1.
Imperial Palace of Goslar
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The Imperial Palace of Goslar is a historical building complex at the foot of the Rammelsberg hill in the south of the town of Goslar north of the Harz mountains, central Germany. It covers an area of about 340 by 180 metres and stands, the palace grounds originally included the Kaiserhaus, the old collegiate church of St. Simon and St. Jude, the palace chapel of St. Ulrich and the Church of Our Lady. The Kaiserhaus, which has extensively restored in the late 19th century, was a favourite imperial residence. As early as the 11th century, the buildings of the palace had already so impressed the chronicler Lambert of Hersfeld that he described it as the most famous residence in the empire. Since 1992, the site, together with the Goslars Old Town. The palace district is located in the part of the town of Goslar. The area is dominated on the west by the north-south oriented Kaiserhaus, to the north, it was once joined at right angles by the Church of Our Lady, separated by a small courtyard, but there is nothing left of the church today. Its foundations are under the leading up to the Kaiserhaus. To the south, now connected by a 19th-century arcade to the Kaiserhaus, is the Chapel of St. Ulrich, to the east, opposite the Kaiserhaus stood the east-west aligned collegiate church of St. Simon and St. Jude, of which only the north porch remains. The plan of the church is, however, incorporated into the surface of the car park. To the palace grounds belonged also the residential and working buildings of the canons, the houses of the ministeriales and the imperial entourage, in addition, the whole area was surrounded by a wall. The earliest origins of the palace are probably in a royal hunting lodge. In 1005 Henry II erected a first imperial mansion in Goslar, in the 1030s Conrad II began to expand the site by laying the foundation stone for the Church of Our Lady. The district was completed and enjoyed its heyday under his son, in 1048 he called to Goslar one of the foremost architects of his day, someone who later became Bishop of Osnabrück, Benno II. Uncertain, however, is the date of the dedicated to Saint Ulrich. It is believed to have been built either during the time of Henry III, the Kaiserhaus is 54 metres long and 18 metres wide and is the largest secular building of its time. The centre of the building is its two-storey hall and this contains two rooms on each floor of 47 metres long and 15 metres wide. Both had a ceiling, which was supported in the middle by a row of columns
2.
Old High German
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Old High German is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 700 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the half of the 8th century. There are, however, a number of Elder Futhark inscriptions dating to the 6th century, as well as single words, during the migration period, the Elbe Germanic tribes settled in what became Alamannia, the Duchy of Bavaria and the Kingdom of Lombardy. Old High German comprises the dialects of these groups which underwent the Second Sound Shift during the 6th Century, namely all of Elbe Germanic, in the south, the Langobards, who had settled in Northern Italy, maintained their dialect until their conquest by Charlemagne in 774. This area did not become German-speaking again until the German eastward expansion of the early 12th century, though there was some attempt at conquest, Old High German literacy is a product of the monasteries, notably at St. Gallen, Reichenau and Fulda. Its origins lie in the establishment of the German church by Boniface in the mid 8th century, einhard tells how Charlemagne himself ordered that the epic lays should be collected for posterity. It was the neglect or religious zeal of later generations that led to the loss of these records, thus, it was Charlemagnes weak successor, Louis the Pious, who destroyed his fathers collection of epic poetry on account of its pagan content. Hrabanus Maurus, a student of Alcuins and abbot at Fulda from 822, was an important advocate of the cultivation of German literacy, among his students were Walafrid Strabo and Otfrid of Weissenburg. Notker Labeo towards the end of the Old High German period was among the greatest stylists in the language, the main difference between Old High German and the West Germanic dialects from which it developed is that it underwent the High German consonant shift. This is generally dated approximately to the late 5th and early 6th centuries—hence dating its start to around 500, the result of this sound change is that the consonantal system of German remains different from all other West Germanic languages, including English and Low German. Grammatically, however, Old High German remained very similar to Old English, Old Dutch, by the mid 11th century the many different vowels found in unstressed syllables had all been reduced to /ə/. Since these vowels were part of the endings in the nouns and verbs. For these reasons,1050 is seen as the start of the Middle High German period, for this reason the dialects may be termed monastery dialects. It declined after the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom by the Franks in 774 and it is classified as Upper German on the basis of evidence of the Second Sound Shift. The continued existence of a West Frankish dialect in the Western, claims that this might have been the language of the Carolingian court or that it is attested in the Ludwigslied, whose presence in a French manuscript suggests bilingualism, are controversial. The charts show the vowel and consonant systems of the East Franconian dialect in the 9th century and this is the dialect of the monastery of Fulda, and specifically of the Old High German Tatian. Old High German had five long vowels and six phonemic short vowels. Both occurred in stressed and unstressed syllables, notes, All back vowels likely had front-vowel allophones as a result of Umlaut
3.
Medieval Latin
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Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors, medieval Latin should not be confused with Ecclesiastical Latin. There is no consensus on the exact boundary where Late Latin ends. Medieval Latin had a vocabulary, which freely borrowed from other sources. Greek provided much of the vocabulary of Christianity. The various Germanic languages spoken by the Germanic tribes, who invaded southern Europe, were major sources of new words. Germanic leaders became the rulers of parts of the Roman Empire that they conquered, other more ordinary words were replaced by coinages from Vulgar Latin or Germanic sources because the classical words had fallen into disuse. Latin was also spread to such as Ireland and Germany. Works written in the lands, where Latin was a language with no relation to the local vernacular, also influenced the vocabulary. English words like abstract, subject, communicate, matter, probable, the high point of the development of medieval Latin as a literary language came with the Carolingian renaissance, a rebirth of learning kindled under the patronage of Charlemagne, king of the Franks. On the other hand, strictly speaking there was no form of medieval Latin. Every Latin author in the period spoke Latin as a second language, with varying degrees of fluency, and syntax, grammar. For instance, rather than following the classical Latin practice of placing the verb at the end. Unlike classical Latin, where esse was the auxiliary verb, medieval Latin writers might use habere as an auxiliary, similar to constructions in Germanic. The accusative and infinitive construction in classical Latin was often replaced by a clause introduced by quod or quia. This is almost identical, for example, to the use of que in similar constructions in French. In every age from the late 8th century onwards, there were learned writers who were familiar enough with classical syntax to be aware that these forms and usages were wrong, however the use of quod to introduce subordinate clauses was especially pervasive and is found at all levels. That resulted in two features of Medieval Latin compared with Classical Latin. First, many attempted to show off their knowledge of Classical Latin by using rare or archaic constructions
4.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
5.
Palace
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A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which housed the Imperial residences, in many parts of Europe, the term is also applied to ambitious private mansions of the aristocracy. Many historic palaces are now put to uses such as parliaments, museums, hotels. The word is sometimes used to describe a lavishly ornate building used for public entertainment or exhibitions. The word palace comes from Old French palais, from Latin Palātium, the original palaces on the Palatine Hill were the seat of the imperial power while the capitol on the Capitoline Hill was the religious nucleus of Rome. Long after the city grew to the seven hills the Palatine remained a residential area. Emperor Caesar Augustus lived there in a purposely modest house only set apart from his neighbours by the two trees planted to flank the front door as a sign of triumph granted by the Senate. His descendants, especially Nero, with his Golden House, enlarged the house, the word Palātium came to mean the residence of the emperor rather than the neighbourhood on top of the hill. Palace meaning government can be recognized in a remark of Paul the Deacon, AD790 and describing events of the 660s, When Grimuald set out for Beneventum, he entrusted his palace to Lupus. At the same time, Charlemagne was consciously reviving the Roman expression in his palace at Aachen, in the 9th century, the palace indicated the housing of the government too, and the constantly travelling Charlemagne built fourteen. In the Holy Roman Empire the powerful independent Electors came to be housed in palaces and this has been used as evidence that power was widely distributed in the Empire, as in more centralized monarchies, only the monarchs residence would be a palace. In modern times, the term has been applied by archaeologists and historians to large structures that housed combined ruler, court, in informal usage, a palace can be extended to a grand residence of any kind. The earliest known palaces were the residences of the Egyptian Pharaohs at Thebes, featuring an outer wall enclosing labyrinthine buildings. Other ancient palaces include the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud and Nineveh, the Minoan palace at Knossos, the Brazilian new capital, Brasília, hosts modern palaces, most designed by the citys architect Oscar Niemeyer. The Alvorada Palace is the residence of the Brazils president. The Planalto Palace is the official workplace, the Jaburu Palace is the official residence of Brazils vice-president. In Canada, Government House is a given to the official residences of the Canadian monarchy. The use of the term Government House is a custom from the British Empire
6.
Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
7.
