Landkern is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kaisersesch, whose seat is in the like-named town. Geography Location The municipality lies on the eastern edge of the Endert valley between Cochem and Kaisersesch, a few kilometres from the river Moselle. The municipality's wooded area totals 3.63 km². Neighbouring municipalities Landkern's neighbours are Illerich to the east and Greimersburg to the west. History Kern, as the village was called in the Middle Ages, had its first documentary mention about 1051 when Richeza, who was a Rhenish count palatine's granddaughter and former Polish queen who had been driven from her adopted homeland, and who had been living in nearby Klotten, made a great many donations to the Brauweiler Monastery near Cologne, among which was an estate at Kern. Kern was quite possibly the smallest village of the many that belonged to the Klotten high court region in those days. One by one, Klotten relinquished the parishes of Urschmitt, Kaifenheim and Hambuch, thus leaving only the villages of Greimersburg, Landkern, Illerich and Wirfus in the parish by 1335. These four villages, however, found this rather annoying. Thus, they made a petition to Archbishop Richard von Greifenklau in Trier, which was signed by the reeves of Greimersburg, Landkern, Illerich and Wirfus and by the estate holders in Esper, Fahrenday, Neuhof, Kaveloch and Annisch. On 21 January 1512, the Archbishop granted the request and approved Sunday Mass to be held alternately at the chapels in Kern and Illerich. In the document from the Foundation, though, it was expressly stated that all members of these affiliated congregations were to attend Mass, along with their chaplains, at the parish church in Klotten on the following holidays: Good Friday, Easter, Whitsun, the Assumption, All Hallows, Christmas and Candlemas. It was also set forth that the chaplain was to “have an abode near the chapel at Kern and enough cropland, meadowland and freely from our livestock 50 sheep, 5 swine and 4 cows.” Baptisms were sometimes held in Kern, but they were recorded in the baptismal register in Klotten. Kern was not left unscathed by the Thirty Years' War. In 1620, soldiers stole the holy vessels. The same happened in Greimersburg, and in 1656, the chapel at Illerich lay in rubble. Population figures from the time, shown