The terms landwehr ("land defence"), landgraben ("land ditch") and landhege ("land enclosure") refer to border demarcations or border defences and enclosures in Central Europe that were either built by settlements with the right of enclosure or to mark and defend entire territories. These measures, usually comprising earthworks or dykes as well as ditches and impenetrable lines of hedging, for protecting towns and villages date mainly to the High and Late Middle Ages and consist, in some cases, of systems over a hundred kilometres long. Comparable earthworks have been recorded since Antiquity. The Roman limes are the best known examples of earlier landwehrs. The Danewerk is another example of this type of barrier.

Many of these landwehrs have survived, especially in woods and forests, and are often protected as heritage sites.

Purpose
The construction of a landwehr was an effective way of protecting the population of a settlement or territory against attacks by neighbours or enemies in feuds or war, and also to mark out the legal limits of an area. The landwehrs were a means of limiting the likelihood, success, effectiveness, and consequences of medieval warfare, and thus preventing them. They also hindered bands of robbers entering the area and hampered their retreat after a raid. The combination of fencing and thorn bushes was also useful in enclosing cattle pasture and as a guideline in wolf hunting. Wolf pits are often found along the line of a landwehr.

Landwehrs were also used to on a large-scale to enclose woods and agricultural areas for the protection of the local population, where they were settled in dispersed dwellings and farmsteads within the protected area. The landwehr offered protection for the peasantry, in a way analogous to the population of fortified towns who were guarded by a town wall. Often too, the fields and outlying areas surrounding many towns had a ring-shaped enclosure, a so-called Stadtlandwehr ("town Landwehr"), Stadthagen or Stadthege ("town enclosure"). An example of this is the Westphalian city of Dortmund, which, in addition to the city wall, also had a large landwehr surrounding it. As a map of 1748 portrays, Dortmund's Stone Tower was part of this landwehr ring.

The only gaps in landwehr defences were on roads entering the area where, like the gates in a town wall, people and goods were checked as they passed through. For example, landwehrs often acted as effective customs posts, usually imposing a road toll.

Trade routes, particularly in the area of check points, were accompanied on both sides by landwehrs. In addition to protecting travellers from ambushes, these landwehrs on either side of the route were mainly used to channel the flow of traffic and effectively prevent people bypassing or avoiding check points and customs posts.

History

Pre- and early history
Hedges are one of the most natural forms of boundary defence and enclosure. Their simplest and, even today, most common use is as a garden hedge. Even in prehistoric and early historic times, people built defensive enclosures using branches and brambles for the protection of storage places (including caves), fortified residences, houses, estates and settlements from attack by predators or enemies. This is common even today amongst nomadic tribes. Julius Caesar tells e.g. of thick Hagen which were laid out by the Nervii, one of the most powerful Belgic tribes:

A more complicated form of defence was the classic ditch and rampart system. In A.D. 16, Tacitus reported a border fortification built by the Angrivarii, the Angrivarian Wall, which was erected to defend them against the Cherusci. A great battle was fought there in 16 AD. The most important border fortifications were said to have been at Rehburg-Loccum.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle speaks of a Bebbanburg around A.D. 547, which was "first fortified by a hedge". The capitularies of Charlemagne also mention "ramparts planted with hedges".

In England, similar fortifications are called "dykes" or ditches. For example, Bokerley Dyke was built around A.D. 360, transitioning into Grim's Ditch which dates to 300 B.C., or the 270-kilometre-long Offa's Dyke.

In the case of the Normans, too, the existence of Hagediken - embankments planted with hedges - is recorded.

Middle Ages and Modern Period

As a rule, mediaeval landwehrs consist of one or more impenetrable lines of hedging made of pleached hornbeam – (the Gebück) - underplanted with thorny bushes such as blackthorn, hawthorn, dog rose, brambles or holly – (the Gedörn).

In addition there was also usually a combination of one or more of the following elements:

 One or more parallel earthen ramparts between or on which the hedge was planted
 A path for the maintenance of the hedge and for patrolling the landwehr
 Ditches in front, between and behind the ramparts, which were sometimes filled with water, depending on the location e.g. in a valley. As a rule, the ramparts were made from the excavation of the ditches.
 Watchtowers, schanzen, abatis and haspels at the checkpoints where roads passed through the landwehr
 A "wet border" created by flooding and water ditches

From the time after the Frankish colonisation of Central Europe until the late Late Middle Ages, the creation of fixed sovereign territories ruled by lords and princes led to the establishment of territorial landwehrs which enclosed the land which was legally held by states and settlements. The territories of Gaue, counties (Zenten), regional magistracies (often coterminous with church parishes), Ämter and even entire states were enclosed by landwehrs in the form of defensive hedges.