Holy Roman Emperor
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The Holy Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. From an autocracy in Carolingian times the title evolved into an elected monarchy chosen by the Prince-electors, until the Reformation the Emperor elect was required to be crowned by the Pope before assuming the imperial title. The title was held in conjunction with the rule of the Kingdom of Germany, in theory, the Holy Roman Emperor was primus inter pares among the other Catholic monarchs, in practice, a Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and alliances made him. Various royal houses of Europe, at different times, effectively became hereditary holders of the title, after the Reformation many of the subject states and most of those in Germany were Protestant while the Emperor continued to be Catholic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by the last Emperor as a result of the collapse of the polity during the Napoleonic wars, from the time of Constantine I the Roman emperors had, with very few exceptions, taken on a role as promoters and defenders of Christianity. In the west, the title of Emperor was revived in 800, as the power of the papacy grew during the Middle Ages, popes and emperors came into conflict over church administration. The best-known and most bitter conflict was known as the Investiture Controversy. After Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, no pope appointed an emperor again until the coronation of Otto the Great in 962. Under Otto and his successors, much of the former Carolingian kingdom of Eastern Francia fell within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, the various German princes elected one of their peers as King of the Germans, after which he would be crowned as emperor by the Pope. After Charles Vs coronation, all succeeding emperors were called elected Emperor due to the lack of papal coronation, the term sacrum in connection with the medieval Roman Empire was first used in 1157 under Frederick I Barbarossa. Charles V was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by the Pope, the final Holy Roman Emperor-elect, Francis II, abdicated in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars that saw the Empires final dissolution. The standard designation of the Holy Roman Emperor was August Emperor of the Romans, the word Holy had never been used as part of that title in official documents. In German-language historiography, the term Römisch-deutscher Kaiser is used to distinguish the title from that of Roman Emperor on one hand, the English term Holy Roman Emperor is a modern shorthand for emperor of the Holy Roman Empire not corresponding to the historical style or title. Successions to the kingship were controlled by a variety of complicated factors, elections meant the kingship of Germany was only partially hereditary, unlike the kingship of France, although sovereignty frequently remained in a dynasty until there were no more male successors. The Electoral council was set at seven princes by the Golden Bull of 1356, another elector was added in 1690, and the whole college was reshuffled in 1803, a mere three years before the dissolution of the Empire. After 1438, the Kings remained in the house of Habsburg and Habsburg-Lorraine, with the exception of Charles VII. Maximilian I and his successors no longer travelled to Rome to be crowned as Emperor by the Pope, Maximilian therefore named himself Elected Roman Emperor in 1508 with papal approval. This title was in use by all his uncrowned successors, of his successors only Charles V, the immediate one, received a papal coronation
8.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
9.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
10.
Kaiser
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Kaiser is the German word for emperor. In English, the term the Kaiser is usually reserved for the emperors of the German Empire, the rulers of the Empire of Austria were drawn from the Habsburg dynasty, who, after 1438, provided most of Holy Roman Emperors. The Austrian rulers adopted the title Kaiser, there were only four Kaisers of the Austrian Empire, and they have all belonged to the Habsburg dynasty. In 1871, there was debate about the exact title for the monarch of those German territories that agreed to unify under the leadership of Prussia. There were only three Kaisers of the German Empire, all of them belonged to the Hohenzollern dynasty, which, as kings of Prussia, had been de facto leaders of lesser Germany. In English the word Kaiser is mainly associated with the emperors of the unified German Empire. In 1806 the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, but the title of Kaiser was retained by the House of Habsburg, the head of which, beginning in 1804, bore the title of Emperor of Austria. Georg Friedrich Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia, is head of the House of Hohenzollern, which was the former ruling dynasty of the German Empire. Karl von Habsburg is currently the head of the House of Habsburg, German Monarchy German nobility List of German monarchs Qaisar Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia Kaiser
11.
Caesar (title)
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Caesar is a title of imperial character. It derives from the cognomen of Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, the change from being a familial name to a title adopted by the Roman Emperors can be dated to about AD 68/69, the so-called Year of the Four Emperors. For political and personal reasons Octavian chose to emphasize his relationship with Caesar by styling himself simply Imperator Caesar, without any of the other elements of his full name. His successor as emperor, his stepson Tiberius, also bore the name as a matter of course, born Tiberius Claudius Nero, he was adopted by Caesar Augustus on June 26,4 AD, as Tiberius Julius Caesar. The precedent was set, the Emperor designated his successor by adopting him, Claudius in turn adopted his stepson and grand-nephew Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, giving him the name Caesar in the traditional way, his stepson would rule as the Emperor Nero. Galba helped solidify Caesar as the title of the heir by giving it to his own adopted heir. Galbas reign did not last long and he was deposed by Marcus Otho. Otho did not at first use the title Caesar and occasionally used the title Nero as emperor, Otho was then defeated by Aulus Vitellius who acceded with the name Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Imperator Augustus. Vitellius did not adopt the cognomen Caesar as part of his name, vespasians son, Titus Flavius Vespasianus became Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus. By this point the status of Caesar had been regularised into that of a given to the Emperor-designate. After some variation among the earliest emperors, the style of the Emperor-designate on coins was usually Nobilissimus Caesar Most Noble Caesar, on March 1,293, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus established the Tetrarchy, a system of rule by two senior Emperors and two junior sub-Emperors. The two coequal senior emperors were styled identically to previous Emperors, as Imperator Caesar NN, pius Felix Invictus Augustus, and were called the Augusti, while the two junior sub-Emperors were styled identically to previous Emperors-designate, as Nobilissimus Caesar. Likewise, the junior sub-Emperors retained the title Caesar upon accession to the senior position, an exceptional case was the conferment of the dignity and its insignia to the Bulgarian khan Tervel by Justinian II who had helped him regain his throne in 705. The title was awarded to the brother of Empress Maria of Alania, according to the Klētorologion of 899, the Byzantine Caesars insignia were a crown without a cross, and the ceremony of a Caesars creation, is included in De Ceremoniis I.43. The title remained the highest in the hierarchy until the introduction of the sebastokratōr by Alexios I Komnenos. The title remained in existence through the last centuries of the Empire, in the late Byzantine hierarchy, as recorded in the mid-14th century Book of Offices of pseudo-Kodinos, the rank continued to come after the sebastokratōr. Pseudo-Kodinos writes that the forms of another form of hat, the domed skaranikon, and of the mantle. In the Middle East, the Persians and the Arabs continued to refer to the Roman and Byzantine emperors as Caesar
12.
Aachen
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Aachen or Bad Aachen, traditionally known in English and French as Aix-la-Chapelle, is a spa and border city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was the residence of Charlemagne, and, from 936 to 1531. Aachen is the westernmost city in Germany, located near the borders with Belgium, RWTH Aachen University is located in the city. Aachens industries include science, engineering and information technology, in 2009, Aachen was ranked eighth among cities in Germany for innovation. The location has been inhabited by humans since the Neolithic era, about 5,000 years ago, latin Aquae figures in Aachens Roman name Aquae granni, which meant waters of Grannus, referring to the Celtic god of healing who was worshipped at the springs. Aachens name in French and German evolved in parallel, Aachens local dialect is called Öcher Platt and belongs to the Ripuarian language. Bronze Age settlement is evidenced by the remains of barrows found, for example, during the Iron Age, the area was settled by Celtic peoples who were perhaps drawn by the marshy Aachen basins hot sulphur springs where they worshipped Grannus, god of light and healing. Later, the 25-hectare Roman spa resort town of Aquae Granni was, according to legend, founded by Grenus, under Hadrian, a kind of forum, surrounded by colonnades, connected the two spa complexes. There was also a residential area, part of it inhabited by a flourishing Jewish community. The Romans built bathhouses near Burtscheid, a temple precinct called Vernenum was built near the modern Kornelimünster/Walheim. Today, remains have been found of three bathhouses, including two fountains in the Elisenbrunnen and the Burtscheid bathhouse, Roman civil administration in Aachen broke down between the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th centuries. Rome withdrew its troops from the area, but the town remained populated, by 470, the town came to be ruled by the Ripuarian Franks and subordinated to their capital, Cologne. Einhard mentions that in 765–6 Pepin spent both Christmas and Easter at Aquis villa, which must have been equipped to support the royal household for several months. In the year of his coronation as king of the Franks,768, Charlemagne spent most winters in Aachen between 792 and his death in 814. Aachen became the focus of his court and the centre of his empire. In 936, Otto I was crowned king of East Francia in the church built by Charlemagne. During the reign of Otto II, the nobles revolted and the West Franks, under Lothair, Aachen was attacked again by Odo of Champagne, who attacked the imperial palace while Conrad II was absent. Odo relinquished it quickly and was killed soon afterwards, the palace and town of Aachen had fortifying walls built by order of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa between 1172 and 1176
13.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
14.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
15.
Vassal
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A vassal or feudatory is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain privileges, the term is applied to similar arrangements in other feudal societies. It is like a land lord some one who own and lets you live on it, in contrast, a fidelity, or fidelitas, was a sworn, unconditional loyalty to a monarch. Such refinements were not included from the outset when it was time of crisis, war, hunger, under feudalism, those who were weakest needed the protection of the knights who owned the weapons and knew how to fight. Feudal society was based on the concept of lordship, which was one of the distinguishing features of the Early Middle Ages and had evolved from times of Late Antiquity. In the time of Charlemagne, the connection slowly developed between vassalage and the grant of land, the form of wealth at that time. Contemporaneous social developments included agricultural manorialism and the social and legal structures labelled — and these developments proceeded at different rates in various regions. In Merovingian times, monarchs would reward only the greatest and most trusted vassals with lands, even at the most extreme devolution of any remnants of central power, in 10th-century France, the majority of vassals still had no fixed estates. The stratification of a band of vassals into distinct groups might roughly correlate with the new term fief that had started to supersede benefice in the 9th century. An upper group comprised great territorial magnates, who were strong enough to ensure the inheritance of their benefice to the heirs of their family, a lower group consisted of landless knights attached to a count or duke. This social settling process also received impetus in fundamental changes in the conduct of warfare, as co-ordinated cavalry superseded disorganized infantry, armies became more expensive to maintain. A vassal needed economic resources to equip the cavalry he was bound to contribute to his lord to fight his frequent wars. Such resources, in the absence of an economy, came only from land and its associated assets. Many empires have set up states, based on tribes, kingdoms, or city-states. In these cases a state has retained internal autonomy, but has lost independence in foreign policy, while and, in many instances. In this framework, a colony or junior ally might also be regarded as a vassal state in terms of international relations. The concept of a state uses the concept of personal vassalry to theorize formally hegemonic relationships between states – even those using non-personal forms of rule. Imperial states to which this terminology has been applied include, for instance, Ancient Rome, the Mongol Empire, and the British Empire
16.
Kingdom of Germany
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The Kingdom of Germany or German Kingdom developed out of the eastern half of the former Carolingian Empire. Like Anglo-Saxon England and medieval France, it began as a conglomerate, East Francia was formed by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, and was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911, after which the kingship was elective. The initial electors were the rulers of the duchies, who generally chose one of their own. After 962, when Otto I was crowned emperor, the formed the bulk of the Holy Roman Empire. The term rex teutonicorum first came into use in the chancery of Pope Gregory VII during the Investiture Controversy, in the twelfth century, in order to stress the imperial and transnational character of their office, the emperors began to employ the title rex Romanorum on their election. Distinct titulature for Germany, Italy and Burgundy, which traditionally had their own courts, laws, there are nevertheless relatively few references to a German realm and an instability in the terms use. The eastern division of the Treaty of Verdun was called the regnum Francorum Orientalium or Francia Orientalis and it was the eastern half of the old Merovingian regnum Austrasiorum. The east Franks themselves were the people of Franconia, which had settled by Franks. Foreign kings and ecclesiastics continued to refer to the regnum Alemanniae, the term regnum Germaniae begins to appear even in German sources at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Therefore, throughout the Middle Ages, the convention was that the king of Germany was also Emperor of the Romans and his title was royal from his election to his coronation in Rome by the Pope, thereafter, he was emperor. After the death of Frederick II in 1250, the trend toward a clearly conceived German kingdom found no real consolidation. The title of king of the Romans became less and less reserved for the emperor-elect but uncrowned in Rome, the reign was dated to begin either on the day of election or the day of the coronation. The election day became the starting date permanently with Sigismund, ultimately, Maximilian I changed the style of the emperor in 1508, with papal approval, after his German coronation, his style was Dei gratia Romanorum imperator electus semper augustus. That is, he was emperor elect, a term that did not imply that he was emperor-in-waiting or not yet fully emperor, at the same time, the custom of having the heir-apparent elected as king of the Romans in the emperors lifetime resumed. For this reason, the king of the Romans came to mean heir-apparent. The Archbishop of Mainz was ex officio arch-chancellor of Germany, as his colleagues the Archbishop of Cologne and Archbishop of Trier were, respectively, arch-chancellors of Italy and these titles continued in use until the end of the empire, but only the German chancery actually existed. The tripartite division of the Carolingian Empire effected by the Treaty of Verdun was challenged early on with the death of the Emperor Lothair I in 855. He had divided his kingdom of Middle Francia between his three sons and immediately the northernmost of the three divisions, Lotharingia, was disputed between the kings of East and West Francia, the war over Lotharingia lasted until 925
17.
Pope
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The pope is the Bishop of Rome and, therefore, the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, the office of the pope is the papacy. The pope is considered one of the worlds most powerful people because of his diplomatic and he is also head of state of Vatican City, a sovereign city-state entirely enclaved within the Italian capital city of Rome. The papacy is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history, the popes in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and the resolution of various doctrinal disputes. In the Middle Ages, they played a role of importance in Western Europe. Currently, in addition to the expansion of the Christian faith and doctrine, the popes are involved in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, charitable work, Popes, who originally had no temporal powers, in some periods of history accrued wide powers similar to those of temporal rulers. In recent centuries, popes were gradually forced to give up temporal power, the word pope derives from Greek πάππας meaning father. The earliest record of the use of title was in regard to the by then deceased Patriarch of Alexandria. Some historians have argued that the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, the writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD180 reflect a belief that Peter founded and organised the Church at Rome. Moreover, Irenaeus was not the first to write of Peters presence in the early Roman Church, Clement of Rome wrote in a letter to the Corinthians, c. 96, about the persecution of Christians in Rome as the struggles in our time and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, first, the greatest and most just columns, the good apostles Peter and Paul. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement and in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not command them as Peter and Paul did. Given this and other evidence, many agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero. Protestants contend that the New Testament offers no proof that Jesus established the papacy nor even that he established Peter as the first bishop of Rome, others, using Peters own words, argue that Christ intended himself as the foundation of the church and not Peter. First-century Christian communities would have had a group of presbyter-bishops functioning as leaders of their local churches, gradually, episcopacies were established in metropolitan areas. Antioch may have developed such a structure before Rome, some writers claim that the emergence of a single bishop in Rome probably did not occur until the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus, Cletus and Clement were possibly prominent presbyter-bishops, documents of the 1st century and early 2nd century indicate that the Holy See had some kind of pre-eminence and prominence in the Church as a whole, though the detail of what this meant is unclear. It seems that at first the terms episcopos and presbyter were used interchangeably, the consensus among scholars has been that, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters whose offices were overlapping or indistinguishable
18.
Bodfeld
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The term Bodfeld is also used to describe an area of forest that lies predominantly south of Elbingerode. Today, the ruins of the palace of Bodfeld are suspected to lie on a hill spur called the Schloßkopf north of Elbingerode. Surviving documents record at least 17 occasions when kings or emperors stayed at Bodfeld whilst hunting in the Harz, Henry I stayed in Bodfeld several times, for example he fell ill here in 935. Otto I characterised Bodfeld in 936 as a lodge, he visited Bodfeld at least 3 times. Otto III spent at least 14 days in Bodfeld in 991 together with his grandmother, Adelheid, conrad II was recorded there once, and Henry III at least four times. The last document issued by him was written in Bodfeld, Henry III died in Bodfeld after a seven-day illness on 5 October 1056 in the presence of the pope and many imperial princes. Henry IV became King of the Germans in Bodfeld in 1056, towards the end of the 13th century the royal hunting lodge at Bodfeld and its exact location began to sink into oblivion. However, thanks to research by Paul Höfer memories of Bodfeld were re-awakened at the end of the 19th century. In view of the place name Königshof he wrongly believed it to be the Königsburg on a hill above the confluence of the Warme. He publicized this several times in the Harz Associations magazine for history, others supported his view including C. Schuchhardt in his 1924 publication, Fortresses of the Early Historical Period in Lower Saxony, in 1933 castle researcher, Paul Grimm, proved that the Königsburg could never have existed in the era of the Saxon kings, but had been built later. His evidence was the fact that in excavations of the Königsburg no trace of red pottery had been found, in the run up to this, Schuchhardt had already changed his opinion in 1931. He did not reach a conclusion, however, and wrote. In 1940, the diplomat, Carl Erdmann, also questioned Höfers thesis, however, that appears to be irrelevant because the medieval Bodfeld was an extensive area of territory. In terms of its design, the site on the Schloßkopf resembles the Pfalz of Grone laid out by Henry I. In 1967, Friedrich Stolberg, however, pointed out that this site was related to Saxon hunting lodges like Siptenfelde, erdfeld was abandoned in the late Middle Ages in favour of nearby Elbingerode. Bodfeld is also the name of an area of forest which Henry II ceded to Gandersheim Abbey in 1009 as part of an exchange and its boundaries may be deduced from an enfeoffment letter by Abbess Sophia of Gandersheim dating to the year A. D.1319. According to that this forest area extended from Braunlage in the west to Elbingerode in the northeast and to Stiege, Siptenfelde, Otto I issues documents here twice Hasselfelde, Henry III stayed here at least twice Prell, Martin, Auf alten Wegen zu neuen Erkenntnissen
19.
Harz
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The Harz is a Mittelgebirge that has the highest elevations in Northern Germany and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name Harz derives from the Middle High German word Hardt or Hart, the Brocken is the highest summit in the Harz with an elevation of 1,141.1 metres above sea level. The Wurmberg is the highest peak located entirely within the state of Lower Saxony, the Harz has a length of 110 kilometres, stretching from the town of Seesen in the northwest to Eisleben in the east, and a width of 35 kilometres. The following districts fall wholly or partly within the Harz, Goslar and Osterode am Harz in the west, Harz and Mansfeld-Südharz in the north and east, and Nordhausen in the south. The districts of the Upper Harz are Goslar and Osterode, whilst the Lower Harz is on the territory of Harz and Mansfeld-Südharz districts. The Upper Harz is generally higher and features fir forests, whilst the Lower Harz gradually descends into the area and has deciduous forests interspersed with meadows. The dividing line between Upper and Lower Harz follows approximately a line from Ilsenburg to Bad Lauterberg, which separates the catchment areas for the Weser. Only on the perimeter of the Upper Harz, which is also called the High Harz. Its highest peak is the Brocken, its peaks are the Heinrichshöhe to the southeast. Other prominent hills in the Harz are the Acker-Bruchberg ridge, the Achtermannshöhe, in the far east, the mountains merge into the East Harz foothills, which are dominated by the Selke Valley. Part of the south Harz lies in the Thuringian district of Nordhausen, the Harz National Park is located in the Harz, the protected area covers the Brocken and surrounding wilderness area. Approximately 600,000 people live in towns and villages of the Harz Mountains, because of the heavy rainfall in the region the rivers of the Harz Mountains were dammed from an early date. Examples of such dams are the two largest, the Oker Dam and the Rappbode Dam. The clear, cool water of the streams was also dammed by early mountain folk to form the various mountain ponds of the Upper Harz waterways. The 17 dams in the Harz block a total of twelve rivers, because the Harz is one of the regions of Germany that experiences the most rainfall, its water power was used from early times. Today the dams are used to generate electricity, to provide drinking water, to prevent flooding. Modern dam-building began in the Harz with the construction of the Söse Valley Dam, the dams of the Upper Harz lakes are some of the oldest dams in Germany that are still in operation. → See List of dams in the Harz The largest rivers in the Harz are the Innerste, the Oker and the Bode in the north, the Wipper in the east, the Innerste merges into the Leine and its tributaries are the Nette and the Grane
20.
