Location

Löllbach is a typical clump village and lies between Lauterecken and Meisenheim, off the major traffic routes, in the North Palatine Uplands at an elevation of 208 m (682 ft) above mean sea level. Running through the village is the Jeckenbach, and emptying into it in the village core is the Schweinschieder Bach. The municipal area measures 494 hectares (1,220 acres).^[3]

Neighbouring municipalities

Clockwise from the north, Löllbach's neighbours are the municipalities of Jeckenbach and Breitenheim, which likewise lie within the Bad Kreuznach district, the municipalities of Medard and Kappeln, which lie in the neighbouring Kusel district, and the municipality of Schweinschied, also in the Bad Kreuznach district.

Constituent communities

Also belonging to Löllbach are the outlying homesteads of Alte Ölmühle and Altheckmühle.^[4]

Prehistory

Some 5,000 years ago, the Löllbach area lay in trackless wilderness. The mountains were covered in old-growth forest, and most of the dales were marshy. It was at about this time, though, that the first humans set foot here, nomadic hunter-gatherer folk, whose feet made the first human paths through the area, although these would not have looked very different from trails made by the deer. In the rural cadastral area known as the “Lagerstück” near Löllbach, a stone hatchet and a sharp-edged arrowhead were unearthed, which these early hunters would not have been happy to lose. Only 2,000 years later, thus about 3000 BC, scattered bits of tribe from far away made themselves at home on the local heights at homesteads. They already knew about the metals tin and copper, and the alloy that could be made from them: bronze. Iron was then still unknown to them. Knowledge of these people's presence comes from the graves that they left behind, barrows, known in German, not altogether accurately, as Hünengräber or “Huns’ graves”. These can be found in the Striedter Wald (forest), as well as in other places in the area. These Bronze Age dwellers had also learnt the rudiments of cropraising. These people were succeeded by the great Celtic tribes who came into the area from northern France and northern Germany to settle across their vast new homeland stretching to the northern edge of the Alps. They, too, worked the land and raised livestock, although they hunted as well. Archaeological finds have also shown that they had also mastered pottery along with bronze and iron casting. In their time, the Löllbach area was already widely settled with homesteads in hillside glades. In their struggle with Germanic peoples who had crossed the Rhine, the Celts fled for shelter behind the ringwalls at their refuge castles that they had built on mountaintops: Marialskopf near Medard, Raumberg, Donnersberg, and many others. The Celts, however, were outnumbered and melded with the victors, with the result being the Treveri, a people of mixed Celtic and Germanic stock, from whom the Latin name for the city of Trier, Augusta Treverorum, is also derived.^[5]

Antiquity

In the 1st century BC, the rulers of the Western World at that time, the Romans, had incorporated Gaul into their empire as a new colony. When the Treveri now once again found themselves beset by the Germanic hordes, they called on the Roman general and conqueror of Gaul, Julius Caesar, for help. In 58 BC, he drove the Germanic peoples back across the Rhine. Nevertheless, the Treveri were hardly spared foreign rule, as the Romans remained in their land as rulers for the next 500 years with the Rhine as the Imperial frontier to be guarded against the Germanic peoples that they had driven out. From their stronghold at Trier, supplies rolled through the Löllbach area to the frontier, but not before the old wilderness paths gave way to paved roads leading across the heights. Thus did the Roman roads come into being. These would have carried all manner of traffic, from marching legions to commercial wagons to dignified Roman ladies hurrying to their husbands in some garrison town on the Rhine. Here and there on each side of the Roman roads, however, on the hillsides, lay Roman villare, proud lordly seats. They were extensive farms taken from the defeated Celto-Germanic people that the Romans had then granted long-serving legionnaires as a reward – and also to ensure their continued hegemony. Celts worked the land there and served their Roman masters. One such Roman estate is known to have lain near where the church now stands in neighbouring Medard, but there were definitely several others in the area. Besides the Roman roads and the Roman monument near Schweinschied, many other Roman finds bear witness to a great number of Romans having lived in the area. Near Löllbach, in the rural cadastral area known as the “Lochwiese”, a Löllbach farmer unearthed a so-called Viergötterstein (a “four-god stone”, a pedestal on which a Jupiter Column was customarily stood) in 1872. This is now kept at a museum in Worms. Some people from Löllbach have also found Roman coins. About AD 450, the Romans had to withdraw their forces from the Rhine into the Gaulish backlands. Another Germanic tribe, this time the Franks, was threatening the Romans with superior military might. Not everyone withdrew from the area, however. The subject people, the Treveri, stayed behind, as did landed Roman families. The invading Franks, however, arranged for themselves to become the new lords and for these remaining people to be a “host people” who would serve their new lords. Later, both Celts and Romans would be assimilated into the body of the Frankish people.^[6]

Middle Ages

Modern times

Jewish history

Löllbach once had a small Jewish community that was actually an offshoot of the Jewish community in Hundsbach. See the relevant sections of that article for the community's history and information about its synagogue.^[18] What Löllbach can claim as its own, though, is a Jewish graveyard, about which very little is known. It was the burying ground for the very few Jewish households in Löllbach (three families were mentioned in 1807 with the following heads: Herz Nathan, Jacob Wolff and Daniel Cahen; six Jewish inhabitants were counted in 1867). It is believed that the graveyard was used in the 18th and 19th centuries. Until a few years ago, there were still gravestones there, but a report from December 2002 stated that there were then only two gravestone fragments left. A visit in May 2003 turned up no stones at all. As for the graveyard's location, the municipality's mayor, Harry Schneider, identifies it as lying west of Kappeler Weg in the cadastral area known as “Dähältgen”.^[19]