There were also Landhagen and Stadthagen, which were arranged in a circular shape around smaller settlements. The Landhegen bordered and protected entire regions as well as the areas surrounding towns and cities, for example the almost 70-kilometre-long Aachen Landgraben the former Aachener Reich, similar to the ones in Frankfurt, Rothenburg, Lübeck or Mühlhausen. The traces of the Rothenburg Landhege are still about 60 km long today, the Mühlhäusen Landgraben, still some 26 km long, recalls the border between Mühlhausen and Eichsfeld.

These earthworks served several functions. They marked, protected and helped to bring peace to territories that were under their reeve (Greve), count (Graf) or Amtmann. This grouping of tasks for the protection of defended territories (Landwehr) resonated with the term Hege (a range of measures concerning hunting and wildlife) in terms such as Hege, Heege, Hag, Haag or Hecke, but also with the term Schutzhecke or "protective hedge". Numerous toponyms such as Zarge, Gebück, Wehrholz or Gehag recall different variants of these defensive structures as e.g. hedges, excavation works or staggered constructions.

The main objective of these barriers was to protect the population and their land from the hostile claims, raids, predations and warlike assaults of other princes. Landwehrs were a clear border marking and, at the same time, when they defined the external border to another territory, also a customs border. Even within a territory, there were sometimes landwehrs which separated the individual districts (Ämter) from one another by the inclusion of streams and other natural obstacles. These 'internal' or 'intermediate' landwehrs (Zwischenlandwehren), were generally not as elaborate as those on the external borders.

One particular variant was the so-called letzi in Switzerland, where it was often sufficient just to secure the access routes to a valley. Many of the battles of the Old Confederation with the Habsburgs took place at such letzis, such as Battle of Morgarten, Battle of Näfels and Battle of Stoss.

Some landwehrs also functioned as a form of outwork for fortresses. They were built with the character of fieldworks as a first line of defence against enemy attack. Used until the Modern Era, they were designed militarily, in the form of chevaux de frise, to force the  attacker of a fortress into having to conduct a siege even before reaching the fortress. Their modern successors include the barbed wire used in both world wars.

The route of many simple landwehrs shows, according to new research, that they were completely unsuitable for defence purposes in many places. From this it can be concluded that some of these installations were mainly used for border marking and collecting customs duties. They nevertheless restricted the free mobility of enemy troops, so that they were certainly of some military utility. For example, the Stadthagen around Warendorf in the Thirty Years' War succeeded in protecting the town. Although the enemy did in fact break into the municipal territory, they did not risk a major attack simply because of the danger, in a counter-attack, of not being able to beat a retreat quickly enough through the narrow breach in the landwehr.

As a border fortification around areas that had been given specific rights, landwehrs had gaps  in some places for roads, for counter-attack routes or for trade. These gaps (called Schlags) were guarded by simple tollgates, by side roads (so-called Schlingen), or - by means of towers (watchtowers, Wighäuser or gate towers). At the border crossing points there were usually also customs posts. The lucrative right to charge tolls (Zollrecht), often in connection with the right to sell alcohol (Krugrecht) could be given to local farmers.

Construction

Most landwehrs consisted of a simple ditch as an obstacle - on the plains this was also a water channel or moat - behind which was an earthen bank made of the spoil from excavating the ditch. Behind the bank was the main barrier itself, a 20 to 50 metre-wide, dense, impenetrable thicket. In  upland areas, the route of the landwehr conformed to natural features such as rocks, steep slopes and watercourses. Often a second ditch was dug at a distance of 10 to 30 metres.

The strips of vegetation and the embankments were covered with a hedge of hornbeam cut back to the height of a man, whose branches were bent, intertwined with the other branches and stuck into the ground as a further obstacle. This resulted in the so-called Gebück, a plaited hedge. Understorey bushes, such as dog rose, whitethorn, blackthorn or brambles , were used to make the hedge impenetrable. Hence the local name, Gedörn ("thorn hedge") used in some places. The site was kept clear of higher vegetation. The ground in front was largely cleared.

The construction of a defensive hedge was described by a priest at Eberbach Abbey in 1790:

With regular maintenance and care (hege), a nigh impenetrable woodland strip was created in the course of a decade. More elaborate landwehrs with a defensive function consisted of several parallel ditches and banks, planted with hedging. In particular, double ditches were designed to prevent them from being jumped by horsemen. Another design was the so-called Wehrhecke (Wallhecke or Knick), a hedge-planted bank, for the maintenance of which a tax called Knickgeld was raised.

In Hesse, at the end of the 17th century, many villages on important roads or by borders, had  fortifications, excluding any fortified churches, as a Hessian chronicler described in 1697:

The fortification could be made of fences (known as Etter or Dorfetter), hedges, bank and ditch (dry as well as wet) and gates.

Another temporary artificial obstacle which could be built relatively quickly in the event of an attack, or to close gaps in a landwehr, was the abatis. This was also used as the first obstacle on the approach of castles, town and city walls, and schanzen, and was made of felled trees and cut logs, shrubs and thorns. Abatis were also used during the building of a landwehr, if necessary, until it was ready. Since the obstacle was made of dead wood, it was relatively easy to remove by burning once it had dried out.

