Thallichtenberg - History - Modern Times

Modern Times

From Zweibrücken times it is clear that only the part of the village that lay on the brook’s left bank was counted as one of the villages within the Burgfrieden (the castle’s sovereign area). It was also then that grand, lordly buildings sprang up within the castle limits, especially at the Upper Castle, spreading out from the core of the castle all round the keep: South Palace, East Palace, West Palace together with the obligatory fortifications. On the unprotected south side arose a broad bailey ringed with a high outer wall with a battlement parapet. At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, craftsmen and farmers from the castle area built, shortly before Spanish troops advanced in 1620, the so-called Hufeisenturm (“Horseshoe Tower”) with particularly thick walls that were supposed to stand up even to cannon balls. The castle’s entrance was secured by three nested gates. During the expansion work in the open area between the Upper Castle and the Lower Castle, the mighty tithe barn arose, along with a new castle church, extensive administration buildings along the castle road and beside the Kellerei (“stewardship”, in fact the tithe barn) more buildings for the Amtmann and the scrivener.

While only a few of the inhabitants down below in the dale on the brook’s right bank were the Burgmannen’s serfs, those living within the Burgfrieden continually had to perform compulsory labour for the lordship at the castle. The serfs complained about this and managed to have their compulsory labour duties precisely regulated. This happened in a time when French Revolutionary troops were already advancing on the lands around the castle. Lichtenberg Castle was never actually conquered by foreign troops, not even in the Thirty Years’ War. Nevertheless, during both King Louis XIV’s wars and the French Revolutionary Wars, the castle accommodated French troops. In 1758, the Oberamt administration moved to new offices on Landschaftsstraße in Kusel.