Palas
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A palas is a German term for the imposing or prestigious building of a medieval Pfalz or castle that contained the great hall. Such buildings appeared during the Romanesque period and, according to Thompson, are peculiar to German castles, the stone hall of a palas has an elongated rectangular floor plan. Frequently, the building has cellars or is provided with a basement, the main floors are well lit by arched windows that are often grouped to form arcades. Rich architectural sculpture is found here in order to enhance the prestige of the hall. The great hall, located on the first floor, occupies the floor area of the building and is reached by a separate staircase. Often, the hall is divided by a row of columns into two aisles, but can also be vaulted, multi-storey palas buildings may also contain several superimposed halls. The great hall was used mainly in the summer, because it was difficult to heat, the heated area was often referred to as the dürnitz and usually located on the ground floor, below the great hall. The palas was usually covered by a gabled roof, the palas first appeared as a type of building in imperial palaces or Pfalzen, where they could accommodate Kings Hall or Aula Regia. In this room public acts of state took place under the direction of the king, for example imperial court sessions, the administration of justice or the reception of secular and religious dignitaries. From the second half of the 12th century in the Holy Roman Empire the Romanesque palas was also part of the architecture of a number of castles of the higher nobility, the most important element was still the great hall, which offered a prestigious setting for receptions and parties
21.
Aula regia
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An aula regia, also referred to as a palas hall, is a name given to the great hall in an imperial or royal palace. In the Middle Ages the term was used as a synonym for the Pfalz itself. An example of a surviving, former Visigothic aula regia is the church of Santa María del Naranco near Oviedo, there was also an aula regia in the Palace of Aachenː it later became a part of the medieval Town Hall of Aachen. The royal hall of the Kaiserpfalz at Ingelheim has been digitally reconstructed, the architectural prototype for all of them was the Basilica of Constantine in Trier. The reception room in the Domus Flavia, the palace of Domitian on the Palatine Hill in Rome, is called the Aula Regia
22.
Chapel
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The term chapel usually refers to a place of prayer and worship that is attached to a larger, often nonreligious institution or that is considered an extension of a primary religious institution. Chapel has also referred to independent or nonconformist places of worship in Great Britain—outside of the established church, the earliest Christian places of worship are now often referred to as chapels, as they were not dedicated buildings but rather a dedicated chamber within a building. Most larger churches had one or more secondary altars, which if they occupied a distinct space, in Russian Orthodox tradition, the chapels were built underneath city gates, where most people could visit them. The most famous example is the Iberian Chapel, although chapels frequently refer to Christian places of worship, they are also commonly found in Jewish synagogues and do not necessarily connote a specific denomination. In England—where the Church of England is established by law—non-denominational or inter-faith chapels in such institutions may nonetheless be consecrated by the local Anglican bishop, non-denominational chapels are commonly encountered as part of a non-religious institution such as a hospital, airport, university or prison. Many military installations have chapels for the use of military personnel, the earliest Christian places of worship were not dedicated buildings but rather a dedicated chamber within a building, such as a room in an individuals home. Here one or two people could pray without being part of a communion/congregation, people who like to use chapels may find it peaceful and relaxing to be away from the stress of life, without other people moving around them. The word, chapel, like the word, chaplain, is ultimately derived from Latin. The other half he wore over his shoulders as a small cape, the beggar, the stories claim, was Christ in disguise, and Martin experienced a conversion of heart, becoming first a monk, then abbot, then bishop. This cape came into the possession of the Frankish kings, the tent which kept the cape was called the capella and the priests who said daily Mass in the tent were known as the capellani. From these words, via Old French, we get the names chapel, the word also appears in the Irish language in the Middle Ages, as Welsh people came with the Norman and Old English invaders to the island of Ireland. While the traditional Irish word for church was eaglais, a new word, séipéal, in British history, chapel or meeting house, was formerly the standard designation for church buildings belonging to independent or Nonconformist religious societies and their members. As a result, chapel is used as an adjective in the UK to describe the members of such churches. A proprietary chapel is one that belonged to a private person. In the 19th century they were common, often being built to cope with urbanisation, frequently they were set up by evangelical philanthropists with a vision of spreading Christianity in cities whose needs could no longer be met by the parishes. Some functioned more privately, with a wealthy person building a chapel so they could invite their favorite preachers and they are anomalies in the English ecclesiastical law, having no parish area, but being able to have an Anglican clergyman licensed there. Historically many Anglican Churches were Proprietary Chapels, over the years they have often been converted into normal Parishes. While the usage of the chapel is not exclusively limited to Christian terminology
23.
Electoral Palatinate
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Its rulers served as prince-electors from time immemorial, were noted as such in a papal letter of 1261, and were confirmed as electors by the Golden Bull of 1356. The Counts Palatine of the Rhine held the office of Imperial vicars in the territories under Frankish law and their climax and decline is marked by the rule of Elector Palatine Frederick V, whose coronation as King of Bohemia in 1619 sparked the Thirty Years War. After the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the lands were further afflicted by the Reunion campaigns launched by King Louis XIV of France. Ruled in personal union with the Electorate of Bavaria from 1777, the office of a Count palatine at the Frankish court of King Childebert I was already mentioned about 535. Up to the 10th century, the rule of the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties was centered at the palace in Aachen. In 985, Herman I, a scion of the Ezzonids, is mentioned as count palatine of Lotharingia and his territories were centered in the Rhineland proper around Cologne and Bonn, but extended south to the Moselle and Nahe Rivers in Lorraine. The southernmost point was near Alzey, from about 1085/86, after the death of the last Ezzonian count palatine Herman II, the Palatinate lost its military importance in Lotharingia. The territorial authority of his successor Henry of Laach was reduced to the counties along the Upper Rhine, various noble dynasties competed to be enfeoffed with the Palatinate by the Holy Roman Emperor, among them the House of Ascania, the House of Salm and the House of Babenberg. The first hereditary Count Palatine of the Rhine was Conrad, a member of the House of Hohenstaufen, the territories attached to this hereditary office in 1156 started from those held by the Hohenstaufens in the Donnersberg, Nahegau, Haardt, Bergstraße and Kraichgau regions. Much of this was from their ancestors, the Salian emperors, and apart from Conrads maternal ancestry. These backgrounds explain the composition of Upper and Rhenish Palatinate in the inheritance centuries onwards, about 1182, Conrad moved his residence from Stahleck Castle near Bacharach up the Rhine River to Heidelberg. Upon Conrads death in 1195, the Palatinate passed to the House of Welf through the—secret—marriage of his daughter Agnes with Henry of Brunswick, when Henrys son Henry the Younger died without heirs in 1214, the Hohenstaufen king Frederick II enfeoffed the Wittelsbach duke Louis I of Bavaria. The Bavarian House of Wittelsbach eventually held the Palatinate territories until 1918, as this region was politically connected to the Rhenish Palatinate, the name Upper Palatinate became common from the early 16th century in contrast to the Lower Palatinate along the Rhine. With the Treaty of Pavia in 1329, the Wittelsbach emperor Louis IV, from that time forth, the Count Palatine of the Rhine was usually known as the Elector Palatine. The Elector Palatine, now based in Heidelberg, adopted Lutheranism in the 1530s, in 1619, Frederick V accepted the throne of Bohemia from the Bohemian estates. He was soon defeated by the forces of Emperor Ferdinand II at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, called the Winter King because his reign in Bohemia only lasted one winter, Frederick was put under the ban of the Empire in 1623. Frederick Vs territories and his position as Elector were transferred to the Catholic Duke of Bavaria, Maximilian I, although technically Elector Palatine, he was known as the Elector of Bavaria. From 1648 he ruled in Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate alone, but retained all his Electoral dignities, after Frederick Vs death, his wife Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, worked tirelessly to have the Palatinate restored to her family and to the Protestant cause
24.