Observation and entry points

Important roads passing through the landwehr at entry points were guarded with so-called barriers (Schlägen) and other reinforcements such as watchtowers. Road tolls were collected at the barriers which were paid to the territorial lord. From the beginning there were inns at these points. The innkeepers provided food and drink for the passers-by. They also exercised sovereign functions by observing the ground in front of the town and by closing the barriers at night.

In many cases, the roads were flanked by ditch-bank-ditch systems on both sides, so that no one could enter the villages outside the intended route. Wooden bridges often led across the ditches, so that in the event of a war, the road could be closed by removing the bridge.

News of approaching enemy troops or visitors, was relayed along the landwehrs to the Hinterland, using watchtowers (for example, in Münsterland). In upland regions this was also achieved by observation posts (Warten) at high lookouts from which one could see far into the surrounding countryside. Warning of approaching enemies was given by optical signals in the form of smoke signals, flags, mirrors and torches, or by signal horns and church bells. The entire population of the village and its neighbouring villages were required to "immediately" respond to these emergency signals or the sounding the storm bell, but also in other emergencies, such as fire or flood, no matter what other work or activity was in progress. The striking of the bell was called Gerüfte, for example, in the Münsterland.

Maintenance

To construct the landwehr, the local territorial lord would use all his subjects in a service known as socage. Likewise the whole population were required to maintain it. Many landwehrs were built and maintained jointly by neighbouring princes, for example, in Central Hesse, the landheege on the Hörre between the county of Nassau on one side and the Landgraviate of Hesse and county of Solms on the other.

The construction and maintenance of landwehrs had to be carried out with a long-term perspective. Even with constant and time-consuming care (Hegen und Pflegen) it would be ten years before an impenetrable hedge was created. In addition, the ditches and Hählweg, a patrolled road along the landwehr had to be kept free of vegetation and maintained in working order. For this reason, many landwehrs were abandoned or left unfinished for long periods of time for reasons of cost.

Intentional damage of a landwehr was punished with severe penalties. In the case of the over 100-kilometre-long Westphalian Landwehr in the Teutoburg Forest, punishments ranged from cutting off the right hand to the death penalty. Even crossing a landwehr in authorised places  was often punished. On the Rhön Landwehr, cutting through the hedging or using the patrol road was punishable by a fine of up to five guilders.

These border installations were constantly renewed and maintained until the 18th century and, in times of extreme danger, even reinforced and turned into fortifications.

In 1813 in Prussia, the obligation to defend the earthworks, which were slighted under Napoleon but nevertheless remained functional, became part of the general service duties of the military formations of the Prussian Landwehr (a territorial force not to be confused with the subject of this article). In many cases the field fortifications of the Landwehr troops were abandoned after the end of an armed conflict or after the abolition of an official district, and the hedges and woods burned to make charcoal.

Examples of landwehrs

Called "Landwehr" or "Lanwehr"
 Landwehr of the former Barony of Ahaus
 Anklam Landwehr
 Bachgau Landwehr
 Barop Landwehr in Hombruch
 Berg Landwehr in the Duchy of Berg
 Landwehr Canal, Berline
 Brunswick Landwehr
 Bückethal Landwehr near Bad Nenndorf
 Dahl Landwehr in Mönchengladbach from Engelsholt via Ohler to Dahl
 Dinslaken Landwehr with remains in Dinslaken, Voerde and Hünxe
 Einbeck Landwehr
 Frankfurt Landwehr
 Grebenstein Landwehr near Grebenstein in the county of Kassel
 Landwehr in Hamburg
 Hanoverian Landwehr in Hanover municipal forest of Eilenriede
 Hartward Landwehr
 Himmelpforten Landwehr near Soest
 Helmstedt Landwehr in the Lappwald
 Kastel Landwehr (Kastel, also called the Mainz Landwehr )
 Lambertsgraben near Creuzburg
 Varbrook Landwehr in Niederkrüchten-Varbrook (county of Viersen)
 the Long Landwehr near Schmalkalden
 Speyer Landwehr with the Speyer Watchtower, where there is also a Landwehrstraße
 Landwehr on the southern perimeter of Neubrandenburg
 Lüneburg Landwehr
 North and East Landwehr near Dülmen
 Parchim Landwehr near Parchim
 Saxon Landwehr in South Thuringia
 Schaumburg Landwehr, north of Stadthagen
 Würzburger Hähl in the Thuringian Rhön
 Tilbeck Landwehr in the Baumberge
 Viersen Landwehr near Mönchengladbach-Großheide
 Landwehr on the northern edge of Calvörde
 other landwehrs in Barme, Ganderkesee, Hemmerde, Landgraaf, Leingarten, Lübeck, Nazza, Nettlingen, Rhön, Tönisvorst, Wetzlar, Werne.

Called "Landgraben", "Landgraaf" or "Graben"
 Großer Landgraben near Klempenow and Boldekow in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
 Kleiner Landgraben near Altentreptow in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
 Landgraben on the northern border of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
 Mühlhäusen Landgraben in Thuringia
 Quedlinburg Landgraben near Quedlinburg
 Lübeck Landgraben around Lübeck
 Württemberg Landgraben between Beilstein and Heuchelberger Warte
 Aachen Landgraben around Aachen
 various landwehrs in the Prince-Bishopric of Münster for Ahlen, Beckum, Bocholt, Borken, Coesfeld, Dülmen, Haltern, Münster, Rheine, Telgte, Vreden, Warendorf and Werne)
 other landwehrs in Adelwitz, Bickenriede, Casekow, Glenne, Japenzin, Landgraaf, Lengefeld, Löwitz, Lüdersdorf, Pöndorf, Rednitz, Sachsendorf (Barby), Stockelsdorf, Striesen, Wadersloh and on the River Oos
 Dreigräben, Lower Silesia

Called "Hecke", "Heg", "Haag", "Hag", "Hagen", "Landheege", "Gedörn" or "Gebück"
For the Häger in Niedersachsen, see: Adelung
 Kölsches Heck near Siegen
 Rothenburger Landhege near Rothenburg ob der Tauber, see also Lichteler Landturm
 Central Hessian Landheegen
 Haller Landheeg near Schwäbisch Hall
 Rheingauer Gebück near Walluf and Eltville am Rhein
 Bechtheimer Gebück near Bad Camberg

Unnamed
 Barriers near Springe in the Deister Gate

Border defences in England, Scotland, Denmark and North Germany, Poland

 Bokerley Dyke
 Danewerk
 Grim's Ditch
 Offa's Dyke
 Wansdyke
 Wat's Dyke
 Antonine Wall
 Hadrian's Wall

References

Literature
 Werner Dobelmann: Landwehren im Osnabrücker Nordland, in: Heimat gestern und heute. Mitteilungen des Kreisheimatbundes Bersenbrück 16 (1969), pp. 129–180
 Wilhelm Engels: Die Landwehren in den Randgebieten des Herzogtums Berg. In: Zeitschrift des Bergischen Geschichtsvereins (ZBGV), 66. Band, Jahrgang 1938, pp. 67–278.
 Johannes Everling: Der Aachener Landgraben heute nach 500 Jahren. Aachen, 1973.
 Norbert Klaus Fuchs:Auf den Spuren der Sächsischen Landwehr in Das Heldburger Land–ein historischer Reiseführer; Verlag Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza, 2013,
 Oswald Gerhard: Eckenhagen und Denklingen im Wandel der Zeiten. Eine Heimatgeschichte des ehemaligen Reichshofgebietes Eckenhagen. Hrsg.: Heimatverein Eckenhagen e. V., Eckenhagen 1953 (with map).
 Albert K. Hömberg: Die Entstehung der westfälischen Freigrafschaften als Problem der mittelalterlichen deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte. In: Westfälische Zeitschrift, Zeitschrift für vaterländische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 101/102. Band, Münster 1953, S. 1–138.
 Cornelia Kneppe: Die Stadtlandwehren des östlichen Münsterlandes. Veröffentlichungen der Altertumskommission für Westfalen 14, Münster, 2004, .
 Cornelia Kneppe (ed.): Landwehren. Zu Erscheinungsbild, Funktion und Verbreitung spätmittelalterlicher Wehranlagen. Aschendorff, Münster, 2014. .
 Cornelia Kneppe: Das westfälische Landwehrsystem als Aufgabe der Bodendenkmalpflege. In: Ausgrabungen und Funde in Westfalen-Lippe, Jahrgang 9, Teil C, Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, LWL-Archäologie für Westfalen, Mainz 1999, , S. 139–166.
 Thomas Küntzel: Stadt und Grenze – Die Landwehr der Stadtwüstung Nienover im südniedersächsischen Kontext. Archaeologia historica 29, 2004, pp. 167–191.
 Hans Mattern, Reinhard Wolf: Haller Landheg. Ihr Verlauf und ihre Reste. Sigmaringen 1990. (Forschungen aus Württembergisch Franken. 35), .
 Tim Michalak: Die Stadthagen. Zur Bedeutung und Funktion der Landwehren an den Grenzen der reichsstädtischen Feldmark Dortmunds. In: Heimat Dortmund 1/2002. Stadtgeschichte in Bildern und Berichten. Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für Dortmund und die Grafschaft Mark e. V. in Verbindung mit dem Stadtarchiv Dortmund. pp. 12–15.
 Horst W. Müller: Die mittelhessischen Landhheegen. In: Hinterländer Geschichtsblätter, Jahrgang 89, No. 4, December 2010, Biedenkopf.
 Georg Müller: Landwehren in der Gemeinde Ganderkesee. Ganderkesee, 1989.
 Andreas Reuschel: Hagenhufensiedlungen oder "Hägerhufensiedlungen" in der Ithbörde? Ein Beitrag zur Ausdifferenzierung eines siedlungsgeographischen Terminus und Phänomens, Diss. Bonn 2009. pdf
 Heinrich Rüthing: Landwehren und Warten im Paderborner und Corveyer Land. In: Heimatkundliche Schriftenreihe der Volksbank Paderborn, 33/2002.
 Gustav Siebel: Die Nassau-Siegener Landhecken: Eine Untersuchung der Kölnischen Hecke und gleichartiger Wehranlagen bei Siegen. In: Siegerländer Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde, Heft 12, Siegerländer Heimatverein, Siegen 1963.
 Johann Carl Bertram Stüve: Untersuchungen über die Gogerichte in Westfalen und Niedersachsen. Frommann, Jena 1870; unveränderter Nachdruck: Wenner, Osnabrück 1972, .
 Otto Weerth: Über Knicke und Landwehren. In: Korrespondenzblatt des Gesamtvereins der deutschen Geschichts- und Altertumsvereine 54, 1906, Sp. 372 Online
 Herbert Woltering: Die Reichsstadt Rothenburg ob der Tauber und ihre Herrschaft über die Landwehr. (Teil 1–2. Rothenburg o.d.T., 1965–1971); Neuauflage in einem Band 2010, Verlag Degener & Co., Insingen (= Rothenburg-Franken-Edition 4).
 Josef Würdinger: Kriegsgeschichte von Bayern, Franken, Pfalz und Schwaben von 1347–1506, Munich, 1868.

