Langweiler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Lauterecken-Wolfstein.
Geography
Location
The municipality lies on the Jeckenbach in the Western Palatinate between the Palatinate Forest and the Hunsrück. Langweiler lies at an elevation of some 250 to 300 m above sea level east of Bundesstraße 270 and mostly on the Jeckenbach's right bank. Elevations around the village reach heights of almost 400 m to the west and some 370 m to the south and north. The municipal area measures 415 ha, of which roughly 11 ha is settled and 57 ha is wooded.
Neighbouring municipalities
Langweiler borders in the north on the municipality of Sien, in the northeast on the municipality of Hoppstädten, in the east on the municipality of Merzweiler, in the south on the municipality of Homberg and in the west on the municipality of Unterjeckenbach. Langweiler also meets the municipality of Herren-Sulzbach at a single point in the southeast.
Municipality’s layout
Langweiler's houses stand mainly along two streets, one running east-west, and the other coming from the south and meeting the east-west street in the village centre. The village's appearance is still widely characterized by Einfirstbauernhäuser (farmhouses with single roof ridges). The graveyard lies in the village's south end on the road that leads to the neighbouring village of Homberg. East of the village, going towards Grumbach and Merzweiler, lies the sporting ground. The two buildings that once housed mills, the Ölmühle (oilmill) and the Tiefenbachermühle, still stand at the side of the road that leads to Unterjeckenbach. In the municipality's south lie two further small settlements east of the Bundesstraße on the Kreisstraße to Homberg. The former schoolhouse today serves as a village community centre.
History
Antiquity
It can be assumed with certainty that the area around Langweiler was settled in prehistoric times. Neither prehistoric archaeological finds, however, nor even Roman ones, have ever been unearthed here.
Middle Ages
Theoretically, Langweiler, with a name ending in —weiler, might have been founded as early as the Early Middle Ages by Frankish farmers coming along a Roman road. Likelier, though, is the assumption that it arose much later, perhaps only in the 10th or 11th century, as a hamlet (Weiler in German). The village originally belonged to the Nahegau, and passed together with Grumbach in 1258 into the ownership of Count Godefried, who endowed the Waldgravial line of Dhaun. In connection with this, Langweiler also had its first documentary mention in Waldgrave Konrad's 1276 will, which is preserved in a copy. Langweiler belonged to the Hochgericht auf der Heide (“High Court on the Heath”). Together with other villages in the Grumbach castle domain (Burgbann), the village was pledged in 1363 to Sponheim-Starkenburg. According to a 1415 Veldenz document, Gottfried von Schmidtburg had received from Count Friedrich of Veldenz seven Schilling in Heller in holdings at Langweiler. According to this, the village was in the meantime pledged to the Counts of Veldenz. In 1448, the Rhinegraves sold several villages in the Grumbach area to Count Palatine (or Duke) Stephan, who can be considered the successor to the Counts of Veldenz, who had died out in the male line four years earlier. Among the villages named in this deal was Langweiler, which had already been pledged. In 1477, though, the Waldgraves bought all these villages back, along with Langweiler.
Modern times
In 1575, the independent Rhinegravial House of Grumbach came into being. Whether Langweiler was further sold or pledged is unknown. Thus the village thereafter belonged to the Grumbach line of the Rhinegraves. There was no change in this lordship until the French Revolution broke out. During the Thirty Years' War, the village was plundered time and again, particularly in 1635 and 1636, when Croatian troops of the Imperial Army came through the area. Langweiler lay on a through road. The Plague, too, claimed many victims, and only a few people survived the war. After the Thirty Years' War ended, the area was still affected by marauding troops. Only slowly could Langweiler recover. With French King Louis XIV's wars of conquest came more suffering.