Only 25 years later, they went along with the Alamanni plundering the Moselle valley, leaving extensive destruction in their wake.

In 1128, Pünderich had its first documentary mention in a document in which Pope Honorius II bequeathed an estate in Pundricho to the Springiersbach Monastery.

An even older document describes a vineyard in the cadastral area of “Zinselt”, across the river from Pünderich near the former ford on the Moselle.

After the convent was dissolved in 1515 by Archbishop Richard von Greiffenklau, the nuns, under protest, had to move to “Mullay”, a forlorn dwelling diagonally across the river from Burg.

He suggested replacing the vaulting, which he found to be too flat and too weak, with a wooden ceiling and improvements to the roof frame.

The church that stands today is from 1766, as shown on the lintel above the lefthand entrance door.

The original entrance with formerly purely Gothic jambs is now glazed to make room for a spiral stairway up to the gallery.

According to the 1652 taxation roll, Pünderich had 56 winepressing centres, which said a good deal about the state of winegrowing in the municipality.

The “Black Death” is estimated to have claimed 25 million lives, or roughly one third of Europe's population.

It wiped out whole villages and great swathes of land and had a profound effect on mediaeval people's view of the world, and on economic life.

The losses were far worse in some nearby places (Briedel 26%; Zell 27.3%; Kaimt 36.2%; Alf 36.6%; Bremm 55%; Ediger 44.2%).

The year 1784 wrought catastrophe throughout Europe, and brought the river Moselle its greatest ever flood.

After the frightful ice flows from 24 to 26 February, the Moselle's waters rose until on 29 February, the flood reached the high water mark set in the 1740 flood, eventually exceeding it by three Schuh (roughly a metre).

In the latter half of the 19th century, agricultural life was marked by bad harvests and famines, prompting many to turn their backs on the village and emigrate to North America or Brazil.

This hit Pünderich hard, shrinking its population from just under 800 to roughly 300, as just under 500 people left between 1850 and 1900.

Under the Verwaltungsvereinfachungsgesetz (“Administration Simplification Law”) of 18 July 1970, with effect from 7 November 1970, the municipality was grouped into the Verbandsgemeinde of Zell.

It is also the local vineyard's namesake, and the 786 m-long railway slope viaduct, too, bears its name.

Up from the church on Düppelstraße, the quarrystone Eichhäuschen – the building where measuring standards were enforced – still stands.

The Saufbähnchen was closed in 1960, although the station still stands in the village, and the other one fell victim to electrification in 1974.

Pünderich is a popular holiday destination, partly because it is among the few places on the Moselle whose riverfront is cut off by neither a road nor a railway.