External links

 Cornelia Kneppe: Landwehren im Schnittpunkt von Geschichte, Archäologie und Naturkunde
 Andreas Reuschel: Hagenhufensiedlungen oder "Hägerhufensiedlungen" in der Ithbörde? Ein Beitrag zur Ausdifferenzierung eines siedlungsgeographischen Terminus und Phänomens, Diss. Bonn, 2009

Fortifications
Political geography

Landwehr (border)


KCOY-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Santa Maria, California, United States, serving the Central Coast of California as an affiliate of the Spanish-language network Telemundo. It is owned by VistaWest Media, LLC, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with the News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG), owner of Santa Barbara–licensed ABC/CBS affiliate KEYT-TV (channel 3) and Class A Fox affiliate KKFX-CD (channel 24). KCOY-TV and KKFX-CD share studios on West McCoy Lane in Santa Maria; KEYT-TV maintains separate facilities on TV Hill, overlooking downtown Santa Barbara. KCOY-TV's transmitter is located on Tepusquet Peak east of Santa Maria. KKFX-CD broadcasts the same subchannels in the San Luis Obispo area.

Channel 12 was added to Santa Maria as a result of the Federal Communications Commission deciding to deintermix Fresno by forcing that city's lone VHF station, KFRE-TV, to a UHF channel and removing channel 12 from Fresno. Four groups applied, and Central Coast Television—a consortium of local residents—was granted the construction permit to build the station in 1963. KCOY-TV began broadcasting as an NBC affiliate on March 16, 1964. In 1968, half of the company was purchased by Dale Moore of Missoula, Montana; the station switched affiliations to CBS the next year, and the local investors bought back Moore's stake in 1971. Under the ownership of Stauffer Communications from 1980 to 1995, KCOY-TV remained the second-rated local news outlet on the southern Central Coast in the 1980s and 1990s; the present Santa Maria studio building was completed in 1988. When Stauffer was purchased by Morris Communications in 1995, the combined firm immediately spun off its television holdings, mostly to Benedek Broadcasting; the station then changed hands three times in twelve years.

In 2013, the News-Press & Gazette Company assumed some of KCOY-TV's operations and acquired outright most of Cowles's Central Coast media holdings. The two stations' newsrooms were merged. The KCOY-TV license was sold to VistaWest Media, a company controlled by NPG's president and general manager. On January 1, 2021, NPG moved the CBS affiliation to a subchannel of KEYT-TV, still branded as "NewsChannel 12". KCOY-TV then broadcast Dabl, a diginet, until 2023, when the company acquired the Telemundo affiliation from KTAS and moved its main signal to KCOY-TV. The station offers regional newscasts shared with NPG's Telemundo affiliate in the Monterey–Salinas area, KMUV-LD.

History

Channel 12 comes to Santa Maria
In July 1960, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered television station KFRE-TV in Fresno to move from channel 12 to channel 30 as part of a years-long debate over deintermixture—the conversion of markets with both very high frequency (VHF) and ultra high frequency (UHF) stations to all-UHF. The FCC then sought to relocate channel 12 to a city on the southern Central Coast: it listed Lompoc, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Maria as options. By November 1961, the FCC had designated a comparative hearing for the four groups which had applied for the channel: the Santa Maria Telecasting Corporation, M & M Telecasters, Thomas B. Friedman, and Central Coast Television Corporation. In May 1962, Friedman withdrew from the contest, citing work; M & M had already withdrawn, leaving Santa Maria Telecasting and Central Coast Television competing for the channel.

