In ancient times, the western part of early Belgium was crossed by the
"via regalis" linking Divodurum (Metz) to Mongotiacum (Mainz) and Borbetomagus (Worms) via the future Villa Luthra (Kaiserslautern). It crossed at the current place called Champ noir, between the current Saarbrücken and Homburg, the road linking
Augusta Trevorum (Trier), capital of the Roman or secessionist Gauls, and Argentoratum (Strasbourg) along the Saravus valley (Saar) via Martiaticum (Merzig) and Pons Saravi (Saarburg).
The Far West of the Palatinate (880-1525) An intermediate zone between the centers of power Springing on the borders of Upper Germania from the cities of the Treveri, which occupy the lower Moselle, for its northern part and of the Mediomatrici, which are upstream, for its southern part, then respectively from the dioceses of the archbishop of Trier and the bishop of Metz, this territory emerges from the High Middle Ages by its margins: • in 903, the Franconian
Gebhard, Count of Rheingau, attached to his own domain, the heart of the future Palatinate, the title of
Duke of Lotharingia, with which the future Westrich made the connection • in 982,
Sarrebourg, a commercial stopover towards Alsace, obtained from the bishop of Metz the right to mint coins • between 1047 and 1048, the Alsatian
Adalbert, Duke of Lorraine, had the castle of Langenstein built, the base of the
county of Salm • in 1074, Conrad II the Salic, Count of Speyer, made Lautern an imperial court • in 1152,
Frederick of Hohenstaufen made it the residence of the King of the Romans while installing his younger brother,
Conrad, in Heidelberg at the head of the Palatinate • In 1179, the
Treaty of Ribemont separated the future Westrich from Upper Lotharingia
Development and birth of Westrich in the 13th century The Westrich acquired its name in the following century. the oldest that remains. Its fiefs are described in many later documents including, a century and a half later, a map by Nicholas of Cusa, a Westrichois by birth. This name, which means
kingdom or
region of the West in German, indicates a settlement around a few agricultural and forest lordships, such as that of the
Wild Counts of Salm, and a few isolated abbeys, such as that of Herbitzheim, organized from the right bank of the Rhine west of the Rhine.
Social upheavals closing the Middle Ages Economic and demographic development did not go without exacerbating the conflicts between the bourgeoisie and the local nobility, who sometimes tried not to deviate by taking on the positions of ironmaster or master glassmaker. As early as 1381, Sarreck Castle was burned down by the merchants of Sarrebourg. Eighty-three years later, on November 2, 1464, the central power was forced to intervene and the Duke of Lorraine, John of Anjou and Calabria, took Sarrebourg to make it a permanent garrison. The downgrading in the face of the triumphant bourgeoisie of the minor nobility, unable to provide for the army and reduced to theft and vendetta that followed, competed with by the infantry of the Landsknechts and Swiss in the service of rich bankers, tempted by the secularization of the clergy's property and encouraged by the Lutheran protest, provoked the mutiny of the knights of the Palatinate. It was led during the years 1522 and 1523 in the Westrich by a union formed, like the Swabian League, around Franz von Sickingen, lord of Nanstein Castle. This year of violence marked a collapse of the social order and a halt to the preeminence of the Count Palatine and the Elector, Prince Archbishop of Trier, in the region. This was followed in 1525 by the "Herbitzheim upheaval", a gathering place for the "peasants" of Bliesgau, Saargau and the German bailiwick of Lorraine leaving to join Erasmus Gerber in Saverne in his war against the Peasants. The repression led by Duke Antoine gave him, in the eyes of his imperial peers, the legitimacy to establish an order in a region known to be savage within the Circle of the Rhine, which the Counter-Reformation would very quickly come to its aid.
