Theisberg and Stegen Deinsberge (Theisberg), which lies east of the river Glan, had its first documentary mention in 992. Stegen, which lies across the river, on the other hand, arose later and was not mentioned until 1364 as
Stegin. Theisberg was the seat of the
Amt of Deinsberg-Reichenbach and belonged until the early 14th century to the
Imperial Domain (
Reichsland) around
Kaiserslautern. As in
Kübelberg and
Wolfstein, it could be that a
castle was built at Theisbergstegen in
Emperor Barbarossa's time to safeguard the western frontier; it also, as “Deinsburg”, gave a family of lesser nobility its name. After a newer castle, the Michelsburg, was built on the Remigiusberg, the older one was called, fittingly enough,
Alte Burg (“Old Castle”). Stegen still belonged to the
Remigiusland and more locally to the
Schultheißerei of Pfeffelbach. In 1600, the Duchy of
Palatinate-Zweibrücken ceded the village to its sideline Palatinate-Veldenz, who assigned it to the
Schultheißerei of Reichenbach in the
Oberamt of Lauterecken. On 10 July 1715, the village of Theisberg was merged with the village of Stegen. In the early 19th century (1802), there were 144 inhabitants living in Theisbergstegen, whose numbers climbed to 228 persons in 60 households by 1867. Today, 392 people live in Theisbergstegen's main centre (not counting Godelhausen). The historical built-up area can be found near the church, in the area around the mill at the bridge across the Glan and north of the Rödelbach on the slope of the Remigiusberg. Standing in Theisberg in the mid 19th century were mostly great, individual estate complexes, for instance, the huge
Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street) at Hauptstraße 17 and the
Quereinhaus built in 1835 at Friedhofweg 7/9, whereas over in Stegen stretched a whole row of small, even tiny, properties. Between the two villages stood the village mill, which had been rebuilt in the 18th century, and which in 1868 was converted, and run in the early 20th century as a sawmill. The
weir that lay before the mill, like the old bridge, has since disappeared. In the latter half of the 19th century, a fire engine hall was built in Theisberg at the foot of Kirchstraße (near no. 2 on that street).
Godelhausen The village of Godelhausen, nowadays an
Ortsteil of Theisbergstegen, had its first documentary mention in 1364 as
Godelsauwe. It belonged to the
Schultheißerei of Pfeffelbach in the
Oberamt of Lichtenberg. Before the
Thirty Years' War, in 1609, there were 56 people here in 15 households. By 1675 – the war had ended in 1648 – only three families had settled once again in Godelhausen. In 1677 the village was destroyed once again in the
Franco-Dutch War. In the early 19th century (1802), there were 98 inhabitants living in Godelhausen, whose numbers climbed to 217 persons in 44 households by 1867. Today, 329 people live in Theisbergstegen's outlying centre of Godelhausen. Standing in Godelhausen in the mid 19th century were a few great
Quereinhäuser (plural of
Quereinhaus), standing mostly in a row, gable-to-gable, along Bergstraße. Although a number of estates with forward gables had already been springing up along the road that leads to Theisbergstegen, the village actually first began spreading out from the
schoolhouse, built in 1829, towards the south. Only in the early 20th century did the built-up area spread northwards across the brook. The oldest building still standing in the village is the dwelling wing of a former
Quereinhaus (Hauptstraße 33), which was built in 1769. The rest of the buildings in Godelhausen today have a 19th-century appearance. At Hauptstraße 67 stands the Godelhausen Mill, which was renovated in 1788 and in 1903 converted to a waterworks for
Kusel according to plans by Regional Master Builder (
Bezirksbaumeister) Kleinhans.
Antiquity The Potzberg area was already settled in
prehistoric times, to which
archaeological finds bear witness. There have never been any confirmed
prehistoric finds within Theisbergstegen's current limits. However, potsherds and bones from prehistoric times have supposedly been found, although their origins, and even their current whereabouts, are now unknown. Also apparently found was a “Gaulish coin”, which has disappeared. There was a
Roman settlement whose whereabouts are no longer known, but it has yielded
cremation graves, unearthed in the course of building work, and two pieces of stone in the outer wall masonry at Saint Peter's Church (
Peterskirche) that are
spolia from grave monuments. Two pieces of a
Viergötterstein – a
Jupiter Column base – that until 1834 were to be found in the church's quire are now kept at the
Historisches Museum der Pfalz (Historical Museum of the Palatinate) in
Speyer.
