Frankenweide

The Franks Willow is a low mountain range in Rhineland- Palatinate. It forms in the central part of the Palatinate Palatinate Forest.

Geography

The Franks pasture is a closed forest area of ​​today over 200 sq km area. It consists essentially of an approximately 380-450 m above sea level. NN lying plateau that rises steadily from north to south. From the plateau, which is surrounded by deep valleys, stand out individual peaks. In the south of the Franks pasture is limited by the valley of the Queich, on the east by that of Bach's Well and its imaginary extension to the north. There, the Imperial Forest closes at Kaiserslautern. In the northwest the Moosalb forms the boundary, to the southwest the Gräfensteiner country. From north to south, the area in the Lower Franconia pasture with the community Waldleiningen, divided the Middle Franconia pasture with the Eschkopf and Upper Franconia to pasture belonging to Wilgartswiesen hamlet Hermersbergerhof.

In the Middle and Upper Franconia pasture are the highest elevations, over the approximately from north to south, the watershed between the upper Rhine and Middle Rhine / Mosel runs: the Eschkopf and Mosisberg (each 609 m), the Hort head ( 606 m ) and the White Mountain ( 610 m). In a high-level trough southeast of the Mosisberg summit there used to be a high moor, the Mosisbruch, which was powered by a two-kilometer long river, which flows from the right shortly afterwards in the upper Wellbach. On Hort head the watershed turns to the southwest toward the castle Gräfenstein so that the white mountain is no longer on the watershed.

History

As a concept, the Franks pasture, as the name was hinted in the Frankish period, not later than the 6th century. At that time, the total forest area was still uninhabited and was partially used as pasture, mainly for pigs and goats. As probably the Frankish Counts of Leiningen were mentioned in the 12th century for the first time, they already was responsible for the administration of the Franks pasture. In the 13th century saw John Ritter of Wilenstein, after the hamlet of Locust cross is named several times for local feuds.

Although temporarily also the Wittelsbach family of Palatinate -Zweibrücken had possessions and claims in the franc pasture, the leiningische upper office on Falkenburg at Wilgartswiesen remained administratively responsible, conquered until after the French Revolution, the left-bank territories of the Palatinate in the 1790s from France and 1801 were annexed. Shortly before, in 1785, the Franks had fallen willow as a whole also formally Leiningen.

Throughout its history, the Franks pasture lost again and again parts a total of approximately 100 km ². To the east of Elmsteiner forest was separated to the upper Speyerbachtal in the 12th century. 1304 gave King Albrecht of Habsburg, the large area in the southeast, extending between the valleys of the corrugated and Eußerbach by the Forest House Taubensuhl in the north to Queichtal in the south, the imperial city of Annweiler; the area now forms the Annweiler Bürgerwald. 1602 Esthal forest was the fief slammed Erfenstein in the Northeast.

The present territory of the Franks pasture is predominantly in the districts Kaiserslautern and Southwest Palatinate.

Economy and infrastructure

Colonization

As in the then still attributable Lotharingia Palatinate increasingly monasteries were opened from about the 9th century, sat by the edge of the Palatinate forest produces a gradual colonization, but the Franks pasture lying in the core zone is not reached. For a long time the Hermersbergerhof founded by Hornbach monastery and already 828 mentioned the only outpost of civilization. Over the centuries, here and there, forest lodges and cottages and Köhler - built of forestry workers Hofstätten base which can be detected for the first time in 1379 - by the leiningische administration. Excavations at Mosisbruch near the Wellbachtal showed that here a settlement must have existed from the 11th to the 14th century. The too far outlying management in Wilgartswiesen, its borough today include large parts of Franconia pasture, but has been unsuccessful planned development. As a result of the Thirty Years' War, fell in the first half of the 17th century even the few populated places desolate. It was not until around the year 1785 the village woodsman Waldleiningen was created at the instigation of Prince Carl Friedrich Wilhelm von Leiningen- Hard castle in the Lower Franconia pasture, which remained the only independent municipality on the franc pasture. Altogether now live on the entire Franken pasture less than a thousand people.

Traffic

With the central hub Johanniskreuz the Franks pasture presented in the earliest time a transit route for traffic between the Rhine Valley and today's Lorraine dar. At that time, were performed as roads as possible over the mountain ranges, branched from the main axis paths in the direction of the monasteries White Castle and Kloster Hornbach as well as the imperial palace of Kaiserslautern. The northern route, the Palatinate Jacob paths crossed the northern part of the Franks pasture.

Today follow trails and roads in many cases the old Wegverläufen. However, the Franks pasture is no longer mainly developed in west-east direction, but on the curvy B 48, which rises from the B 10 in the south by the Wellbachtal of currants Cross, the only settlement point on the whole route, and then to B 37 descends at high Speyer in the north.

Leisure and Tourism

The plateau with their closed forests is a destination for hikers. All Marked with a cross remote trails of the Palatinate Forest Association, which are star-shaped over the entire Palatinate, meet in locust Cross in the heart of the Franks pasture. On the White Mountain and the Eschkopf stand Towers. For mountain bikers loop trails are identified by the Franks and the neighboring wood pasture land.

Locust cross is with the House of sustainability and its few other houses, mostly hotels and restaurants, tourist center of the Franks pasture. The Palatine Forest and Catholic services were held here, and on Sundays, especially in good weather to hundreds of motorcyclists meet. On the Hermersbergerhof, whose six -kilometer access road between Wilgartswiesen and Hauenstein of the B 10 diverges and then continues as a narrow driveway over ten kilometers to the highway glues Johannis Cross, is operated at low snow conditions, winter sports; because of the increasingly milder winter the ski stations in the 1990s, was dismantled, but a toboggan run is still available.

An attraction for tourists in the 1860s installed on the 459 meter high Roßrück at Waldleiningen by the Kingdom of Bavaria landmark which got the name " Pälzer Weltachs " in the vernacular. She encouraged later the home of poet Paul Münch to his well-known vernacular poem passage over their alleged lubrication to:

"Do the expectant Weltachs ingeschmeert un uffgepasst that nothing passeert. "

1964, the award was carved into a stone block at the landmark. Since the object is actually " smeared " under public sympathy.