page_title: Gerolstein
section_title: Bewingen
hierarchical_section_title: Gerolstein / History / Bewingen
caption_attribution_description: English: Ruins of the Kasselburg
context_page_description: Gerolstein is a town in the Vulkaneifel district of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Gerolstein is a local municipality of the Verbandsgemeinde Gerolstein. It has been approved as a Luftkurort.
context_section_description: Bewingen is Gerolstein's northernmost outlying centre, or Stadtteil, located three kilometres (about 1.86 miles) from the town center. Here, the Kyll river flows in a great arc around the mighty dolomite and basalt massif that juts out from the west, eastwards. The valley narrows and there is only enough room for the railway line, a field road, and the river itself. The road finds its way to Gerolstein over the Bewinger Höhe (heights), thus shortening the way to the nearby middle centre. The local lay of the land was brought about by volcanic activity that created two volcanic peaks—the Kasselburg massif, with the Burlich and the Hahn ("Cock") on the Kyll river's west bank, and the Rockeskyller Kopf on the east—whose volcanic minerals and deposits of lava, ash, and cinders during the Quaternary period narrowed the river valley.
  The place-name ending —ingen points to early Frankish settlement. Bewingen was first mentioned in a document in 1218 as a holding of the church and monastery of Niederehe. From that mention it is known that the Brothers Theoderich, Alexander, and Albero, from Castle Kerpen, established an endowment for the Premonstratensian nuns in the years between 1162 and 1175. The next documentary mention came in 1282, when "Gerhard VI of Blankenheim" acquired the land, as well as Steffeln, Niederbettingen, and Bewingen. In the Middle Ages, the lords at Kasselburg (a castle in Pelm) and those at Castle Gerhardstein (Gerolstein) held lands and tithing rights in the village. In the time of French rule, beginning in 1794, Bewingen was assigned to the Mairie ("Mayoralty") of Rockeskyll, and the village remained within the Bürgermeisterei (also "Mayoralty") of Rockeskyll up to Prussian times. The formerly self-administering municipality of Bewingen was amalgamated with the town of Gerolstein in 1969.
  One of the oldest buildings is the small chapel consecrated to Saint Brice, which underwent repairs in 1744 and 1745. Its Late Gothic choir suggests that there was an earlier church here, built perhaps around 1500.
caption: Kasselburg ruins at Pelm (near Gerolstein)
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