Easter
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It is the culmination of the Passion of Jesus, preceded by Lent, a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance. In Western Christianity, Eastertide, or the Easter Season, begins on Easter Sunday and lasts seven weeks, ending with the coming of the fiftieth day, Pentecost Sunday. In Eastern Christianity, the season of Pascha begins on Pascha and ends with the coming of the fortieth day, the Feast of the Ascension. The First Council of Nicaea established two rules, independence of the Jewish calendar and worldwide uniformity, which were the rules for Easter explicitly laid down by the council. No details for the computation were specified, these were worked out in practice and it has come to be the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or soonest after 21 March, but calculations vary. Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, in many languages, the words for Easter and Passover are identical or very similar. Easter customs vary across the Christian world, and include services, exclaiming the Paschal greeting, clipping the church. The Easter lily, a symbol of the resurrection, traditionally decorates the area of churches on this day. Additional customs that have associated with Easter and are observed by both Christians and some non-Christians include egg hunting, the Easter Bunny, and Easter parades. There are also various traditional Easter foods that vary regionally, however, it is possible that Bede was only speculating about the origin of the term since there is no firm evidence that such a goddess actually existed. In Greek and Latin, the Christian celebration was, and still is, called Πάσχα, Pascha, the word originally denoted the Jewish festival known in English as Passover, commemorating the Jewish Exodus from slavery in Egypt. In most of the non-English speaking world, the feast is known by names derived from Greek, Pascha is also a name by which Jesus himself is remembered in the Orthodox Church, especially in connection with his resurrection and with the season of its celebration. The New Testament states that the resurrection of Jesus, which Easter celebrates, is a foundation of the Christian faith, the resurrection established Jesus as the powerful Son of God and is cited as proof that God will judge the world in righteousness. For those who trust in Jesus death and resurrection, death is swallowed up in victory, any person who chooses to follow Jesus receives a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Through faith in the working of God those who follow Jesus are spiritually resurrected with him so that they may walk in a new way of life and receive eternal salvation. Easter is linked to the Passover and Exodus from Egypt recorded in the Old Testament through the Last Supper, sufferings and crucifixion of Jesus that preceded the resurrection. According to the New Testament, Jesus gave the Passover meal a new meaning, as in the room during the Last Supper he prepared himself. He identified the matzah and cup of wine as his soon to be sacrificed
25.
Town
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A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size definition for what constitutes a town varies considerably in different parts of the world, the word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, and the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the meaning of the word. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom, in English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of the wealthy, in Old Norse tun means a place between farmhouses, and is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian. If there was any distinction between toun and burgh as claimed by some, it did not last in practice as burghs, for example, Edina Burgh or Edinburgh was built around a fort and eventually came to have a defensive wall. In some cases, town is a name for city or village. Sometimes, the town is short for township. A places population size is not a determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, in the United Kingdom, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns. Some forms of settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural. Towns often exist as governmental units, with legally defined borders. In the United States these are referred to as incorporated towns, in other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be unincorporated. Note that the existence of a town may be legally set forth through other means. In the case of planned communities, the town exists legally in the form of covenants on the properties within the town. Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age, although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Albanian qytezë means small city or new city, while in ancient times small residential center within the walls of a castle
26.
Imperial immediacy
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As confirmed by the Peace of Westphalia, the possession of imperial immediacy came with a particular form of territorial authority known as territorial superiority. In todays terms, it would be understood as a form of sovereignty. They formed the Imperial Estates, together with roughly 100 immediate counts,40 Imperial prelates and 50 Imperial Cities who only enjoyed a collective vote. Additional advantages might include the rights to collect taxes and tolls, to hold a market, to mint coins, to bear arms, the last of these might include the so-called Blutgericht through which capital punishment could be administered. These rights varied according to the patents granted by the emperor. Immediate rights might be lost if the Emperor and/or the Imperial Diet could not defend them against external aggression, as occurred in the French Revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic Wars. The Treaty of Lunéville in 1801 required the emperor to renounce all claims to the portions of the Holy Roman Empire west of the Rhine. The practical application of the rights of immediacy was complex, this makes the history of the Holy Roman Empire particularly difficult to understand, even such contemporaries as Goethe and Fichte called the Empire a monstrosity. Prussian historian Heinrich von Treitschke described it in the 19th century as having become a mess of rotted imperial forms. Pointing out that people like Goethe meant monster as a compliment in modern understanding, free Imperial City German mediatization Imperial Abbey Imperial Estate Imperial Village List of states of the Holy Roman Empire Braun, B. Reichsunmittelbarkeit in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 2005-05-03
27.
Bishop
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A bishop is an ordained, consecrated, or appointed member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within these churches, bishops are seen as those who possess the full priesthood, Some Protestant churches including the Lutheran and Methodist churches have bishops serving similar functions as well, though not always understood to be within apostolic succession in the same way. Priests, deacons and lay ministers cooperate and assist their bishop in shepherding a flock, the earliest organization of the Church in Jerusalem was, according to most scholars, similar to that of Jewish synagogues, but it had a council or college of ordained presbyters. In, we see a system of government in Jerusalem chaired by James the Just. In, the Apostle Paul ordains presbyters in churches in Anatolia, in Timothy and Titus in the New Testament a more clearly defined episcopate can be seen. We are told that Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete to oversee the local church, Paul commands Titus to ordain presbyters/bishops and to exercise general oversight, telling him to rebuke with all authority. Early sources are unclear but various groups of Christian communities may have had the bishop surrounded by a group or college functioning as leaders of the local churches, eventually, as Christendom grew, bishops no longer directly served individual congregations. Instead, the Metropolitan bishop appointed priests to each congregation. Around the end of the 1st century, the organization became clearer in historical documents. While Ignatius of Antioch offers the earliest clear description of monarchial bishops he is an advocate of monepiscopal structure rather than describing an accepted reality. To the bishops and house churches to which he writes, he offers strategies on how to pressure house churches who dont recognize the bishop into compliance. Other contemporary Christian writers do not describe monarchial bishops, either continuing to equate them with the presbyters or speaking of episkopoi in a city, plainly therefore we ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 6,1. Your godly bishop — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 2,1, therefore as the Lord did nothing without the Father, either by Himself or by the Apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and the presbyters. — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 7,1. Be obedient to the bishop and to one another, as Jesus Christ was to the Father, and as the Apostles were to Christ and to the Father, — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 13,2. Apart from these there is not even the name of a church, — Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallesians 3,1. Follow your bishop, as Jesus Christ followed the Father, and the presbytery as the Apostles, and to the deacons pay respect, as to Gods commandment — Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnans 8,1. He that honoureth the bishop is honoured of God, he that doeth aught without the knowledge of the bishop rendereth service to the devil — Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnans 9,1
28.
Hohenstaufen
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The Hohenstaufen, also called the Staufer or Staufen, were a dynasty of German kings during the Middle Ages. Besides Germany, they ruled the Kingdom of Sicily. In Italian historiography, they are known as the Svevi, since they were dukes of Swabia from 1079, three members of the dynasty—Frederick I, Henry VI and Frederick II—were crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The name Staufen derives from Stauf, meaning chalice, and was applied to conical hills in Swabia in the Middle Ages. The family derives its name from the castle which the first Swabian duke of the lineage built there in the half of the 11th century. Staufen castle was finally called Hohenstaufen by historians in the 19th century. The name of the dynasty followed, but in recent decades the trend in German historiography has been to prefer the name Staufer, the noble family first appeared in the late 10th century in the Swabian Riesgau region around the former Carolingian court of Nördlingen. A local count Frederick is mentioned as progenitor in a pedigree drawn up by Abbot Wibald of Stavelot at the behest of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1153. He held the office of a Swabian count palatine, his son Frederick of Buren married Hildegard of Egisheim-Dagsburg and their son Frederick I was appointed Duke of Swabia at Hohenstaufen Castle by the Salian king Henry IV of Germany in 1079. At the same time, Duke Frederick I was engaged to the kings approximately seventeen-year-old daughter, Fredericks brother Otto was elevated to the Strasbourg bishopric in 1082. Upon Fredericks death, he was succeeded by his son, Duke Frederick II, Frederick II remained a close ally of the Salians, he and his younger brother Conrad were named the kings representatives in Germany when the king was in Italy. Around 1120, Frederick II married Judith of Bavaria from the rival House of Welf, when the last male member of the Salian dynasty, Emperor Henry V, died without heirs in 1125, a controversy arose about the succession. A civil war between Fredericks dynasty and Lothairs ended with Fredericks submission in 1134, after Lothairs death in 1137, Fredericks brother Conrad was elected King as Conrad III. In 1147, Conrad heard Bernard of Clairvaux preach the Second Crusade at Speyer, conrads brother Duke Frederick II died in 1147, and was succeeded in Swabia by his son, Duke Frederick III. When King Conrad III died without heir in 1152, Frederick also succeeded him. As royal access to the resources of the church in Germany was much reduced and he was soon crowned emperor in Italy, but decades of warfare on the peninsula yielded scant results. The Papacy and the prosperous city-states of the Lombard League in northern Italy were traditional enemies, under the skilled leadership of Pope Alexander III, the alliance suffered many defeats but ultimately was able to deny the emperor a complete victory in Italy. During Fredericks long stays in Italy, the German princes became stronger, offers of reduced taxes and manorial duties enticed many Germans to settle in the east in the course of the Ostsiedlung
29.
