Kirchberg - Frankish settlement

The early mediaeval settlement of Kirchberg is only comprehensible in part.
Excavations inside the Michaelskirche revealed several stages of  construction  dating  back to the 8th century. The early mediaeval settlement of Kirchberg, which corresponds to its oldest church could, hitherto, not be found.
Kirchberg, the antique Dumnissus, is the oldest town in the Hunsrück area. During Roman times it was an important settlement on the main road, the location and name of which is passed down on an antique street map.
Although no trace of the old name remains in today’s Kirchberg it is generally assumed that the town district name Denzen derives linguistically from Dumnissus.
With the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century the thoroughfares fell into disuse and the settlement’s importance also diminished. 
Only slowly, with the gradual growth of trade, did the old Roman road regain its role and new settlements begin to spring up along the way.
Since the 8th century, as the population has grown in the riverside areas, there have been clearance phases in the densely forested Hunsrück in order to make space  for settlement. At the beginning of the 12th century this resettlement was considered essentially to have been completed.
In 995 mediaeval written sources make reference to an estate  - “praedium Domnissa dictum”. The Roman settlement of Dumnissus had become a royal estate of the Franks.
The estate was presumably located about 1 km north-east of the Kirchberg town centre, that is to say, in Denzen, the earlier Dumnissus. An extremely favourable settlement site is located in the head valley or source of the Heimbach stream.
The Franks lived in village-like settlements in lightly constructed houses.  Proximity to a watercourse was a very important factor when choosing a site on which to settle.
The settlement spread out, up a gentle incline, on the dryer ground. Their burial site was located, in the main, 200 to 400m uphill.
Definite proof of the early mediaeval settlement of Kirchberg are the Frankish graves, complete with burial gifts of weapons, dating from the 7th or 8th century . These were discovered outside the mediaeval city walls to the east of Kirchberg in 1894.
In the church of Michaelskirche  the foundations of the choir date back to the second phase of the its development.  It was here that a slab from an 8th century tomb was discovered. On it, faintly visible, are the latin words; ‘here… resting in peace’.
The find is dated, with some reservation, to the 6th or 7th century, thus determining the earliest date of a post-Roman settlement in Kirchberg .
In Frankish times the Kirchberg townscape may have appeared as follows:
Located at the highest point was a small church, a hall type structure which stood not far from the old Roman thoroughfare, surrounded by a loose configuration of smaller granges. A larger estate was to be found in the area of the head valley of the stream. Located near to the church was a graveyard.
Through the centuries building work in the Kirchberg town centre has to a large extent destroyed the mediaeval and Roman settlements. 

[Martin Thoma]