Braunweiler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Rüdesheim, whose seat is in the municipality of Rüdesheim an der Nahe. Braunweiler is a winegrowing village.

Braunweiler lies in the Naheland – the land lining both sides of the Nahe – right at the edge of the Gauchswald (forest) and therefore also the Hunsrück. It sits on a spur overlooking its vineyards. Braunweiler's elevation is 275 m above sea level and the municipal area measures 4.68 km².

Clockwise from the north, Braunweiler's neighbours are the municipality of Wallhausen, the municipality of Sommerloch, the municipality of Sankt Katharinen, the municipality of Mandel, the municipality of Sponheim and the municipality of Argenschwang. However, of these places, only Sommerloch and Sankt Katharinen are linked to Braunweiler by road (Kreisstraße 51 in both cases).

Also belonging to Braunweiler is the outlying homestead of Haus Bock.

The earliest settlement at what is now Braunweiler is believed to go back to the 9th century, when the village was made a settled island within the forest by land clearing. The reason for this had not so much to do with cropraising and the clearing of ever further patches of wooded land as it did, above all else, with the settlers’ wish to use the forest that was available to them with its typical Soonwald glades. No later than 1100, the Counts of Sponheim held sovereignty and several times transferred to their house monastery, called Sponheim Abbey, properties and incomes in Braunweiler. From the time of its founding, the village was at first only called Wilre (Weiler in Modern High German, meaning simply “hamlet”). After the Sankt Katharinen monastery was founded in 1217, having been endowed by Godefried, Provost of Kreuznach, Udo, Archpriest at Mannendal (Mandel), Friedrich, State Dean of Hilbersheim and their fellow citizens (the members of the state chapter), Braunweiler was distinguished from other hamlets by having the tag by Sante Katherinen added to its name. In 1271, Braunweiler had its first documentary mention by Johannes Tritemus in Sponheim Abbey's chronicle. At that time, the abbey's abbot, Petrus von Sponheim, bought landholds for 200 Marks to build an estate with their help. Tritemus's writings, however, make it clear enough that this endeavour soon fell through and the lands that the abbot had bought were then yielded up to the villagers, against payment of certain fees.

During the centuries that followed, there was an ownership history that is still rather murky, but it can be assumed that the villagers went through a whole series of feudal lords, lessees and landowners to whom they had to, among other things, pay part of their harvest. As late as the 15th century, Braunweiler still belonged to the free villages in the Kreuznach state court region. Thus, in times of need, the villagers could flee to the town (now called Bad Kreuznach), where they would be safer behind the town's fortifications. This privilege, however, came at a price, for Braunweiler was also expected to contribute to the town's defence and, for example, send a Schöffe (roughly “lay jurist”) to the court. Braunweiler's municipal area was therefore part of the Kreuznach Imperial Estate in the Early Middle Ages.

Politically, Braunweiler belonged from 1350 to 1798 to the Amt, and later Oberamt, of Kreuznach. But for a few censuses, there is no information about Braunweiler's population figures. In 1580, though, it is known that the village had 153 inhabitants, living in 34 houses.

The building of the first chapel is believed to have come about sometime around the year 1475, but the chapel itself was only first mentioned in 1565. At this time, it was consecrated to Saint Quirinus, who was said to be the patron saint of livestock, particularly horses.