History & Facts

Karden traces back to a Roman settlement called Cardena; as early as the 4th century, St. Castor founded the first Christian community on the lower Moselle here. Treis is first documented in 762. For centuries the two villages developed separately – Karden as a spiritual centre with the St. Castor collegiate foundation, Treis as a town under the Electorate of Trier with its own castle – until they merged in 1969 into the joint municipality of Treis-Karden.

Timeline

4th c.

The priest Castor founds the first Christian community on the lower Moselle in Karden.

762

First documented mention of Treis (as “trisgodris villa publica” in a copy of the Liber aureus of Prüm).

836

St. Castor's remains are divided; part is transferred to Koblenz (the origin of the St. Kastor basilica there).

1084

First documented mention of the Karden collegiate foundation – likely organised as such since the 9th century.

1120/21

Treis Castle is seized amid a succession dispute and retaken a year later by Emperor Henry V.

1183

Construction begins on the Romanesque St. Castor collegiate church in Karden.

1294

Treis comes under the territorial rule of the Electorate of Trier (Balduinseck office).

1346

King Charles IV grants the Electorate of Trier the right to raise Treis to town status.

1460

Treis is granted market rights.

1802

The Karden collegiate foundation is dissolved under secularisation.

1815

Following the Congress of Vienna, the Moselle region passes to the Kingdom of Prussia.

1879

The Koblenz–Trier Moselle railway opens; Karden becomes a station.

1925

The first bridge across the Moselle links Treis and Karden across the river.

1948

Treis and Karden become part of the newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

1969

Treis and Karden merge into the municipality of Treis-Karden, also the seat of its own Verbandsgemeinde.

2014

The Verbandsgemeinde Treis-Karden is dissolved and incorporated into the Verbandsgemeinde Cochem.