Pfalzfeld

Pfalzfeld is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Hunsrück-Mittelrhein, whose seat is in Emmelshausen. The municipality lies in the central Hunsrück between Emmelshausen and Kastellaun, right on the Schinderhannes-Radweg (cycle path). Pfalzfeld has one outlying Ortsteil named Nenzhäuserhof (520 m above sea level). In 893, Pfalzfeld had its first documentary mention. Listed in a directory of the Sankt Goar Monastery's revenue compiled by Benedictine monks is a service rendered by the settlement of Pfalzfeld. The mention is really only incidental and tells nothing about when the village might have arisen. Nonetheless, the monks duly recorded that 34 cloths, meant to be made into monks' clothing, had been delivered to the monastery, of which 18 came from Sankt Goar itself, 2 from Biebernheim, 1 from Diebach, 12 from Beltheim and 1 from Pfalzfeld. Since Pfalzfeld only managed one cloth, it can be gathered that the village had not reached any great size, nor any great economic importance, and that it was still in its early days. However, it at least seems to have been a cohesive enough community for the village dwellers to come together in the winter months to weave cloth.