History
The origins of the name Wenden are not known for certain. Probably it has to do with the location because at the turn of the first millennium within its area the lands of two Germanic people, the Franks and the Saxons met. There is no knowledge as to when the area was first settled. The names of some villages like Girkhausen, Bebbingen, Döingen, Gerlingen and Ottfingen as well as the names of lost villages and homesteads offer some clues. Most likely settlement must have taken place no later than around 900 to 1000 AD. Perhaps the area knew settlements even earlier as the names of local brooks and streams like Elbe, Albe, Wende, Bigge, Benze and Binse hint.
The first documented record of Wenden dates back to 1011. By that time a monastery had been founded in Herford and given land in Wendenne, which is said to mean Wenden. At the beginning of the 14th century a chapel Wendene capella is mentioned in a copy of a much older tax register of the Archdiocese of Cologne. Watersheds have been Wenden’s limits for centuries. In the southeast and east these watersheds marked the boundary with the territory of Nassau-Siegen, in the south to the land of the counts of Wildenburg and in the south and southwest to the Duchy of Berg. All of the municipal area was part of the Electorate of Cologne. Following the Reformation they remained Catholic while their neighbours to the southeast, south and southwest converted to Protestantism.
By the end of the Middle Ages people in the Siegerland fenced off their territory with a combination of trenches, earthworks and dense hedgerows. That part which touches the district of Olpe is called the "Kölsches Heck" ("Cologne hedge"). The "Kölsches Heck" also marks a boundary between two languages High German and Low German. After the Reformation it came to mark the border between areas of different faiths.
In 1803 the municipal area of Wenden was transferred to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt and in 1816 it was annexed to Prussia. Some years later in 1850 the municipalities of Wenden and Römershagen were joined to form the new municipality of Wenden (Amt Wenden).
Read more about this topic: Wenden (Sauerland)
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