Central Coast Television was favored in the initial decision by FCC hearing examiner Herbert Sharfman, released in December 1962, on the grounds of its local ownership and their involvement in civic affairs. Santa Maria Telecasting appealed, but the commission affirmed Sharfman's decision and awarded the construction permit to Central Coast Television in September 1963. The company stated that it would be on air in January 1964 from a transmitter site on Tepusquet Peak. The station took the call sign KCOY-TV; two of the partners in Central Coast Television, James Ranger and Ed Zuchelli, owned KCOY radio.

KCOY-TV signed on March 16, 1964. It was an affiliate of NBC that also carried some CBS programs, but it was not a regular affiliate of NBC until September 1965. The next year, ownership in the company changed twice; Ed Zuchelli exited the operating partnership, while Helen Pedotti joined it. Pedotti did not have television at her home when she bought into the station.

Also in 1965, KCOY-TV filed with the FCC to relocate its transmitter to Broadcast Peak, northwest of Goleta. This site was further from Santa Maria than Tepusquet Peak by some . On these grounds, KEYT, the television station in Santa Barbara, protested to the FCC, believing that it encroached on their coverage area and represented a turn away from the owners' original promise to serve Santa Maria when they filed for the channel. The matter was designated for hearing in February 1966, and in November 1967, an FCC hearing examiner recommended approval of this application. KEYT appealed this decision to the FCC's review board. Central Coast Television asked for expedited processing of the appeal and a bypass of the review board, saying that it had lost money for its entire existence and could be forced to go off the air soon.

With the Broadcast Peak move still pending at the review board, Central Coast Television filed in April 1968 to sell the station to Central Coast Broadcasters, a company half-owned by the local investors and half by Dale G. Moore of Missoula, Montana. Six months later, the review board denied KCOY-TV's application to move its transmitter. In doing so, it also cited the degradation of the proposed KCOY-TV signal in part of the Santa Maria area, which Central Coast claimed consisted of a trailer park and airport, and ascribed KCOY-TV's losses not to poor coverage but to undercapitalization and a "very heavy debt structure". On January 12, 1969, KCOY-TV became a primary CBS affiliate, though it continued to carry some NBC shows; KSBY in San Luis Obispo did the opposite.

Stauffer Communications ownership
In 1980, Stauffer Communications of Topeka, Kansas, acquired KCOY-TV from Central Coast Broadcasters for $7 million. For Stauffer, the deal marked a return to Santa Maria, as the company had owned the Santa Maria Times newspaper between 1948 and 1957.

Having outgrown the original studios on McClelland Street, Stauffer began planning a new studio facility in 1987; the new site would offer room for more staff and another satellite dish. Construction took place in 1988.

As the southern Central Coast did not have a Fox affiliate, KCOY continued to carry NFL football from the NFL on Fox beginning in 1994, after CBS had lost football rights. This continued until January 1997, when a new low-power station in San Luis Obispo, KKFX-LP (channel 11), was launched by KEYT owner Smith Broadcasting.

KCOY made local news in 1995 when it hired Rick Martel, who had been a popular anchor at market-leading KSBY-TV, to anchor its evening newscasts. Martel had left the San Luis Obispo station after it was purchased by Elisabeth Murdoch.

Changing owners
In 1995, Stauffer sold its holdings to Morris Communications. Morris kept the company's newspapers and spun off most of the television stations to Benedek Broadcasting of Rockford, Illinois, for $60 million. One of Benedek's first moves was to fire Martel as anchor, even though Morris had renewed his contract just two months prior. Martel had increased the station's news ratings, but only slightly, and Benedek wished to go in a new direction.

Benedek reached an agreement to swap with the Ackerley Group in December 1998; Ackerley acquired KCOY-TV, while Benedek acquired KKTV in Colorado Springs, Colorado. KCOY-TV was the primary prize for Ackerley, which owned stations in other central California markets. For Benedek, the move made geographic sense, as the Santa Maria station was its only outlet in the Pacific Time Zone. Ackerley acquired KKFX in 2000. In 2002, Ackerley was bought out by Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia).

Cowles ownership
Clear Channel sold its television stations in a deal announced in 2007 to Newport Television, a broadcasting holding company controlled by the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners. The sale was finalized on March 14, 2008; however, Providence Equity Partners owned 19 percent of Univision and thus had to sell stations in multiple California markets. The Cowles Company of Spokane, Washington, had agreed months before the deal closed to acquire KCOY, KKFX-CA, and the Clear Channel TV station in Monterey (KION-TV); this transaction closed on May 7, 2008.

In January 2012, Cowles announced a round of cost-cutting measures at its California stations. KCOY–KKFX bore the brunt of the cutbacks; sports coverage was eliminated, the morning show was pared back to an hour in length, and the evening newscasts began to be presented from Salinas. Thirteen employees were laid off, including chief meteorologist Jim Byrne and sports anchor Kevin Roose, although weeknight anchor Arturo Santiago and sports anchor Dave Alley each remained as Santa Maria-based reporters. The move came just seven months after Cowles invested in converting the Santa Maria newsroom to high-definition, making KCOY–KKFX the first high-definition newscasts in the market. Byrne sued Cowles, claiming breach of contract; the parties settled out of court.

