon of the village's coat of arms.
Location and infrastructure
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
and Limburg an der Lahn.
InterCityExpress
The Intercity-Express or ICE is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany and neighbouring countries. It is the highest service category offered by DB Fernverkehr and is the flagship of Deutsche Bahn...
Station Limburg-Süd
Limburg Süd railway station
Limburg Süd is a railway station in Germany, connecting the town of Limburg an der Lahn to the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line...
which is located about half-way between Limburg an der Lahn and Lindenholzhausen and which opened for operations on 1 August 2002, provides access to the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line. The Inter-City Express connects the district of Limburg-Weilburg
Limburg-Weilburg
Limburg-Weilburg is a Kreis in the west of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Lahn-Dill, Hochtaunuskreis, Rheingau-Taunus, Rhein-Lahn, Westerwaldkreis.-History:...
with the city of Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
(55 minutes), the Cologne-Bonn Airport (40 minutes), the city of Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
(35 minutes) and Frankfurt Airport
Frankfurt Airport
Frankfurt Airport may refer to:Airports of Frankfurt, Germany:*Frankfurt Airport , the largest airport in Germany*Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport, a general aviation airport*Frankfurt-Hahn Airport , a converted U.S...
(20 minutes). Lindenholzhausen also has a local railway station on the Limburg line which connects the village to towns and villages in the vicinity. Despite these convenient road and rail connections, Lindenholzhausen has managed to retain a predominantly rural character.
History
According to Limburg's official website, Lindenholzhausen was first documented in 772, although it doesn't state where and by whom. By 1305 the villages of Rübsangen und Vele were incorporated in the district of Lindenholzhausen. By 1532 Lindenholzhausen had a population of 310. Being on the route between Cologne and Frankfurt and near the route between Mainz and Siegen, Lindenholzhausen suffered during the Thirty Years' WarThirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
(1618–1648) from pillage
Looting
Looting —also referred to as sacking, plundering, despoiling, despoliation, and pillaging—is the indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting...
, famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
and plague. By 1697 the village had a population of 382. In 1750 a serious fire destroyed 93 buildings. Between 1768 and 1780 the trading route between Koblenz and Frankfurt (am Main) was built (now the B8). In 1801 another serious fire destroyed 63 smallholding
Smallholding
A smallholding is a farm of small size.In third world countries, smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent and farming practices become more efficient, smallholdings may persist as a legacy of...
s together with their harvested crops and left two thirds of the population homeless and destitute. Considering the entirety of its 1,235 years of existence, Lindenholzhausen has been rather uneventful from an international viewpoint.
Germany's largest village of vocalists
Lindenholzhausen is renowned for its choirs. Although the village [as of 2007] has no more than 3,400 residents, it has the remarkable number of 11 choirs, even though some of these are assigned to the same associations. The independent choirs are the Cäcilia, the ensemble vocale lindenholzhausen, the Harmonie and the Church Choir.The Cäcilia comprises a male, a female and a youth choir, a Pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
and Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
choir, a young choir and the "Schrägen Acht" (a unit of the male choir that performs mostly at local events and whose name plays on the ambiguous German adjective "schräg" implying both mischievous and off-key; the "Acht" (eight) designates its headcount when it was founded in 1968 and has remained in spite of its current (2007) headcount of seventeen). The Harmonie comprises The Male Choir, The Young Harmonists and The Small Choir.
Throughout the years, these choirs have won multiple national and international prizes and rank among the best amateur choirs in the world. Accordingly, Lindenholzhausen is often referred to by the press as "Germany's Largest Village of Vocalists". Although local events include the annual Funfair
Funfair
A funfair or simply "fair" is a small to medium sized travelling show primarily composed of stalls and other amusements. Larger fairs such as the permanent fairs of cities and seaside resorts might be called a fairground, although technically this should refer to the land where a fair is...
(German: "Kirmes") and associations' anniversaries (German: "Vereinsjubiläen"), the choral and folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
festivals remain by far the village's major events with participants and visitors totalling between 10,000 and 20,000 from all around the world.
Mineral spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
, known in standard German
Standard German
Standard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
as the Sauerbrunnen and in local dialect as the Sauborn.
Although documented in 1323 it was first put to commercial use in 1894, when Baron August von Rottkay leased the spring from the parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
of Lindenholzhausen, named it the Lubentiusbrunnen (Brunnen = spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
, well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
) and sold its produce as "superb, savory and salubrious table and medicinal water" ("hervorragendes, wohlschmeckendes und bekömmliches Tafel- und Medicinal-Wasser").
Its commercial use continued under different owners until about 1914. Today, the spring is back in municipal possession and the citizens of Lindenholzhausen happily exercise their right
Right
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
to help themselves to "their" free mineral water
Mineral water
Mineral water is water containing minerals or other dissolved substances that alter its taste or give it therapeutic value, generally obtained from a naturally occurring mineral spring or source. Dissolved substances in the water may include various salts and sulfur compounds...
. A connection between the consumption of the spring water and the singing has yet to be established.
Historical hourstone
Milestone
A milestone is one of a series of numbered markers placed along a road or boundary at intervals of one mile or occasionally, parts of a mile. They are typically located at the side of the road or in a median. They are alternatively known as mile markers, mileposts or mile posts...
, an hourstone informs travellers that they are a specific number of hours away from a particular location. Travellers of the day knew the time designated referred to a fully loaded cart being drawn by a single horse. This particular hourstone informs travellers that they are X
Roman numerals
The numeral system of ancient Rome, or Roman numerals, uses combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as:...
(10) hours from Coblenz
Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...
and XI (11) hours from Franckfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
. The 21 hour duration of the 105 km (65⅝ mile) journey from Koblenz to Frankfurt (am Main) implies that the average speed of a fully loaded horse-drawn cart was between 4 and 6 km/h (2½ and 3¾ m/h).
This hourstone is one of 14 that were erected between Koblenz and Würges (a district of Bad Camberg
Bad Camberg
Bad Camberg is, with 15,000 inhabitants, the second biggest town in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany, as well as the southernmost town in the Regierungsbezirk of Gießen...
) following a decree issued in 1789 (date on the hourstone) by the last Bishop and Prince-elector
Prince-elector
The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...
of Trier
Trier
Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....
, Clement Wenceslaus of Saxony. Although only 8 of the initial 14 hourstones remain, these monuments of Germany's more distant past are not under preservation order.
The inscription
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
"CT" beneath the symbolised Elector's Crown stands for "Chur Trier", now known as "Kurtrier" (Electorate of Trier). The route from "Coblenz" to "Franckfurt" lead through different territories, including the Electorate of Trier, the Principality of Nassau-Oranien, the Principality of Nassau-Usingen, the Electorate of Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
and the Imperial City
Free Imperial City
In the Holy Roman Empire, a free imperial city was a city formally ruled by the emperor only — as opposed to the majority of cities in the Empire, which were governed by one of the many princes of the Empire, such as dukes or prince-bishops...
of Frankfurt and it was not uncommon for a territory to have its own system of length units. In order to avoid laborious conversions between the different systems, the down-to-earth dimension of "average distance covered by a fully loaded horse-drawn cart per" hour was introduced, which was much more useful to the common traveller of the day. It also had the advantage that speed variations due to mountain crests and valleys could be incorporated.
External links
- Lindenholzhausen (German)