Municipality’s name

From the name Leubilbach, which appeared in the 1319 court document (see above), it is very hard to say anything about the village's age. Any interpretation is most uncertain. According to Professor Ernst Christmann of Kaiserslautern, who greatly concerned himself with placename research, villages with names ending in —bach (“brook”) arose at many different times over the centuries. There are old ones that date from Celtic times, whereas others have arisen much more recently. Most, though, arose as outlying daughter settlements of Frankish villages in the 7th or 8th century. This came about when the original Frankish centres outgrew their loess soils and young, marriageable farmers began clearing goodly areas of old-growth forest for expanded farmland. The new centre in each case was often given the first settler's name with the ending —bach, as had it also been with the places with names ending in —heim. Thus, Frankelbach can be interpreted as “Franko’s brook”, for instance. In other instances, though, the brook itself already bore a name, perhaps suggested by some characteristic, and then the new village simply took the brook's name. An example of this would be Kaulbach, whose first syllable comes from the same root as the German word Kugel (“sphere”, “ball”), a reference to stone orbs found in the brook itself. Neighbouring Kreimbach drew its name from Krähen – crows. The places on the Jeckenbach likewise took their names from the brook. Jecken— springs from the same root as the word jackern, or to use the Modern High German form, jagen (“hunt”). For Leubil – there are rural cadastral areas in Palatine municipalities with names such as “Leusbil” and “Leisbil” – Professor Christmann offered the following interpretation: leusen or leisen means “hearken” or “listen”; as for bil or bül, this refers to a hill. If put together, leubil might mean a height from which watch was kept, a watch post. From this height, however, the stretch of the brook that passes by in the dale might have got its name. And in the end, a clearing, and the settlement therein might have got their name from the brook. If this interpretation holds true, then it can be further concluded that Leubilbach was founded at the earliest in the 7th or 8th century as a small outlying settlement – perhaps from Meisenheim. This, however, would not exclude the existence of the odd homestead dating from even longer ago on the surrounding heights, as the settlement patterns in the region are known from evidence to have become villagelike only quite late. The dales were also long uninhabited, and often marshy right into the Late Middle Ages. It was only rather late that bigger settlements arose in these dales. One can thus be sure that Leubilbach was long a small settlement with only a few homesteads. As if to confirm this, a 1698 compilation record from the Oberamt of Kyrburg states that the village then had 18 households (it also listed 12 in Schweinschied, 2 in Otzweiler and 15 in Sien along with its farms). Today's core village around the schoolhouse together with a few farms across the brook might well be called Alt-Löllbach (“Old Löllbach”). One would, though, have had to include the lordly estate mill in that grouping. On the other hand, the lordly estate lay in the village's west, perhaps even outside it. That there was indeed an estate, perhaps a lordly estate, is strongly suggested by the surviving rural cadastral name “Auf dem Hof” (“On the Estate”).^[20]

Population development

Löllbach's population development since Napoleonic times is shown in the table below. The figures for the years from 1871 to 1987 are drawn from census data:^[21]

Municipal council

The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.^[23]

Mayor

Löllbach's mayor is Thomas Helfenstein.^[1]

Coat of arms

The German blazon reads: Durch Wellenschnitt schräglinks geteilt, oben in Gold ein wachsender Roter Löwe, unten in Rot ein weißes Gemerke in Form eines Schaftes mit Hinterer Oberkopfstrebe, alle mit kreisförmigen Enden.

The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Per bend sinister wavy, Or a demilion gules armed and langued argent, and gules a cramp bendwise sinister with crossbar, all pommetty, of the third.

Löllbach belonged throughout much of its history to the Waldgraves, albeit to several lines of that comital house. This explains the charge on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side, the lion. Also granting rights in Löllbach from 1392 to 1439 were the Counts of Veldenz, to the Families von Duna, Stumpf von Simmern and Boos von Waldeck. Since these were seen as nothing more than subordinates, they have not been honoured in the arms.^[24]

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:^[25]

• Evangelical church, Oberdorf 8 – aisleless church, essentially Late Gothic, Baroque alterations 1683, Late Gothic quire, Romanesque tower
• Auf dem Hof 2 – former school; Classicist plastered building, mid 19th century
• At Harzgasse 2 – house door, Classicist, marked 1860
• Oberdorf 2 – estate complex along the street; timber-frame house, plastered, 18th century
• Oberdorf 6 – former house (?), quarrystone building, essentially possibly late mediaeval

The village’s Evangelical church contains building remnants from the 12th or 13th century. The nave dates from about 1500. The church organ was built by the Family Stumm.

Clubs

The following clubs are active in Löllbach:^[26]

• Förderverein Gemeinde Löllbach e.V. — municipal promotional association
• Förderverein Feuerwehr Löllbach e.V. — fire brigade promotional association
• Reitverein "Perlbach" — riding club

Economic structure

Löllbach’s economy is characterized by several small craft businesses. Some of the people commute to work in some of the nearby towns, such as Meisenheim.

Transport

Löllbach lies on Landesstraße 373 (Meisenheim–Jeckenbach–Löllbach–Kappeln–Merzweiler). There are bus links to Meisenheim and Kirn. One can board a train at Kirn on the Nahe Valley Railway (Bingen–Saarbrücken). The travel time on the hourly Regionalexpress trains to Saarbrücken is 70 minutes, while Mainz can be reached in just under an hour. Every other train to and from Frankfurt also runs through to Frankfurt Airport.