Zweibrücken

Zweibrücken (German pronunciation: [ˈt͡svaɪˌbʁʏk(ɘ)n]) is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach river.

Name

Zweibrücken appears in Latin texts as Geminus Pons and Bipontum, in French texts as Deux-Ponts. The name derives from Middle High German Zweinbrücken (literally twin-bridge, double-bridge, two bridges). In modern German the name means two-bridges.

History

The town was the capital of the former Imperial State of Palatinate-Zweibrücken owned by the House of Wittelsbach. The ducal castle is now occupied by the high court of the Palatinate (Oberlandesgericht). There is a fine Gothic Protestant church, Alexander's church, founded in 1493 and rebuilt in 1955.

From the end of the 12th century, Zweibrücken was the seat of the County of Zweibrücken, the counts being descended from Henry I, youngest son of Simon I, Count of Saarbrücken (d. 1182). The line became extinct on the death of Count Eberhard II (1394), who in 1385 had sold half his territory to the Count Palatine of the Rhine, and held the other half as his feudal domain. Louis (d. 1489), son of Stephen, founded the line of the counts palatine of Zweibrücken (Palatinate-Zweibrücken). In 1533, the count palatine converted Palatinate-Zweibrücken to the new Protestant faith. In 1559, a member of the line, Duke Wolfgang, founded the earliest grammar school in the town (Herzog-Wolfgang-Gymnasium), which lasted until 1987.