Henry the Lion
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Henry the Lion was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, the duchies of which he held until 1180. At the height of his reign, Henry ruled over a vast territory stretching from the coast of the North and Baltic Seas to the Alps, Henry achieved this great power in part by his political and military acumen and in part through the legacies of his four grandparents. Born in Ravensburg, in 1129 or 1131, he was the son of Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, who was the son of Duke Henry the Black, Henrys father died in 1139, aged 32, when Henry was still a child. King Conrad III had dispossessed Henry the Proud of his duchies in 1138 and 1139, handing Saxony to Albert the Bear and this was because Henry the Proud had been his rival for the crown in 1138. Henry III, however, did not relinquish his claims to his inheritance, a participant in the 1147 Wendish Crusade, Henry also reacquired Bavaria by a decision of the new Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1156. However, the East Mark was not returned, which became Austria, Henry is the founder of Munich and Lübeck, he also founded and developed numerous other cities in Northern Germany and Bavaria, a. o. Augsburg, Hildesheim, Stade, Kassel, Güstrow, Lüneburg, Salzwedel, Schwerin, in Brunswick, his capital, he had a bronze lion, his heraldic animal, erected in the yard of his castle Dankwarderode in 1166 — the first bronze statue north of the Alps. Later, he had Brunswick Cathedral built close to the statue, in 1147, Henry married Clementia of Zähringen, thereby gaining her hereditary territories in Swabia. In 1165, Henry married Matilda, the daughter of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, during Fredericks first invasion of northern Italy, Henry took part, among the others, in the victorious sieges of Crema and Milan. In 1172, Henry had taken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, meeting with the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, spending Easter of that year in Constantinople. By December 1172, he was back in Bavaria and in 1174 and he did not consider these Italian adventures worth the effort, unless Barbarossa presented Henry with the Saxon imperial city Goslar, a request Barbarossa refused. Barbarossas expedition into Lombardy ultimately ended in failure and he bitterly resented Henry for failing to support him. Declaring that Imperial law overruled traditional German law, the court had Henry stripped of his lands, Frederick then invaded Saxony with an Imperial army to bring his cousin to his knees. Henrys allies deserted him, and he finally had to submit in November 1181 at a Reichstag in Erfurt and he was exiled from Germany in 1182 for three years, stayed with his father-in-law, in Normandy before being allowed back into Germany in 1185. He was exiled again in 1188 and his wife Matilda died in 1189. When Frederick Barbarossa went on the Crusade of 1189, Henry returned to Saxony, mobilized an army of his faithful, only the churches were left standing. Henry the Lion remains a figure to this day. During World War I a nail man depicting Henry the Lion, nazi propaganda later declared Henry an antecessor of the Nazis Lebensraum policy and turned Brunswick Cathedral and Henrys tomb into a National Place of Consecration
30.
Dankwarderode Castle
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Dankwarderode Castle on the Burgplatz in Braunschweig is a Saxon lowland castle. It was the residence of the Brunswick dukes for centuries and, Dankwarderode Castle was built between c.1160 and 1175 as the Pfalz of Duke Henry the Lion on an island in the river Oker. Next to the castle, construction of Brunswick Cathedral began in 1173, the castle lost its military significance as a defensive structure early, when it became surrounded completely by the growing city. During the 15th century, the dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel moved their Residenz out of the city, in 1616 the palas was remodelled in the renaissance style, while the rest of the castle was demolished or left to decay. During the 19th century, the keep served as a barrack. The present structure was rebuilt in 1887 by Ludwig Winter, based on archaeological investigations, today the ground floor of Dankwarderode Castle houses the permanent collection of medieval objects of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum. Georg Dehio, Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Bremen/Niedersachsen, Deutscher Kunstverlag,1977, richard Moderhack, Braunschweiger Stadtgeschichte, Brunswick,1997. Medieval Division of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum Dankwarderode Castle Dankwarderode Castle
31.
Braunschweig
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Braunschweig, also called Brunswick in English, is a city of 252,768 people, in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the furthest navigable point of the Oker river, today, Braunschweig is the second largest city in Lower Saxony and a major centre of scientific research and development. The date and circumstances of the foundation are unknown. The towns original name of Brunswik is a combination of the name Bruno and Low German wik, the towns name therefore indicates an ideal resting-place, as it lay by a ford across the Oker River. Another explanation of the name is that it comes from Brand. The city was first mentioned in documents from the St. Magni Church from 1031, up to the 12th century, Braunschweig was ruled by the Saxon noble family of the Brunonids, then, through marriage, it fell to the House of Welf. In 1142 Henry the Lion of the House of Welf became duke of Saxony and he turned Dankwarderode Castle, the residence of the counts of Brunswick, into his own Pfalz and developed the city further to represent his authority. Under Henrys rule the Cathedral of St. Blasius was built and he also had the statue of a lion, his heraldic animal, the lion subsequently became the citys landmark. Henry the Lion became so powerful that he dared to refuse military aid to the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, Henry went into exile in England. He had previously established ties to the English crown in 1168, through his marriage to King Henry II of Englands daughter Matilda, however, his son Otto, who could regain influence and was eventually crowned Holy Roman Emperor, continued to foster the citys development. By the year 1600, Braunschweig was the seventh largest city in Germany, the Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel didnt regain control over the city until the late 17th century, when Rudolph Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, took the city by siege. In the 18th century Braunschweig was not only a political, influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, dukes like Anthony Ulrich and Charles I became patrons of the arts and sciences. In 1745 Charles I founded the Collegium Carolinum, predecessor of the Braunschweig University of Technology, with this he attracted poets and thinkers such as Lessing, Leisewitz, and Jakob Mauvillon to his court and the city. Emilia Galotti by Lessing and Goethes Faust were performed for the first time in Braunschweig, in 1806, the city was captured by the French during the Napoleonic Wars and became part of the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807. The exiled duke Frederick William raised a corps, the Black Brunswickers. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Braunschweig was made capital of the reestablished independent Duchy of Brunswick, in the aftermath of the July Revolution in 1830, in Brunswick duke Charles II was forced to abdicate. His absolutist governing style had alienated the nobility and bourgeoisie. During the night of 7–8 September 1830, the palace in Braunschweig was stormed by an angry mob, set on fire
32.
Wartburg
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The Wartburg is a castle originally built in the Middle Ages. It is situated on a 410 meters precipice to the southwest of, in 1999, UNESCO added Wartburg Castle to the World Heritage List. It was an important inspiration for Ludwig II when he decided to build Neuschwanstein Castle, Wartburg is the most-visited tourist attraction in Thuringia after Weimar. Although the castle today still contains substantial original structures from the 12th through 15th centuries and it is a German play on words for mountain and fortress. Wartburg is located on a 410 meters precipice to the southwest of, the hill is an extension of Thuringian Forest, overlooking Mariental to the south-east and the valley of the Hörsel to the north, through which passed the historical Via Regia. The Rennsteig passes not far to the south of the castle, the castles foundation was laid about 1067 by the Thuringian count of Schauenburg, Louis the Springer, a relative of the Counts of Rieneck in Franconia. Together with its sister castle Neuenburg in the present-day town of Freyburg. The castle was first mentioned in a document in 1080 by Bruno, Bishop of Merseburg. During the Investiture Controversy, Louiss henchmen attacked a contingent of King Henry IV of Germany. From 1172 to 1211, the Wartburg was one of the most important princes courts in the German Reich, Hermann I supported poets like Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach who wrote part of his Parzival here in 1203. The legend of this event was used by Richard Wagner in his opera Tannhäuser. At the age of four, St. Elisabeth of Hungary was sent by her mother to the Wartburg to be raised to become consort of Landgrave Ludwig IV of Thuringia, from 1211 to 1228, she lived in the castle and was renowned for her charitable work. In 1227, Ludwig died on the Crusade and she followed her confessor Father Konrad to Marburg, Elisabeth died there in 1231 at the age of 24 and was canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church just five years after her death. In 1247, Heinrich Raspe, the last landgrave of Thuringia of his line and he was succeeded by Henry III, Margrave of Meissen. In 1320, substantial work was done after the castle had been damaged in a fire caused by lightning in 1317 or 1318. A chapel was added to the Palas, the Wartburg remained the seat of the Thuringian landgraves until 1440. It was during this period that Luther translated the New Testament from Ancient Greek into German in just ten weeks, Luthers was not the first German translation of the Bible but it quickly became the most well known and most widely circulated. From 1540 until his death in 1548, Fritz Erbe, an Anabaptist farmer from Herda, was held captive in the dungeon of the south tower, after his death, he was buried in the Wartburg near the chapel of St. Elisabeth
33.
Eisenach
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Eisenach is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located 50 kilometres west of Erfurt,70 km southeast of Kassel and 150 km northeast of Frankfurt. It is the urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions. A major attraction is Wartburg castle, which has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1999, Eisenach was an early capital of Thuringia in the 12th and 13th centuries. St. Elizabeth lived at the court of the Ludowingians here between 1211 and 1228, later, Martin Luther came to Eisenach and translated the Bible into German. In 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach was born here, during the early-modern period, Eisenach was a residence of the Ernestine Wettins and was visited by numerous representatives of Weimar classicism like Johann Wolfgang Goethe. In 1869, the SDAP, one of the two precursors of the Social Democratic Party of Germany was founded in Eisenach, car production is an important industry in Eisenach. The Automobilwerk Eisenach was founded in 1896, in the German Democratic Republic, the Wartburg was produced here. Eisenach is situated on the Hörsel river, a tributary of the Werra between the Thuringian Forest in the south, the Hainich mountains in the north-east and the East Hesse Highlands in the north-west, Eisenachs origin and early history is unknown. An 8th century Frankish settlement near Petersberg hill is regarded as the nucleus of Eisenach, however, there are no written sources about that early period. According to legend, Louis the Springer began in 1067 to establish Wartburg castle above the settlement, in 1080, the castle was first mentioned in a Saxon chronicle. Eisenach itself followed in a document dating to 1150 where it was referred to as Isinacha, during the 1180s, the town was established by the construction of three independent market settlements around the Saturdays market, the Wednesdays market and the Mondays market. During the second half of the 12th century, the walls were erected and Eisenach got a planned grid of streets. In 1207, the legendary Sängerkrieg supposedly took place at Wartburg castle, in 1221, St. Elizabeth married Landgrave Louis IV and she lived in Eisenach or at Wartburg castle until 1228. Later, she became the patroness of Thuringia and Hesse, in 1247, the Ludowingians died out which led to the War of the Thuringian Succession between the Wettins and Duchess Sophie of Brabant. As a consequence, the landgraviate was divided, Eisenach and the eastern parts went to the Wettins and Kassel, Marburg and the western parts went to Sophie. Eisenach kept a position among the Wettins Thuringian cities by becoming their Oberhof, so that their law had to be derived from Eisenachs municipal law. The confident citizens of Eisenach fought against the Wettins rule to become an imperial city between 1306 and 1308, but lost. In the 14th century various crises followed, in 1342, a big fire destroyed all the buildings
34.