Consolidation with NPG
On September 20, 2013, News-Press & Gazette Company, owner of KEYT-TV in Santa Barbara, announced that it would take over some of KCOY's operations (including its news operation) under a shared services agreement. NPG acquired KKFX-CA, as well as KION-TV and Telemundo affiliate KMUV-LP in the Monterey–Salinas market, directly. The sale was completed on December 13. On December 26, Cowles composed a deal to sell KCOY to VistaWest Media, a company based in St. Joseph, Missouri (where NPG is also based); the station was to remain operated by NPG under a shared services agreement. The sale was completed on January 30, 2015.

On January 1, 2021, the CBS affiliation was moved to the secondary subchannel of ABC affiliated sister station KEYT-TV, with Dabl moving from 12.4 to the main 12.1 channel.

On February 1, 2023, KCOY's main channel (and the second subchannel of KKFX-CD) switched from Dabl to the Spanish-language Telemundo network, with NPG taking over the affiliation from KTAS, a Spanish-language station based in Santa Maria. In addition, NPG began broadcasting its existing Telemundo newscasts from the Monterey–Salinas market on the southern Central Coast.

Notable former on-air staff
Lee Cowan – anchor and reporter in the 1990s, later of NBC News and CBS News
David Kerley – anchor and producer
Lon McEachern – sports anchor and reporter in the 1980s
Rick DeBruhl

Technical information

Subchannels
The station's signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion
KCOY-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 19, using virtual channel 12.

Notes

References

External links

Telemundo network affiliates
Laff (TV network) affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 1964
1964 establishments in California
COY-TV
News-Press & Gazette Company

KCOY-TV


Thomas Bowes (born 1960) is an English violinist and orchestra leader.

Life and career
Thomas Bowes was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England, and graduated from Trinity College of Music in 1982, where he studied violin under Bela Katona. Bowes played with the London Philharmonic beginning in 1985 and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields beginning in 1986. He made his debut as a soloist in London in 1987.

Bowes was a founding member of the Maggini String Quartet and served as leader from 1988-92. In 1989 he began serving as leader of the London Mozart Players, where he led the ensemble at their BBC Proms debut in 1991. Bowes has served as guest leader of orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, the Philharmonia, and the French L'Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse.

Bowes married pianist and composer Eleanor Alberga in 1992, and the two live in Herefordshire, England. They formed the duo Double Exposure in 1995 and began to tour internationally. During this time, Bowes developed an expanded repertoire as a soloist. He took a position as Artistic Director of the Langvad Chamber Music Jamboree in Denmark and with Alberga founded the Arcadia music festival in northern Herefordshire.

Bowes masters film scores and maintains an extensive discography and filmography His most recent CD was released 2011, Walton and Barber Violin Concertos - Thomas Bowes/Malmo Opera Orchestra/Swensen, which was well received. He plays a Nicolo Amati violin from 1659.

References

External links
Official site
Clip from Thomas Bowes recording of Walton Violin Concerto

Living people
1960 births
English classical violinists
British male violinists
English classical musicians
British classical violinists
Alumni of Trinity College of Music
People from Welwyn Garden City
Musicians from Hertfordshire
21st-century classical violinists
21st-century British male musicians
Male classical violinists

Thomas Bowes (violinist)


Giovanni Aurispa Piciunerio (or Piciuneri) (June/July 1376–c. 25 May 1459) was an Italian historian and savant of the 15th century. He is remembered in particular as a promoter of the revival of the study of Greek in Italy.  It is to Aurispa that the world is indebted for preserving the greater part of our knowledge of the Greek classics.

Life

Aurispa was born at Noto in Sicily in 1376.  A scholarship from the King of Sicily enabled him to study at Bologna from 1404 to 1410.  Soon after, in 1413-4, he went to Greece as a private tutor for the sons of a Genoese merchant, Racanelli, and settled on the island of Chios. Here he learned Greek and began to collect books, including a Sophocles and a Euripides. He also obtained a number of Greek texts, including a work by Thucydides which he later sold to Niccolo Niccoli in 1417. He returned to Italy in 1414, setting in Savona, where he supported himself by teaching Greek and by selling the works he had collected in Greece.

In 1418, Aurispa visited Constantinople, where he remained for some years, perfecting his knowledge of Greek and searching for manuscripts. He worked so hard at this that he later wrote that he had been denounced to the Byzantine emperor for buying all the sacred books in the city. Upon his return from that trip he went to Florence where he entered the service of the papal court, which was then in residence in that city. He moved to Rome the following year when the court transferred there. It was there that he taught one of his most famous students, Lorenzo Valla, later himself a noted classical scholar.

