Medard

The pretty old village church in the middle of the graveyard, the former school and the former Roman archaeological dig sites lie at the ends of the sidestreets that branch off the through road to the north.

Medard was once also noted for its great number of houses with crow-stepped gables, of which nowadays only a single example is preserved; it stands on Mühlenstraße.

Significant was the recovery of a silver coin struck in Pannonia, a quarter-stater with Zeus’s head on the obverse and an image of a rider on the reverse.

The archaeologists also discovered fragments of sculptures, one showing a female figure, grapevine shoots and a horn of plenty full of fruits.

In the Middle Ages, it is likely that many stone reliefs still lay all around in the ground, perhaps explaining the spolia from Roman times that can still be seen in the church walls today, showing such things as grapes and another female figure.

During renovation work on the church, three sandstone blocks from Roman times were discovered near the portal in 1988, of which one was originally used as an ossuary (repository for bone ash).

One side of this stone bears a well-preserved inscription that reads “[D M (for Dis Manibus)] ... us Ammosus et Amandia Mandina Conjux Regulo filio [su]orum et suo vivi fecer[unt]”, or in English, “...us Ammosus and his wife Amandia Mandina set [this grave monument] to their son Regulus and themselves to their lifetime.” The digs at the Roman settlement site resumed very extensively in 1995 and 1996 under Wolfgang Heinzelmann’s leadership on assignment from the Alt-Medard (“Old Medard”) Promotional Association and the State Office for Monument Care.

A bathing facility was only partially unearthed, but a drainage ditch was fully dug up, revealing a further series of single finds.

Originally, the estate of Medard lay in the Free Königsland, but was given by a Merovingian king into the ownership of the Bishops of Verdun, although it is unknown when this donation happened.

[7] In 1509 a lord was once again enfeoffed with Medard, this time Alexander, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, by the Bishopric Administrator Nikolaus von Verdun.

What clearly showed that this was nothing more than a symbolic deed anyway was Verdun's utter lack of influence when in 1537, Wolfgang, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken chose to introduce the Reformation into their domains.

Within today's Kusel district, de jure relations with Verdun in Lorraine barely still existed in the estate of Medard, which by now found itself in the Unteramt of Odenbach.

[8] During the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era that followed, the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank were annexed by France.

Between the Glan and the Nahe arose the Principality of Lichtenberg, a newly created exclave of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and the Oberamt of Meisenheim belonging to the Landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg.

Medard now lay within this Meisenheim body, whereas its neighbours on the Glan's right bank, Lauterecken and Odenbach, had been grouped into the bayerischer Rheinkreis, later known as Rheinpfalz (“Rhenish Palatinate”), an exclave of the Kingdom of Bavaria.

At first, Medard still lay in the Bad Kreuznach district within the Regierungsbezirk of Koblenz in the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Medardus, from Salency in France (also Saint Gildard’s birthplace), dedicated himself as a son of well-to-do parents to the poor, for whom he gave his whole fortune.

Among other forms of the name that have appeared over the ages are de Sancto Medardo (1223), Curtis S. Medardi (1235), apud Sanctum Mydehardum (1289) and Sant Medhard (1343).

The area in which the founding came about must have belonged to the Free Imperial Domain (Reichsland), for only thus could the estate of Medard have become a donation to the Bishop of Verdun.

However, beginning in 1588, Count Palatine Johannes I forced all his subjects to convert to Reformed belief as espoused by John Calvin.

The charge on the sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side is the municipality's patron saint, Medardus, who is also the village's namesake.

He is shown as a bishop, which is also a reference to the village's former allegiance to the Bishopric of Verdun, dating back to the Early Middle Ages.

[16][17] The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[18] The Romanesque church in the village is nowadays Evangelical.

It is also believed that it was then that two columns were removed from each of the nave's side walls to make the building into what is held in the Reformed tradition to be a church suited to sermons (Predigtkirche).

A business that marketed ceramic ware set up shop in the village after the Second World War, but ceased production a few years ago.

A major metal construction firm that makes window and door structures went into production in January 2000 on the road leading to Lauterecken.

All together, the businesses in the village fall far short of employing the whole available workforce, and thus many must commute to jobs elsewhere, mainly to Lauterecken, Meisenheim, Kaiserslautern and Bad Kreuznach.

In 1604, a man named Jost Drincker, at the same time a teacher in the Eßweiler Tal (dale), was supposed to be hired as a “German schoolmaster” in Medard.

About this schoolteacher it was reported that he possessed “besides the knowledge of educational sciences, the calling of a great artist in fabricating musical instruments”.

Among other things that he has published are Autoleien, Jeden Tag ein Lächeln (“Every Day a Smile”) and Liebesbriefe (“Love Letters”).

Coat of arms
Coat of arms