Antiquity Even as early as
prehistoric times, the area around Frohnhofen was inhabited by human beings, bearing witness to which are
archaeological finds from the time. A group of five prehistoric
barrows runs along a mountain comb in the Heidenbösch. Thus far, the time from which they stem has not been determined. A
Celtic grave that yielded weapons as
grave goods was inadvertently unearthed in 1994 during building work on the Sonnenberg. It is presumed that the area was settled continuously from the
Bronze Age until the
Roman conquest. There might have been a fairly long interruption in the otherwise continuous habitation of the area after the Romans withdrew and before the
Franks took over the land.
Middle Ages The area around Frohnhofen belonged in Frankish times to the Free Imperial Domain (
Reichsland) around the town and
castle of
Kaiserslautern and more locally to the court of Kübelberg, which beginning in 1312 was held as an Imperial pledge by a whole succession of secular lordships (the
Electorate of the Palatinate, the
County of Veldenz, the
County of Sponheim). This resulted in Frohnhofen most often being a border village, lying in the border lands where the Electorate of the Palatinate, the
County Palatine of Zweibrücken and the
Remigiusland met, and it was sometimes mentioned as being the seat of a lordly estate (whence the village’s name – see
below). In the confirmed 1387 mention of the village as
Frunhoven, the stress seems to fall more on Frohnhofen’s being a village at a lordly estate.
Modern times In a 1541
Weistum (a
Weistum –
cognate with
English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the
Middle Ages and early modern times), the Electorate of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken border’s alignment is the central topic. It mentions
Fronhoiffen, and is apparently identical to another document described as a
Weistum dating from 1355. Yet another
Weistum was handed down in 1545 by the lawmakers in
Altenkirchen which dealt with all the contributions that Fronhofen had to make to the family Blick von Lichtenberg, who held lands in both Altenkirchen and Frohnhofen. Contained in the listings for Altenkirchen is a special contribution for
fronhofen, which was obviously then seen as nothing more than an estate. In Tilemann Stella’s 1564
Beschreibung der Ämter Zweibrücken und Kirkel (“Description of the
Ämter of Zweibrücken and Kirkel”), the border is described, and Frohnhofen is mentioned, once again: “
Dieser marckstein stehet inn rotbuschen unnd schaidet Braitenbach unnd Fronhouen.” (“This borderstone stands in red bushes and divides
Breitenbach and Frohnhofen”; the part about “red bushes”, or
rotbuschen in the original text, might be a mistake for
Rotbuchen –
common beech trees). Even by this time, the village was still quite small. A 1592 Electorate of the Palatinate estimate listed the number of families as five, which would work out to roughly 20 inhabitants. Frohnhofen was lucky enough in the
Thirty Years' War not to have the killing and destruction visited on it as so many other villages in the region did, often dying right out as a result. Nevertheless, the population was roughly halved, and Frohnhofen could now hardly even be called a village. Going by the names that are known, the people there at the time were ones who had already been there before the war.
French King
Louis XIV’s wars of conquest thwarted any population growth in the late 17th century, and in 1701, only four families were counted in Frohnhofen. In the 18th century, though, there was strong growth in population figures, and by the end of the century,
emigration had even begun. In 1775, there were 110 inhabitants in 24 families living in Frohnhofen, and there were 17 private houses in the village and three communal houses. In 1779, Electorate of the Palatinate traded the
Amt of Kübelberg for the hitherto Zweibrücken-held villages of
Duchroth and
Oberhausen and part of the village of
Niederkirchen. Frohnhofen thereby became a Zweibrücken holding and belonged to that duchy until
French Revolutionary troops marched in during 1793, belonging administratively to the Zweibrücken
Oberamt of Homburg and the
Schultheißerei of Waldmohr.
Recent times In 1801,
France annexed the German lands on the
Rhine’s left bank. In
Napoleonic times, which ended in 1814, Frohnhofen belonged to the
Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Waldmohr, the
Canton of Waldmohr, the
Arrondissement of Saarbrücken and the
Department of
Sarre, whose seat was at
Trier. In 1814, the French withdrew from the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank. Frohnhofen passed first to the district of Ottweiler, and in 1816 to the
Baierischer Rheinkreis, the later
bayerische Rheinpfalz, the territory that the
Congress of Vienna awarded to the
Kingdom of Bavaria. With regard to local administration, Frohnhofen passed in 1818 to the
Landkommissariat (later
Bezirksamt and
Landkreis, or rural district) of Homburg and the
Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Altenkirchen in the Canton of Waldmohr. In the 19th century, a great number of the impoverished populace left the village and
emigrated to the
United States, mainly to
Ohio. After the
First World War, the district of Homburg was ceded to the
British- and French-
occupied Saar. A remnant district centred on
Waldmohr remained with Bavaria – now the Free State of Bavaria now that the
last king of Bavaria and the
Kaiser had
abdicated – and thus with Germany, too. It belonged with a branch location of the administration to the
Bezirksamt of Kusel, which remained in existence until 1940. After the Waldmohr branch administration had been dissolved, this mayoralty belonged administratively to the district of Kusel. In the course of administrative restructuring in
Rhineland-Palatinate, the Mayoralty of Altenkirchen was dissolved, and Frohnhofen became an
Ortsgemeinde in the
Verbandsgemeinde of Schönenberg-Kübelberg in 1972.
Population development Frohnhofen was a farming village, also known for its
cherry growing. Towards the end of the 18th century, collieries were opened in neighbouring villages, which also opened new earning opportunities to the inhabitants of Frohnhofen. Bit by bit, the village changed into one in which mostly miners lived, ones who were often called
Bergmannsbauern (“miner-farmers”). From the early 20th century,
diamond cutting in the area offered a further kind of livelihood. Population figures rose only slightly in the 19th century and in the early decades of the 20th century, but after the
Second World War, they rose rather more swiftly. Today, the village is a residential community for people in the most varied of occupations, who for the most part must
commute to earn a living. In terms of
religion, the great majority is
Evangelical. The following table shows population development over the centuries for Frohnhofen, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:
Municipality’s name Frohnhofen’s name refers to a lordly estate (
Herrenhof or
Fronhof in
German) that during the
Middle Ages stood somewhere in the middle of the village. The word
fron meant “belonging to the lord”. This word element still appears in German in
Frondienst (compulsory labour, originally for a lord) and
Fronleichnam (literally “dead body belonging to the Lord”, and thus meaning “
Corpus Christi”); the word
Fron by itself even still exists, although now it is a noun meaning “drudgery”. Frohnhofen had its first documented mention in 1387, which called it
Frunhoven. Since then, the village has borne the following names, among others:
Fronhoff (1437),
Fronhoiven (1541),
Fronhofen (1564),
Fronhoffen (1610). ==Religion==