Editing Westerwald (section)

==History==

===Early times===
Through prehistoric finds it can be determined that the [[Celts]] settled in the Westerwald and were using the iron ore deposits in the so-called [[Hallstatt culture|Hallstatt times]] ([[Iron Age]], roughly 750 to 500 BC). In all likelihood they came into the area from the [[Hunsrück]]. From [[La Tène culture|La Tène times]] come the Celtic ringwall-girded defensive and sheltering castles which may be found on, among other peaks, the Malberg. Already by La Tène times, [[Germanic peoples]] were thrusting in from the east and from the Sieg valley. They came about 380 BC into the Upper Westerwald, bypassing the High Westerwald, seeing it as nothing more than a trackless wooded wilderness, after which they eventually came up against the Rhine in the 2nd century.

===Roman times===
Even in the time when the Celts found themselves having to avoid the Germanic invaders by moving to the west, the [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] were also pushing in from the Rhine's left bank to the southwest. However, the Romans only managed to seize a strip of land on the Rhine's right bank and the so-called Rhine-Westerwald; the Westerwald itself lay outside the Roman-occupied area, for the Romans preferred to maintain a little-settled, most likely pathless wilderness as their border.

===Chatti times===
The Westerwald's permanent settlement and thereby its territorial history began with the [[Chatti]] (Hessians) pushing their way into the area after the Romans were driven out in the 3rd century. Placename endings such as '' –ar, –mar ''and'' –aha'' ("Haigraha" = [[Haiger]]) stemming from the [[Migration Period]] (''"Völkerwanderung"'') can still be found now. These lie around the forest's outer edges in basins and dales whose soils and climate were favourable to early settlers, and include, for instance, [[Hadamar]], [[Waldbrunn, Hesse|Lahr]] and [[Wetzlar]]. From the 4th to the 6th century, the settlements from the time of the taking of the land arose in formerly pathless areas, taking endings such as ''–ingen'' and ''–heim'', like [[Bellingen, Rhineland-Palatinate|Bellingen]] and [[Montabaur|Bladernheim]]; these lie on the broad, raised plains in the Upper Westerwald.

===Frankish times===
The [[Franks]] built their old settlements on the edge of the Westerwald in the central areas of their districts, to build up slowly and permanently strongholds in the interior. There arose places with names ending in ''–rode, –scheid, –hahn, –berg, –tal'' and ''–seifen''. Once clearing settlements had been established and logging for iron ore [[smelting]] was under way, the widespread destruction of the forest began.<ref>"Der Westerwald" by Hermann-Josef Roth (DuMont)</ref> Between the 6th and 9th centuries came settlement expansion from the old settlements towards the edges, a process still witnessed in placename endings such as ''–hausen, –hofen, –kirch, –burg'' or ''–tal''.<ref>"Das Westerwaldbuch", p. 33 ff. from the Westerwaldverein</ref>

===Middle Ages===
The last settlement period in the Westerwald began in the 10th century and ended about 1300. Through Carolingian policy and therefore the Trier and Cologne mission, this area underwent Christianization. Trier advanced up the Lahn, Cologne to the Rhine and Sieg. Trier-Lorrainian and Lower Rhine influences were nevertheless brought into the Westerwald. Among the witnesses to the art of building at that time is the monastery church at Limburg-[[Dietkirchen]], in its oldest parts.

After many changes in ownership between the [[Ottonian dynasty|Ottonian]] and [[Salian dynasty|Salian]] noble families, it was in the end the Counts of Sayn, Diez and Wied who managed to take hold of extensive landholdings. Particular importance was achieved by the Counts of Laurenburg, who later called themselves the Counts of [[Nassau, Germany|Nassau]]. In the east, the Landgraves of Hesse put it about that they could beat the Archbishopric of Mainz on the battlefield. Moreover, the Counts of Wied, the Counts of Sayn-Wittgenstein and the Electorate of Trier were all prominent landlords.

===Modern times===
Political relations were simplified until the 16th century. Among the four greater powers' spheres of influence (Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Hesse), the House of Nassau managed to expand and strengthen its hold on its territory on the [[Dill (river)|Dill]] between [[Siegen]] and [[Nassau, Germany|Nassau]]. After the Napoleonic upheavals, Nassau had to share broad swathes of the Westerwald with the newly minted power [[Prussia]]. A sovereign [[Duchy of Nassau]] existed until it was annexed by Prussia in 1866.

Nowadays, the Westerwald is shared among three German federal states: Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate.