The reasons why the inhabitants of the region that later became the Musikantenland, betweenKusel, Kaiserslautern, Rockenhausen and Meisenheim devoted themselves to the presentation of music are not exactly known. It is assumed that the significance of Electoral court in Mannheim as the music centre of Europe in the 18th century played an important role in this development. Miners who had been recruited from Saxony, Thuringia or the Alsace to extract the mineral resources at Königsberg and Potzberg and who played the folk music of their homeland in their free time, are also said to have contributed to the musicality of the inhabitants of the Musikantenland. The names of the first musicians to travel around, and who could thus be regarded as role models, are unknown, nor is it known when the first journeys were undertaken. Thecode civil introduced during the French period, which among other things brought commercial freedom, led to the fact that, from 1800 onwards, the secondary job title of musician is to be found more and more often.