Kleinwallstadt - History

History

Kleinwallstadt was already settled quite early on. Archaeological finds from Hallstatt times bear witness to the prehistoric settlers. At a find in 1980, not only were some female skeletal remains unearthed, but also some lovely grave goods from Alamannic times (4th-5th century).

In Kleinwallstadt, then also known as Bischofswallstadt, which was converted to Christianity as early as the early 8th century, the Archbishop of Mainz established in 1023 a Vogtei and a tithe court over a great expanse of the Spessart (range). In the 12th and early 13th century, the Lords of Waldenberg were enfeoffed with the place. About 1185 they built a castle on a crag east of the community, but this had already been destroyed by the mid 13th century. (The remains of the Altes Schloss were explored by archaeologists in 2006 and 2007). From the 16th century, the Focke von Wallstadt family were resident in the community. Their seat, the “Ingelheimer Hof” next to the town hall, and all appurtenances passed in 1587 to the Echter von Mespelbrunn family, and thereafter to the Imperial Counts (Reichsgrafen) of Ingelheim.

Under Archbishop Johann Schweikhard von Kronberg in 1611, 84 witches were put to death in Kleinwallstadt. Since the Thirty Years' War had wrought such devastation upon Kleinwallstadt and all records and documents had been destroyed, the Archbishop of Mainz issued new guild charters in 1733 for Kleinwallstadt and the surrounding villages. It can be inferred from these that earlier on in Kleinwallstadt and the surrounding area, quite a lively commercial life had taken hold, for the charters number 17 occupations, such as cooper, brewer, carpenter, mason, potter, dyer, glazier, stocking weaver and linen weaver. On the same grounds, the market rights, which had surely been granted earlier, were newly confirmed and chartered in 1737 by the Elector of Mainz.

The Electoral Mainz Vogteiamt of Kleinwallstadt passed with the 1803 Reichsdeputationshauptschluss to the newly formed Principality of Aschaffenburg, with which it passed in 1814 (by this time it had become a department of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt) to Bavaria.

  • Railway station

  • Town Hall

  • Church

  • Main street

Read more about this topic:  Kleinwallstadt

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)

    The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.
    Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)