Middle Ages According to old descriptions, the area on the Glan's left bank lay in the
Remigiusland while the area on the Glan's right bank lay in the free
Imperial Domain (
Reichsland) around
Kaiserslautern. Thus the village of Stegen belonged to the
Remigiusland while the village of Theisberg belonged to the Imperial Domain. Just when the two villages were founded nobody can say. Certainly, though, Theisberg is older than Stegen. Theisberg's 992 first documentary mention was in a document issued by
Emperor Otto III in which Bishop Hildibald of
Worms transferred to Count Wolfram the tithes from all the bishopric's holdings in the wooded lands on the
Rhine’s left bank against which the bishopric took ownership of commodities in the area of the villages of
Altenglan and
Deinesberge (Theisberg). This, however, does not seem to make much sense, and it would also seem that the Bishop of Worms took liberties in this deal to which he was not entitled. Whatever the truth is, a village named Deinsberg near a castle of that same name already existed at the time that the document was issued. Indeed, it might have been founded centuries earlier. In the free Imperial Domain around Kaiserslautern, to which Theisberg belonged, though, the record shows no episcopal holdings. What the record does show, however, is that Theisberg was not only an ecclesiastical centre but also the seat of an
Amt in an
Unteramt of the free Imperial Domain, possibly taking turns in that function with
Reichenbach. It is likely that Stegen had not yet arisen by 992. Since the so-called
Remigiusland was always endangered by neighbouring
free nobles’ encroachment, it was given over in the early 12th century to Count Gerlach from the
Nahegau as a lordly protectorate, a
Vogtei. It was at this time that the Monastery on the Remigiusberg came into being, and it can be assumed that until this time, the area had been governed by a branch of the
Abbey of Saint-Remi in
Reims. Count Gerlach, out of his own holdings and the
Vogteien that he held over extensive ecclesiastical holdings, founded the
County of Veldenz, to which, right from the beginning, Stegen belonged, whereas Theisberg across the Glan – that is, the border – remained in the free Imperial Domain. In 1345, there was a change in the territorial arrangement when Count Georg I acquired by pledge the
Amt of Reichenbach or Deinsberg (its name depended on where the seat happened to be at any given time), within which lay Deinsberg (Theisberg). This swept the Glan border away, and both Theisberg and Stegen found themselves under the same lordship, albeit for now within different
Unterämter. In 1364, Count Heinrich II's son, also named Heinrich – indeed he later became Count Heinrich III of Veldenz – lived together with his young wife Lauretta of
Sponheim at
Lichtenberg Castle. All villages that then belonged to the Veldenz
Unteramt of Altenglan had to pay tribute to this young comital couple. Accordingly, Count Heinrich II had a document drawn up that listed every village in what was then the
Unteramt of Altenglan, including Stegen. In 1444, Count Friedrich III, the last Count of Veldenz, died. His daughter Anna had been married to Count Palatine Stephan since 1409. He took his inherited holdings from the
Electorate of the Palatinate and the County of Veldenz that Anna had just inherited and combined them to found a new County Palatine, known in the fullness of time as the Duchy of
Palatinate-Zweibrücken.
Modern times In 1543, in the so-called Treaty of Marbach, Duke Wolfgang of Zweibrücken transferred to his uncle Ruprecht lands for the founding of his own County Palatine. These were the village of
Veldenz on the
Moselle,
Lauterecken and the
Ämter of Jettenbach and Reichenbach (Deinsberg). The new County Palatine, which later also included
Lützelstein (now called La Petite-Pierre) in
Alsace, bore the name Palatinate-Veldenz, and later Palatinate-Veldenz-Lützelstein. At first, the only residence town was Lauterecken, but later Lützelstein, too, grew into another residence town. The founding of this new County Palatine once again put a border along the river Glan, even as Count Palatine Ruprecht lived at the Michelsburg (
castle) on the Remigiusberg. Theisberg and Stegen were once again split asunder. Through the so-called
Recess of Meisenheim in 1600, though, the villages of
Haschbach and Stegen, too, passed to Palatinate-Veldenz-Lützelstein, putting Theisberg and Stegen under the same lordship once more, and indeed it would only be just over a century before the two villages were lastingly united into one municipality. In the meantime, wars ravaged the land: the
Thirty Years' War and the wars with
France under King
Louis XIV. As in all the villages around
Kusel, the two villages on the Glan suffered losses among their inhabitants. The County Palatine of Veldenz-Lützelstein died out in the late 17th century, which triggered disputes over ownership of the defunct county's holdings between Palatinate-Zweibrücken and the
Electorate of the Palatinate. It was in the midst of these disputes, in 1715, that Theisberg and Stegen were united into one municipality. In the so-called Mannheim Compromise of 1735, Palatinate-Veldenz-Lützelstein was assigned to the Electorate of the Palatinate. In 1788, the geographer Goswin Widder wrote of Theisbergstegen, now in the Electorate of the Palatinate
Oberamt of Lauterecken: “Deinsberg and Stegen together make up a municipality and are commonly written Theisberg-Stegen. … In both
hamlets one counts no more than 25 families, 130 souls. Nevertheless, 1 church, 1 rectory, 2 schools, 22 townsmanly and mean houses are on hand.”
Recent times The
French Revolution swept the old order of
feudal lordships away. After the founding of the
French Department of
Sarre with its capital at
Trier in 1801, Theisbergstegen lay in the
Canton of Kusel in the
Arrondissement of Birkenfeld. In the
Bavarian time that followed, the village first belonged to the
Landkommissariat of Kusel and took turns with Godelhausen as seat of a
Bürgermeisterei (“mayoralty”). The municipality that exists today was newly formed on 7 June 1969 out of the municipalities of Theisbergstegen and Godelhausen as a result of administrative restructuring in
Rhineland-Palatinate.
Population development Both Theisberg and Stegen were originally farming villages, but in the latter half of the 19th century, the number of working families was already growing quickly with the opening of the quarries on the Remigiusberg. Working families moved to the village, which explains why the population rose so quickly, and also partly why the
Catholic share of the population also swelled, from its original 20% to 40% in the mid 20th century. Even before this, Stegen had grown in the 18th century to be the bigger of the two villages. Today, neither
agriculture nor stone quarrying employs many workers. Theisbergstegen has grown into a residential community for people of the most varied professions, of whom only a few actually work in the village, and who often must
commute far to their jobs. The proportion of pensioners in Theisbergstegen is relatively high. The following table shows population development over the centuries for Theisbergstegen, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:
Municipality’s name The name Theisbergstegen is a fusion of two villages’ names, Theisberg and Stegen. The name Theisberg, first mentioned as
Deinesberge in a 992 document from
Emperor Otto III, might have been an earlier name for the Potzberg, on whose slope a
castle and a village arose. The ending
—berg still means “mountain” in
Modern High German, and as for the syllable prefixed to it, writer Martin Dolch traces this to a personal name,
Degin or
Dagin. An earlier writer,
Ernst Christmann, interpreted the first part of name as
Donar, particularly as the village's church was consecrated to
Saint Peter (
see “
Donar's Oak”). Other forms of the name that have been used are:
Denesberc (1219),
Deynsberg (1221),
Denisberg (1253),
Deusberch (1309),
Deinßberg (1567),
Theisberg (1788),
Deinsberg (1822). The name Stegen first appears as
Stegin in a well known document from 1364 from Count Heinrich II of Veldenz, according to which the dwellers of the
Unteramt of Altenglan-Ulmet had to lend material support to the young Count Heinrich and his wife Lauretta. It dealt with the settlement by a small bridge that led across to the village of Theisberg. The name also crops up later, with only the odd minor variation.
Vanished villages Rural cadastral names in the area point to a village named Wetzenhausen, although this lay within Haschbach's current limits. Other vanished villages are unknown. ==Religion==