The municipality lies in a hollow in the Glan valley in the uplands in the Western Palatinate, with peaks such as the Galgenberg, the Klopfberg, the Eckertsberg and the Wingertsberg.

On the Glan’s right bank, at the foot of the Hochwald (“High Forest”) lies the outlying centre of Bettenhausen.

[4] On the terrace that juts out from the western slope into the Glan valley, monks from Hornbach Abbey established an estate in the 8th century for clearing and farming the surrounding countryside.

The village core that arose here with its estate and church was fortified on the downstream side in 1344, as witnessed by “civic building”.

After the Thirty Years' War, Glan-Münchweiler’s built-up area spread westwards towards what is today Marktstraße (“Market Street”).

The forester’s house built in 1914 on the road leading out of Glan-Münchweiler towards Quirnbach served after the war as a kindergarten owned by the Catholic Church, although it is now under private ownership.

[6] After the Frankish takeover of the land, the Glan-Münchweiler area passed in about the middle of the 8th century through donation into Hornbach Abbey’s ownership.

The highest lord in the land remained, however, the Dukes Palatine Zweibrücken, who exercised the blanket lordship over the Hornbach Monastery.

The Dukes of Zweibrücken, as rightful successors to the Hornbach Monastery, were Reformed, whereas the Counts of Leyen had chosen to remain Catholic.

Imperial Countess Marianne von der Leyen, during her flight before the French Revolutionary troops, sought shelter for a week at the Evangelical rectory.

The Canton of Waldmohr, which belonged to the Bezirksamt of Homburg, and along with it the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Glan-Münchweiler, was grouped into the Kusel district.

In preparation for the Battle of France in the Second World War, the Organisation Todt built a Führer Headquarters in Glan-Münchweiler, called “Waldwiese” (“Glade”).

On 7 June 1969, the hitherto self-administering municipality of Bettenhausen was split away from the Kaiserslautern district, grouped into the Kusel district and merged with Glan-Münchweiler to form the new municipality of Glan-Münchweiler, which itself became the seat of a newly created Verbandsgemeinde in 1972, to which also belong Börsborn, Herschweiler-Pettersheim, Hüffler, Wahnwegen, Krottelbach, Langenbach, Quirnbach, Henschtal, Steinbach am Glan, Nanzdietschweiler, Rehweiler and Matzenbach.

The following table shows population development over the centuries for Glan-Münchweiler:[13] Sources differ on the date of first documentary mention and the name’s original form.

According to Hans Weber, writing at regionalgeschichte.net, Glan-Münchweiler had its first documentary mention in 1333 as Monichwilari, derived from the Latin Monachorum Villa (“the monks’ estate”).

[16] The sources at least agree that Bettenhausen had its first documentary mention in 1393 but they differ as to whether the original name was Bottenhusen (Weber) or Bottenhausen (Volkert et al.).

About 820, some monks took over the Frankish estate that had been here and built the first, Romanesque chapel, which was consecrated to Saint Pirmin, for it had been he who had founded their monastery at Hornbach.

In 1771, the church’s nave was renovated, leading to the discovery of three Viergöttersteine that had been used as part of the foundation (a Viergötterstein is a sculpted stone of monumental size designed to support a Jupiter Column; its German name means “four-god stone” in reference to the godly images carved into each of its four sides).

It arose from the longstanding dispute over who had authority in the “Münchweiler Tal”, with both the Duke of Palatinate-Zweibrücken and the Counts of Leyen vying for supremacy.

It turned into a struggle between Protestants and Catholics over who held the post of parish priest (or pastor, as the case may be) and who got to use church property and income.

During the upheavals arising from French King Louis XIV’s Politique des Réunions, a further improvement in the Catholics’ favour arrived on the scene.

[1] The municipality’s arms might be described thus: Gules in base an inescutcheon azure a pale argent, issuant from behind which Saint Pirmin of the third vested, mitred and crined Or holding in his dexter hand a book of the field and in his sinister hand an abbot’s staff, the crook to sinister, of the fourth.

The inescutcheon azure a pale argent (that is, blue with a vertical silver stripe) is a reference to the village’s former allegiance to the House of Leyen, whose counts held the fief in Glan-Münchweiler from 1486 to 1794, and who bore such arms.

[19] The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[20] The traditional kermis (church consecration festival) is held on the second weekend in July.

There was a great expansion in trades, among them dealers in livestock, fruit, fertilizer, agricultural machinery, fat and coal as well as brewers and tanners.

The new political order in 1818 (the Palatinate had recently been awarded to the Kingdom of Bavaria by the Congress of Vienna) brought schooling decisive changes.

For the disparate village schools in the “Münchweiler Tal”, the eventual building of a combination primary school-Hauptschule in 1975 on the Galgenberg was an important advance.

Beginning in the 2000-2001 school year, the Hauptschule was run as part of the Regionalschule, thereby offering all students a nearby opportunity for education.

The building of the railway line between Landstuhl and Kusel in 1868 and of the one between Glan-Münchweiler and Homburg contributed considerably to improvements in transport links.

Nevertheless, the Autobahn and other highways, the railway and the river Glan have served as dividers and limits, greatly thwarting the village’s expansion, but there is now, given the favourable location with regard to transport and the high quality of living, a long and growing demand for building land.