Winkelhaid

Winkelhaid (German pronunciation: [ˈvɪŋkl̩haɪt]) is a municipality in the district of Nürnberger Land in Bavaria in Germany. It is situated 18 km southeast of Nuremberg in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Winkelhaid is bounded by (from the north and clockwise) the municipalities of Altdorf bei Nürnberg, Schwarzenbruck and Feucht.

History

Prehistory

Around 10 prehistoric sites demonstrate the progress in prehistoric research over the last 30 years. The oldest evidence of settlement is a site east of Penzenhofen, which indicates immigrants from southeastern Bavaria in the Middle Neolithic period, in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. From the Bronze Age until the turn of the millennium, the Winkelhaid area appears to have been repeatedly settled by humans, but the few excavated remains allow only cautious conclusions. There were probably two smaller settlements under the late Celts before traces disappeared for centuries.

Early Middle Ages

The least known district of Richthausen is possibly the oldest: The village of "Riuthusen" was probably founded as early as the 9th century during the reign of the descendants of Emperor Charlemagne. In the 12th century, a pottery workshop was added to the eastern edge of the village (today the location of the REWE supermarket), which probably existed until the early modern period.

From the beginning, the church village of Penzenhofen, located on the important Feucht-Altdorf road, was likely the most important part of Winkelhaid. It first appears in an Eichstätt document in 1129 and was the seat of the imperial servants Turinhart and Hartmann von Penzenhofen.