Hottenbach

Hottenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Herrstein-Rhaunen, whose seat is in Herrstein. The municipality lies on the Ebesbach in the Hunsrück southeast of the Idar Forest. Hottenbach borders in the north on the municipality of Stipshausen, in the northeast on the municipalities of Rhaunen and Sulzbach, in the southeast on the municipality of Oberhosenbach, in the south on the municipalities of Weiden and Asbach, in the southwest on the municipality of Hellertshausen and in the west on the municipality of Morbach (Bernkastel-Wittlich district). Also belonging to Hottenbach is the outlying homestead of Hottenbacher Mühlen. The first traces of human habitation go back to prehistoric times. Unearthed in the Vierherrenwald (“Four-Lord Forest”) was a stone axe from the New Stone Age (about 3500–1800 BC). Most archaeological finds, though, come from Roman times. As the Hottenbach church was being torn down in 1903, Roman brickwork was discovered along with sandstone blocks and a hypocaust, which all point to a Roman villa rustica. On Langmes, not far from the old long-distance path from the Nahe to the Moselle, a burying ground with 60 to 70 cremation pits was found. At the municipal limit with Oberhosenbach once stood a small temple. Roman life is believed to have ended when the Germanic invaders came in AD 275 and 276. The village that stands now had its first documentary mention in 1181 under the name Hattinbach. The name itself comes from the personal name Hatto, which has been linked with the Hattonids, a comital house in Carolingian times whose influence stretched through the years 756 to 843. The seeds from which the village sprang were the two lordly estates down from and up from the church, which were held by the Hunsrück noble family of Wiltberg, who also had at their disposal the local lordship and the church patronage.