In 1421 Aurispa was sent by Pope Martin V to act as the translator for the Marquis Gianfrancesco Gonzaga on a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine emperor, Manuel Paleologos. After their arrival, he gained the favor of the emperor's son and successor, John VIII Palaiologos, who took him on as his own secretary. Two years later, he accompanied his Byzantine employer on a mission to the courts of Europe. He traveled with this mission as far as Venice, where he left the imperial service.

On 15 December 1423 Aurispa arrived in Venice with the largest and finest collection of Greek texts to reach the west prior to those brought by Bessarion. In reply to a letter from the Camaldolese prior and scholar St. Ambrose Traversari, he says that he brought back 238 manuscripts.  These contained all of Plato, all of Plotinus, all of Proclus, much of Iamblichus, many of the Greek poets, including Pindar, and a great deal of Greek history, including volumes of Procopius and Xenophon which had been given to him by the emperor.  Also, he had the poems of Callimachus and Oppian, and the Orphic verses; and the historical works of Dio Cassius, Diodorus Siculus, and Arrian. Most of the works were hitherto unknown in the West.

Further items included the oldest manuscript of Athenaeus; a 10th-century codex containing seven plays by Sophocles and six by Aeschylus—the only manuscript in the world of these, plus the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes; the Iliad, works by Demosthenes, and many more.  A work by Herodotus was also among the collection; also the Geography of Strabo. The texts are all listed in the letter to Traversari.

The only patristic text Aurispa had brought from Greece was a volume containing about 200 letters of St. Gregory Nazianzen. In a letter to Traversari, he explained:

I have not brought any sacred volumes from Greece except the letters of Gregory, which are, I believe, 200. This book is in faultless condition, and all the pages can be read, but its beauty is hardly such as to invite the reluctant reader. Long ago I sent from Constantinople to Sicily a good number of very choice sacred volumes, for I admit frankly that they were less precious to me, and a number of malicious persons often brought charges to the Greek emperor, accusing me of pillaging the city of sacred books. With regard to the heathen books, it seemed to them not such a great crime.

Back in Venice, Aurispa is said to have been obliged to pawn his treasures for 50 gold florins to provide for the shipping costs. Traversari wrote to Lorenzo de' Medici on his behalf, who made a loan to Aurispa to redeem the manuscripts.  Traversari also arranged to exchange Niccolo's transcriptions of newly discovered texts by Cicero for Aurispa's transcriptions of Aristotle's Rhetoric and Eudemian Ethics.

In 1424 Aurispa went to Bologna, where he became professor of Greek at the university, but this was not a success.  At the urging of Traversari, from 1425 to 1427 he held the prestigious Chair of Greek studies in Florence.  This ensured that his collection was copied widely among the humanists.

Quarrels at Florence led Aurispa to leave Florence in late 1427 or early 1428 and to move to Ferrara, where, on the recommendation of his friend, the scholar Guarino of Verona, he was appointed tutor to Meliaduse d'Este, the illegitimate son of Niccolò III d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara. He taught the classics there, took Holy Orders and obtained preferment in the Church. King Alfonso of Naples asked him through his friend Panormita to move there, but he declined.

By 1430 Aurispa had managed to recover a bundle of his manuscripts from Sicily. These included a volume of lives of the saints, including one of St. Gregory Nazianzen, as well as one of the sermons of St. John Chrysostom, a Psalter, a volume of the Gospels, and the comedies of Aristophanes.  The remainder of his manuscripts seem to have never been returned to him. In 1433 he accompanied his student Meliaduse to the Council of Basel, taking a lengthy journey along the Rhine, visiting Mainz, Cologne and Aachen, in the course of which he discovered new Latin codices.

In 1438, when the Council was transferred to Ferrara, Aurispa attracted the attention of Pope Eugene IV, who appointed him an Apostolic Secretary, and so he moved to Rome. He held a similar position under Pope Nicholas V, who bestowed two lucrative commendatory abbacies on him. He seems also to have been made a papal poet laureate.

Aurispa returned to Ferrara in 1450 and died there in 1459, at the age of 83.

Legacy
Considering his long life and reputation, Aurispa produced little: Latin translations of the commentary of Hierocles on the golden verses of Pythagoras (1474) and of Philisci Consolatoria ad Ciceronem from Dio Cassius (not published until 1510); and, according to Gesner, a translation of the works of Archimedes.

Aurispa's reputation rests upon the extensive collection of manuscripts copied and distributed by him, and his persistent efforts to revive and promote the study of ancient literature.

See also
 Codex Ravennas 429

Notes

External links
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/195435

1376 births
1459 deaths
People from Noto
Hellenists
Italian Renaissance humanists
15th-century Italian historians
Officials of the Roman Curia
Greek–Latin translators
Italian translators
15th-century translators
Academic staff of the University of Bologna
Academic staff of the University of Florence
Academic staff of the University of Ferrara
15th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests
Burials in Emilia-Romagna

Giovanni Aurispa