, 1655
Antiquity Even before the
Romans came, people lived here, because the location favoured transport, being at the confluence of the Nahe and Rhine Rivers, and the Rhine's entry into the gorge. The first settlement seems to have been a
Celtic (
Gaulish) settlement by the name of
Binge – meaning "rift". In the early first century AD, Roman troops were stationed in Bingen on the Rhine Valley Road, and rendered the local name as
Bingium in
Latin. There the Romans erected a wooden bridge across the Nahe and constructed a
bridgehead castrum. A Roman
Mithraic monument, which included a mutilated sculpture representing the nativity of Mithra from a rock, was discovered in Bingen; one of its inscriptions is dated 236.
Medieval period The presbyter Aetherius of Bingen founded sometime between 335 and 360 a firmly Christian community. Bearing witness to this time is Aetherius's gravestone, which can still be seen in Saint Martin's Basilica. After the
fall of the
Limes, the town became a
Frankish royal estate and passed in 983 by the Donation of Verona from
Otto II to Archbishop
Willigis of Mainz. Under
Otto III the
Binger Kammerforst (forest) came into being. Under Willigis, some way up the river Nahe, the stone
Drususbrücke (bridge) was built. The inhabitants of Bingen strove time and again for independence, which led in 1165 through disputes between the Archbishop of Mainz and the Emperor to destruction. In the 13th century, Bingen was a member of the
Rhenish League of Towns. The building of
Klopp Castle (
Burg Klopp) in the mid 13th century could well be seen as being tied in with this development. A last attempt was the town's unsuccessful participation in the
German Peasants' War in 1525. From the Archbishop the Cathedral Chapter of Mainz acquired the town in two halves in 1424 and 1438. Until the late 18th century Bingen remained under its administration. Like many towns in the valley, Bingen suffered several town fires and wars.
Modern period From 1792 to 1813, the town was, as part of the
département of
Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg – both names meaning "Thunder Mountain"), French after
French Revolutionary troops had occupied the Rhine's left bank. In 1816, after the
Congress of Vienna, the town passed to the
Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt while today's outlying centre of Bingerbrück went to
Prussia's
Rhine Province, making Bingen a border town until 1871, when the
German Empire was founded. On 7 June 1969, the formerly Prussian municipality of Bingerbrück was amalgamated. On 22 April 1972 came Dromersheim's and Sponsheim's amalgamation with Bingen. The epithet
am Rhein has been borne since 1 July 1982. For the State Garden Show in 2008 in Bingen, the Rhineside areas in the town underwent extensive modernization.
Jewish history Benjamin of Tudela mentioned a Jewish community in Bingen in the mid-12th century. Christian inhabitants attacked the small Jewish quarter on
Rosh Hashanah in 1198 or 1199, and the Jews were driven from the city. Jews again lived in Bingen as moneylenders in the middle of the 13th century under the jurisdiction of the
archbishop of Mainz. In 1343,
French Jews settled in Bingen. In 1405, the archbishop declared a moratorium on one-fifth of the debts owed to Jews by Christians, and subsequently the archbishops repeatedly extorted large sums. Noted rabbis who taught in the small community included Seligmann Oppenheim, who convened the Council of Bingen (1455–56) in an unsuccessful attempt to establish his authority over the whole of
Rhineland Jewry. After the proposal was opposed by Moses Minz, the matter was referred to Isaac Isserlein, who rejected the project. The Jews were again expelled from Bingen in 1507, and did not return until the second half of the 16th century. The Jewish population was 465 in 1933, and 222 in 1939 due to flight and emigration. The 169 Jews who remained in Bingen in 1942 were sent to concentration camps, and only four ultimately returned. The synagogue was demolished in 1945, and the community was not reestablished after World War II. ==Politics==