The Vastum Regnum and the Duchy of Lorraine (1526-1659) Lorraine expansionism From then on, the Vosges part of the Westrich became the object of the progressive and systematic expansionism of the Duchy of Lorraine, already present in the lower part since the condominium on Merzig concluded in 1368 by Raoul the Valiant with the Archbishop of Trier. The pressure of the Dukes of Lorraine was considerably reinforced following the Peasants' War, the progressive conception of a fighting Catholicism, and a "frontier of Catholicity"; the uniqueness and internal complementarity of the Westrich would succumb during the most terrible phase, the European conflict of the Thirty Years' War. Successively fell into the ban of the House of Lorraine, by increasing its German bailiwick up to the current Franco-German borders and the lower third of the current Land of Saarland : • in 1527,
the county of Sarrewerden • in 1560,
the county of Blâmont • in 1562, - the city of
Sarrebourg militarily occupied for a century, the town of
Sarralbe • in 1571, the county of
Deux-Ponts-Bitche • in 1576, the castellany of Hombourg - Saint-Avold, purchased in 1581 directly by the Duke of Lorraine, Charles III • in 1584,
Phalsbourg • in 1591, by marriage, an undivided half of the county of
Salm • in 1593,
Marsal • in 1600,
Turquestein • in 1623,
Lixheim • In 1629, the county of
Sarrewerden was militarily confiscated by its overlord
The Reformation and the division of Westrich This annexation of 1629, with that of
Bockenheim, was ratified by an agreement with the Protestant Nassau. In 1556, during the Council of Trent, the Lutheran Reformation had been introduced by preachers close to the co-prince
Adolf of Nassau in
Sarrewerden, in conflict with the Duke of Lorraine, in the county of
Sarrewerden. This was the origin of its future attachment to Alsace. The reform concerned education, by opening establishments, worship, by training priests, administration, by eliminating Catholics, and morals, by prohibiting festivals such as the Saint-Jean fires. In 1575, it was the county of
Saarbrücken, newly led by
Philip IV of
Nassau-Weilburg, which had been reformed by the preacher Gebhardt Beilstein. The annexation of 1629 therefore exposed the inhabitants of the county to the Counter-Reformation.
The Thirty Years' War Westrich was hit hard by the Thirty Years' War and some areas were depopulated. For example, Saarbrücken lost at least 60% of its population. In 1635, Matthias Gallas, in the service of the Catholic League, founded by the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria and led by the Duke of Lorraine in exile, besieged Deux-Ponts defended by Reinhold von Rosen in the service of the Protestant Union, founded by the Wittelsbachs of the Palatinate and allied with France. The city was razed. The population of Kaiserslautern was massacred or driven out by the Croats of Gallas ' lieutenant, Melchior von Hatzfeldt twice, in July on the way there, in November on the way back. Berus, because it belonged to Lorraine, was destroyed by the Swedish armies of Axel Oxenstierna, allied with France since the Treaty of Barwald on the Protestant side. The city was not rebuilt until forty-five years later, seven kilometers downstream, under the name of Saarlouis. Two years later, in 1637, there were only seventy survivors in destroyed Saarbrücken. Epidemics of plague and famines followed.
The Franco-Swedish Saar (1660-1815) Around 1665, Sarreck, Fénétang, Sarrewerden, Sarralbe, Sarreguemines and Bitche were formed by the Duke of Lorraine Charles IV into a duchy of "Sareland" for the benefit of his adulterous son, the Prince of Vaudémont, which duchy returned in 1707 to the Duke of Lorraine. This did not prevent the Kingdom from continuing its policy of encircling imperial Lorraine. In 1677, following the Battle of Consarbrück, Saarbrücken was burned down, with only eight houses remaining standing. In 1680, the troops of Marshal Duras invested Deux-Ponts. Immediately the Saar (county of Saarbrücken increased by the region of Saarlouis) and the bossue Alsace (county of Sarrewerden), as a temporal part of the diocese of Metz, one of the Three Bishoprics, were reunited with France, as were Alsace and Franche -Comté, and Saarlouis was founded. The entire region was occupied up to the Rhine and the Saar was entrusted to an intendant, Antoine Bergeron de la Goupillière. In 1690, despite the protests of the Archbishop of Trier, this confiscation was confirmed by the Treaty of Ryswick on the sole bailiwick of Saarlouis, possession of the ousted Duke of Lorraine, and the following year, on the death without issue of its Duke, the Palatinate-Deux-Ponts was transmitted to the King of Sweden, an ally of France, which did not evacuate its troops and dissolve the intendancy until 1697. Between the two foreign powers, the county of Saarbrücken, restored to Nassau-Ottweiler and Nassau-Saarbrücken, became in the 18th century a pole of development attracting Huguenots and other Protestant refugees, the hub of the future Saar. This stabilization, exceptional for two centuries, would last until 1780. It also benefited the Lorraine side of Westrich where Duke Leopold favored immigrants from Tyrol and Switzerland who came to repopulate a devastated country. Some lordships of this area continued to form Germanic enclaves in ducal Lorraine and in the kingdom of France, until the Revolution which ousted the possessed princes to unify the national territory. The Treaty of Paris in 1815 brought about a final change of border by shifting Saarlouis and the valley of the middle Saar, Lorraine for almost half a millennium, to the Prussian side. == Cities ==