Goslar
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Goslar is a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the centre of the district of Goslar and located on the northwestern slopes of the Harz mountain range. The Old Town of Goslar and the Mines of Rammelsberg are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Goslar is situated in the middle of the upper half of Germany, about 40 kilometres south of Braunschweig and about 70 km southeast of the state capital Hannover. The Schalke mountain is the highest elevation within the boundaries at 762 metres. The lowest point of 175 m is near the Oker river, in the northeast the Harly Forest stretches down to the Oker river, in the east Goslar borders on the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Immediately to the south, the Harz range rise above the borough at a height of 636 m at Mt. Rammelsberg. The major rivers crossing the boundaries is the Oker with its Gose/Abzucht. The eponymic Gose River originates approximately 9 kilometres south-west of Goslar at the Auerhahn Pass east of the Bocksberg mountain, at the northern foot of the Herzberg it meets the smaller Abzucht stream, before it flows into the Oker. The Dörpke and Gelmke streams also flow from the Harz foothills to the south into the Goslar municipal area, liebenburg, Schladen-Werla, Osterwieck, Bad Harzburg, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, and Langelsheim. The township currently comprises 18 districts, Salian Emperor Henry I founded the town in the 10th century after the discovery of deposits in the nearby Rammelsberg. The wealth derived from silver mining brought Goslar the status of an Imperial City, the medieval Imperial Palace was built in the 11th century and became a summer residence for the emperors, especially Henry III of Germany who visited his favourite palace about twenty times. Henrys heart is buried in Goslar, his body in the vault in Speyer Cathedral. In the winter of 1798, the coldest of the century, to dispel homesickness he started to write a few verses about his childhood, which would eventually evolve into the masterpiece that was published in thirteen volumes after his death as The Prelude. Goslars medieval cathedral was built at the time as the medieval Imperial Palace, but only the porch survived. Other sights are the town hall and the ancient mines of the Rammelsberg, during the Cold War, Goslar was a major garrison town for the West German army and the Border police. After the fall of the Berlin wall, the barracks were vacated and it is host to several productions of visiting theatre companies and music groups. The alternative theatre Culture Power Station Harz or Kulturkraftwerk Harz is housed in a disused powerstation, being run by volunteers, it produces contemporary theatre, comedy and hosts mostly alternative cultural events. The oldest and most traditional sports club is the MTV Goslar and its main facilities, a football pitch and gymnasium are located at the Golden Meadow site
35.
Adelberg
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Adelberg is a municipality in the district of Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. Adelberg lies in the Schurwald forest, at an altitude of around 334 to 473m, the annual rainfall of 1045mm is within the top quarter of values recorded in Germany, with lower values registered in 87% of the countrys weather stations. The driest month is February, while the most rainfall comes in June, variability of precipitation is extremely strong, and only 18% of weather stations record higher seasonal variations. The municipality of Adelberg is made up of the village of Adelberg, the hamlet of Adelberg Abbey. In 1971, the hamlet of Nassach was transferred to the municipality of Uhingen, the site on which Adelberg now stands was originally occupied by the village of Hundsholz, which is the source of the leaping dog on Adelbergs coat of arms. In 1178, Volknand von Staufen founded the Abbey of Adelberg, after the demise of the von Staufens, both abbey and town came under the control of Württemberg, a State of the Holy Roman Empire. During the Reformation, Adelberg became a Klosteramt, consisting of the former Abbey, in 1556, the monastery, along with twelve others in the region, were transformed into Protestant grammar schools under the direction of Christoph Binder. The school in Adelberg served this purpose until 1648, its most famous pupil being mathematician, in 1807, the Klosteramt was subsumed into the larger administrative district, Oberamt of Schorndorf. In 1830, the village of Hundsholz bought out the property in the village which had belonged to the monastery. In 1843, the area of the monastery was incorporated into the village. The administrative reform of 1938 brought the municipality within the district of Göppingen, after the Second World War, the population rose steeply through the return of former expatriates. In 1054, a chapel was built on the site on which the abbey now stands. The monastery was established in 1178 by the Premonstratensian cannons of Roggenburg Abbey. The first church in the village of Hundsholz was built in the 1490s, with the introduction of the Reformation by Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg, the monastery was dissolved. Abensberg and the municipalities of Birenbach, Börtlingen und Rechberghausen form the Gemeindeverwaltungsverband of Eastern Schurwald. A Gemeindeverwaltungsverband is an association of municipalities within the same administrative district which pool their resources. The Mayor of Adelberg is Wolf-Dieter Hermann, who will be succeeded in June 2010 by Carmen Marquardt, local elections were held on 7 June 2009 and ten members from a single list of candidates were elected. The most votes were received by Robert Tischer, the election turnout was 54%,0. 6% lower than in the 2004 municipal elections
36.
Aibling
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Bad Aibling is a spa town and former district seat in Bavaria on the river Mangfall, located some 56 km southeast of Munich. It features a health resort with a peat pulp bath. Bad Aibling and its surroundings were settled by Celtic tribes from about 500 BC until 15 BC, after Roman occupation, it was finally settled by Bavarii tribes in the 5th century AD. In 804 Bad Aibling was mentioned for the first time as Epininga, in mediaeval times, it was an administrative centre in the lordship of the Counts of Falkenstein. After the obliteration of the Neuburg-Falkenstein dynasty, it part of the realm of the Wittelsbach family. In 1845 the first treatments with peat pulp were offered by the physician Desiderius Beck, Bad Aibling received the title Bad in 1895. In the year 1933, Bad Aibling officially became a city, after the Second World War, Bad Aibling was the site of POW Discharge Center #26, where German POWs were released from captivity to civilian status. Later, the area evolved into a centre for intelligence organizations. In 2005 the American Bad Aibling ECHELON station closed after several decades of operation, after the departure of the NSA, parts of the station have been used by the Bundesnachrichtendienst, with NSA employees moving to the Mangfall barracks. The radomes are still used intensively, the station is used in cooperation with the NSA, which provides the BND with search terms, which then forwards the results back to the NSA. The Thermae opened in 2007, complementing the traditional peat pulp baths with mineral water, on 9 February 2016, a serious railway accident occurred near the town when two passenger trains collided, causing 11 fatalities. The town of Bad Aibling, with about 18,000 inhabitants, is at 498 m above sea level, in Bad Aibling there are several large spa hotels and rehabilitation hospitals that rely on peat pulp as a basic treatment. Additionally, in 2007 the new thermae were opened, with about 25.000 visitors in 2015 it is the largest festival of its kind in Bavaria. It is located on the abandoned Bad Aibling Station which was used for the festivals eponymous global surveillance network ECHELON, Bad Aibling has been twinned with Cavaion Veronese, Italy, since 2006. Julian Weigl –, German footballer for Borussia Dortmund Eleonore Baur –, also known as Sister Pia, in 1845, he opened the first Bavarian brine and peat mud baths in Bad Aibling in Rose Street, later Ludwig bathroom
37.
Albisheim
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Albisheim is a municipality in the Donnersbergkreis, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is in the middle of the Zellertal, in the year 835 the village is first mentioned in a document. It has been a town for many years. Also there was a palace, but it hasnt yet been found, near Albisheim there is the trunk B47, and the village has also a railway station. The protestantic church from 1792, the town hall, a classicist building from 1832
38.
