two hectares. Magnetic investigations show a gate in the eroded northern part. Thus far, no building within the site has been found, and during digs, no datable finds were unearthed. Private finds from this area point to the likelihood of a marsh camp from Augustus’s time Middle Ages In a donation document from the Lorsch Abbey dated 12 August 772, Niederbrechen and Oberbrechen had their first documentary mention under the name Brachina (“at the mountain slope”). In the time that followed, ownership of the two places passed to St. Maximin's Abbey at Trier. Over many centuries, ownership shifted back and forth between the Electorate of Trier and the Counts of Molsberg. The communities had importance as they lay on the long-distance trade road between Cologne and Frankfurt (Via Publica) as advance posts of Electorate of Trier territory for those going towards Frankfurt. Niederbrechen temporarily held town rights in the Middle Ages and had a town wall, parts of which are still preserved today. The Berger Kirche has existed since Carolingian times and was the region's mother church. It was the local church for the now abandoned village of Bergen – hence the church's name – which is believed to have vanished sometime between 1354 and 1490. The church's first documentary mention was in 910; parts of today's building can be dated to about the turn of the second millennium. The constituent community of Werschau had its first documentary mention in 1235. Modern times In 1802, the municipal area became part of the Principality of Nassau-Weilburg, which itself passed to Prussia in 1866. As of that year, the three centres that now make up Brechen belonged to the district of Limburg; since 1974 they have belonged to the district of Limburg-Weilburg in Hesse. Politics Community council The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results: Coat of arms The community's arms are quartered with each of the smaller fields in the escutcheon bearing a symbol of a constituent community's patron saint, namely a bear (Saint Maximin), a dragon (Saint George) and a rose (Saint Felicity), while the fourth field bears the red Trier cross in reference to the community's one-time territorial allegiance to the Electorate of Trier. Economy and infrastructure The formerly dominant industry of agriculture is still important today with almost 70% of the community's area being worked by fewer than ten full-time operations. Brechen has, however,