Altenburg
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Altenburg is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located 40 kilometres south of Leipzig,90 kilometres west of Dresden and 100 kilometres east of Erfurt. Altenburg was first mentioned in 976 and later one of the first German cities within former Slavic area. The emperor Frederick Barbarossa visited Altenburg several times between 1165 and 1188, hence the town is named a Barbarossa town today, since the 17th century, Altenburg was the residence of different Ernestine duchies, of whom the Saxe-Altenburg persisted until the end of monarchy in Germany in 1918. Industrialization reached Altenburg and the region early in the first half of the 19th century. Economic malaise set in while Altenburg was in East Germany and continued after German reunification in 1990, evidenced by a decline in population, high unemployment, the main sights of Altenburg are the castle, the Lindenau-Museum, the historic city centre and the Gründerzeit architecture around the centre. Altenburg lies in the flat and fertile landscape of Osterland on the Pleiße river in the very east of Thuringia, the town was first mentioned in a deed to the Bishop of Zeitz in 976. Remains of a Slavic castle on the Schloßberg demonstrate that the town was probably a Slavic foundation, as shown by placenames, the surrounding area was mainly settled by Slavs. The towns location on the imperial road Via Imperii between Halle and Cheb in Bohemia gave Altenburg economic importance in the salt trade. The first castle, located under the present day church St. Bartholomäi, was destroyed after the Battle of Hohenmölsen between Henry IV and Rudolph of Swabia and it was rebuilt on the Schloßberg outside of the town. The 11th century Mantelturm tower is still preserved, the castle later became an imperial palatinate and played an important part in the German takeover and settlement of the area between the Harz-mountains and the Elbe. In the middle of the 12th century, the Hohenstaufen emperors patronized Altenburg as one of their Kaiserpfalzes, allowing the town to become a market, Altenburg and Chemnitz as Imperial towns were intended to reduce the importance of Leipzig held by the Margrave of Meissen. Under Frederick Barbarossa much building took place, especially in the area. A priory of canons regular was founded and the church was finished in 1172. The twin towers of the 12th century Augustine monastery are still preserved, a town wall with 5 gates was constructed at the end of the 12th century. Altenburg got its charter around 1200, in 1256 the Wettins confirmed it again, the law structure was transposed from Goslar municipal law. During the Interregnum, the Terra Plisnensis was impounded, but bought back by Rudolph I of Germany, together with Zwickau and Chemnitz, Altenburg was part of the anti-Meissen Pleiße-city Union of 1290. In 1455, Altenburg saw the division of the Meissen lands between Elector Frederick II and Duke William that led, after an attempt at reconciliation to a war between the two brothers. From this time on, Altenburg was historically connected with Thuringia and its dynasty, the Reformation was introduced in Altenburg quite early, in 1522, by George Spalatin, Wenzeslaus Linck and Gabriel Zwilling
39.
Alzey
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Alzey is a Verband-free town – one belonging to no Verbandsgemeinde – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the fourth-largest town in Rhenish Hesse, after Mainz, Worms, Alzey is one of the Nibelungenstädte – towns associated with the Nibelungenlied – because it is represented in this work by the character Volker von Alzey. Hence, Alzey is also known as Volkerstadt, Alzey lies in Rhenish Hesse on the western edge of the northern part of the Upper Rhine Plain. It is surrounded by the part of the Alzey Hills, which meets the Rhenish Hesse Hills towards the south. The town is found some 30 km southwest of Mainz and some 22 km northwest of Worms, through Alzey, in places underground, flows the river Selz, a left-bank tributary to the Rhine. Yearly precipitation in Alzey amounts to 586 mm, which is rather low, at 18% of the German Weather Services weather stations, even lower figures are recorded. The most rainfall comes in June, in that month, precipitation is 1.9 times what it is in February. At 41% of the stations, lower seasonal swings are recorded. The earliest traces of settlement in the Alzey area go back as far as the Neolithic, Alzey was founded as a vicus in the Roman province of Germania Superior in the lands surrounding Mogontiacum. The name of Alzey is first mentioned on a Nymphenstein, dedicated on 22 November 223 by the Vicani Altiaienses. The name Altiaia could well originate as the name of an older, pre-Roman Celtic settlement of about 400 BC, over the ruins of the Roman village, which was destroyed about 350, a fort was built about 390. In 406 and 407, the Burgundians, together with the Vandals, crossed the Rhine and settled in Mainz, Alzey, the area was secured for them by treaty. In 436, the Burgundian kingdom was destroyed by the Western Roman magister militum Flavius Aëtius with help from Hunnish troops and these events were worked into the Nibelungenlied and form the origin of the legendary figure Volker von Alzey, the gleeman in the Nibelungenlied. After 450, Alzey passed to the Alamanni and the Franks when they took over the land, after Clovis Is death in 511, the Frankish Empire fell apart into separate smaller kingdoms, and Alzey became part of Austrasia, whose capital was at Metz. Following the unification of the Frankish kingdoms in the century, Alzey was assigned by the 843 Treaty of Verdun to the Kingdom of the East Franks. In 897, Alzey was first mentioned as an Imperial fief, in 1156, Alzey belonged to the Electorate of the Palatinate, and Konrad von Staufen attained the rank of Count Palatine in the Imperial castle, which had been completed in 1118. In 1277, Alzey attained the rank of town from Rudolf von Habsburg, in 1620, Count Spinola sided with the Catholic Emperor in the Thirty Years War against the Protestant Electorate of the Palatinate and also conquered Alzey. In 1689, the town and the castle, under the French troops scorched-earth policy, were burnt down in the Nine Years War, when Louis XIVs armies had to leave areas conquered earlier
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Amorbach
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Amorbach is a town in the Miltenberg district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany, with some 4,000 inhabitants. It is situated on the small river Mud, in the part of the Odenwald. The town began as a Benedictine monastery, which bit by bit grew into a settlement until in 1253 it was raised to the status of a town, over the years, the town changed hands several times. It was part of the Bishopric of Würzburg until 1656, when it became part of the Archbishopric of Mainz, as a result of the 1803 German Mediatisation the Archbishopric of Mainz was secularized, and Amorbach became the residence town of the short-lived Principality of Leiningen. Only in 1816 did it become part of the Kingdom of Bavaria, in 1965, Amorbach attained the status of climatic spa. Amorbach is the seat of the princely Haus zu Leiningen. In 1992, the town was awarded the Europa Nostra Medal, the Benedictine abbey, formerly owned by the princely Haus zu Leiningen with its library, and the abbey church with its Stumm organ draw thousands of visitors each year. The late-Baroque hall church St. Gangolf replaced an earlier one, St. Gangolf and St. Sebastian and it was built in 1751-3 by local Oberamtmann Johann Franz Wolfgang Damian von Ostein and his brother and Archbishop, Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein. The design was based on plans by Anselm Franz von Ritter zu Groenesteyn, the design was inspired by St. Peters Church at Mainz. The interior reflects Rococo style and the onset of the Neoclassical style, ceiling frescoes by Johannes Zick show the lives of St. Gangolf and Saint Sebastian as well as King David as the father of Solomons Temple. Oil paintings in the choir by Konrad Huber depict the legendary beginnings of Amorbach, the marble high altar was made by Georg Schrantz, while Josef Keilwerth added the four statues. The cross by J. B. Berg dates from 1808, the side altars were originally used in the predecessor building. The organ also dates from 1720, but was located at Neustadt am Main Abbey until 1806, the church has two pulpits, made from stucco by Antonio Rossi. St. Gangolf is the Catholic parish church of Amorbach, the Sammlung Berger mit Teekannenmuseum is a museum of art and teapots. The tithe barn in Amorbach, built in 1488, has for five hundred years played a role in the town. Originally built to store tithes in the form of produce for the prince, the Kulturkreis Zehntscheuer Amorbach e. V. which outfitted the building in 1991 as a cabaret theatre maintains and renovates the building, which stands in the historical town centre. In 2001, this club bought the tithe barn, in Amorbach, Bundesstraße 469 meets Bundesstraße 47. The railway station lies on the Seckach−Miltenberg railway line, also known as the Madonnenlandbahn, princess Feodora of Leiningen, elder half-sister of Queen Victoria
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Andernach
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Andernach is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, of currently about 30,000 inhabitants. A few hundred metres downstream of Andernach the Rhine valley narrows from both sides forming the part of the romantic Middle Rhine stretch. Already in Roman times the place the narrow passage begins was named Porta Antunnacensis or Andernachian Gate and it is formed by two hills, the Krahnenberg and the Engwetter on the right bank near the wine village Leutesdorf. The crane hill is named after the old crane beneath his foot, as with most German cities, towns and villages, Andernach has its own local dialect – the Andernacher Platt in which Andernach and the local dialect itself is named Annenach and Annenache Platt. Another examples are words like Wind and Winter, which is Weend, the double ee is pronounced like French é. Unlike other dialects in the places the Andernachian dialect is strongly relative to the Ripuarian dialect due its connection to Cologne. For more examples see the German Wikipedia site, the coat of arms of Andernach known since 1344 shows a black cross on a white escutcheon charged with a pair of X-shapedly arranged red keys. It is described in language as Argent a cross sable charged with keys in saltire gules. The black cross on silver symbolizes the governance of the Electorate of Cologne, the red colour adverts to the red cross in the coat of arms of the Electorate of Trier. The oldest town seal shows St. Mary sitting on a throne with a church in her right hand, the seal inscription says, MATER DEI PATRONA CIVIUM ANDERNACENSIUM – Mother of God, patron saint of the Andernachian citizens. The oldest seal was made before 1200, the oldest seal dates from the year 1250. Both the Roman and the Celtic names mean village or farm of Antunnos/us—a man not yet identified and it was the southernmost outpost of the Electorate of Cologne from the 12th to the 19th century. In addition to the touristically appealing medieval remnants of the old town fortifications, for 350 years it was in operation from 1561 to 1911. This treadwheel crane with stone walls is one of only a few of its kind in Europe to have survived, a prince-electoral order or permission was needed to build and operate such a crane in the times of the Holy Roman Empire. The Catholic St. Mary Assumption Parish Church locally known as Church of Our Lady or St. Marys Cathedral is the oldest historical attraction in Andernach, some of which date back to the 11th century. The town palais von der Leyen house, named after its builder district magistrate and governor of the prince-elector, Georg III von der Leyen, built in renaissance and baroque styles it now houses the town museum since 1936 and again since 1969. It displays among others a fine model of the Roman castrum Antunnacum, a 17th-century town model in ~1,600 scale and a thoroughly assembled model of the prince-electoral town castle. One of Andernachs natural attractions is the worlds highest cold-water geyser and it is located a little less than half a mile downstream from the Crane in the Nature Reserve of Namedyer Werth, now a peninsula
