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Mühlhausen
Mühlhausen () is a city in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen. Mühlhausen was first mentioned in 967 and became one of the most important cities in central Germany in the late Middle Ages. In the mid-13th century, it became a '' Freie Reichsstadt'', an independent and republican self-ruled member of the Holy Roman Empire, controlling an area of approximately and 19 regional villages. Due to its long-distance trade, Mühlhausen was prosperous and influential with a population of 10,000 around 1500. Because it was spared from later destruction, Mühlhausen today has a great variety of historical buildings with one of the largest medieval city centres remaining in Germany, covering a surface of more than 50 hectares within the inner city wall and approximately 200 hectares overall. There are eleven Gothic churches, several patricians’ houses and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Müntzer
Thomas Müntzer ( – 27 May 1525) was a German preacher and theologian of the early Reformation whose opposition to both Martin Luther and the Roman Catholic Church led to his open defiance of late-feudal authority in central Germany. Müntzer was foremost amongst those reformers who took issue with Luther's compromises with feudal authority. He became a leader of the German peasant and plebeian uprising of 1525 commonly known as the German Peasants' War. He was captured after the Battle of Frankenhausen, tortured and executed. Few other figures of the German Reformation raised as much controversy as Müntzer, which continues to this day. A complex and unusual character, he is now regarded as a significant personality in the early years of the German Reformation and the history of European revolutionaries. Almost all modern studies stress the necessity of understanding his revolutionary actions as a consequence of his theology: Müntzer believed that the end of the world was imm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thuringia
Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and largest city. Other cities are Jena, Gera and Weimar. Thuringia is bordered by Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It has been known as "the green heart of Germany" () from the late 19th century due to its broad, dense forest. Most of Thuringia is in the Saale drainage basin, a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. Thuringia is home to the Rennsteig, Germany's best-known hiking trail. Its winter resort of Oberhof makes it a well-equipped winter sports destination – half of Germany's 136 Winter Olympic gold medals had been won by Thuringian athletes as of 2014. Thuringia was favoured by or was the birthplace of three key intellectuals and leaders in the arts: Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Fried ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard works such as the ''Goldberg Variations'' and ''The Well-Tempered Clavier''; organ works such as the '' Schubler Chorales'' and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and vocal music such as the ''St Matthew Passion'' and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After being orphaned at the age of 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical education in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Of Swabia
Philip of Swabia (February/March 1177 – 21 June 1208) was a member of the House of Hohenstaufen and King of Germany from 1198 until his assassination. The death of his older brother Emperor Henry VI in 1197 meant that the Hohenstaufen rule (which reached as far as the Kingdom of Sicily) collapsed in imperial Italy and created a power vacuum to the north of the Alps. Reservations about the kingship of Henry VI's underage son, Frederick, led to two royal elections in 1198, which resulted in the German throne dispute: the two elected kings Philip of Swabia and the Welf Otto of Brunswick, claimed the throne for themselves. Both opponents tried in the following years through European and papal support, with the help of money and gifts, through demonstrative public appearances and rituals, to decide the conflict for oneself by raising ranks or by military and diplomatic measures. Philip was able to increasingly assert his kingship against Otto in the north part of the Alps. However, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hainich
Hainich is a forested hill chain in the state of Thuringia in Germany, between the towns of Eisenach, Mühlhausen and Bad Langensalza. Hainich covers an area of around 160 km² (61,8 sq mi), of which, since 31 December 1997, half has been designated as ''Hainich National Park''. The highest point in Hainich is ''Alte Berg'' at 1621 ft (494 m). The ''Mühlhäuser Stadtwald'' in the northern part of Hainich is the largest municipal forest in Thuringia. The landmark of Hainich is ''Betteleiche'', a 600-year-old common oak at Ihlefeld. Geography Hainich is 18,6 mls (30 km) long from north to south and 2,5 to 5 mls (4 to 8 km) broad from west to east. The western edge of Hainich leads to ''Lempertsbach'' and ''Lauterbach'' valley and is steeper than the eastern slope. In the northwest you can find high rocks like ''Sommerstein'' and ''Winterstein''. The reason for the steeper slopes in western Hainich is the Saalfeld-Gotha-Eichenberg fault. Because of limes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Imperial City
In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that had a certain amount of autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet. An imperial city held the status of Imperial immediacy, and as such, was subordinate only to the Holy Roman Emperor, as opposed to a territorial city or town (') which was subordinate to a territorial princebe it an ecclesiastical lord ( prince-bishop, prince-abbot) or a secular prince (duke ('), margrave, count ('), etc.). Origin The evolution of some German cities into self-ruling constitutional entities of the Empire was slower than that of the secular and ecclesiastical princes. In the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, some cities were promoted by the emperor to the status of Imperial Cities ('; '), essentially for fiscal reasons. Those cities, which had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Peasants' War
The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt (german: Deutscher Bauernkrieg) was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of intense opposition from the aristocracy, who slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and farmers. The survivors were fined and achieved few, if any, of their goals. Like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, the war consisted of a series of both economic and religious revolts in which peasants and farmers, often supported by Anabaptist clergy, took the lead. The German Peasants' War was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising before the French Revolution of 1789. The fighting was at its height in the middle of 1525. The war began with separate insurrections, beginning in the southwestern part of what is now Germany and Alsace, and spread in subsequent insurrections to the central and eastern areas of Ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich August Stüler
Friedrich August Stüler (28 January 1800 – 18 March 1865) was an influential Prussian architect and builder. His masterpiece is the Neues Museum in Berlin, as well as the dome of the triumphal arch of the main portal of the Berliner Schloss. Life Stüler was born on 28 January 1800 in Mühlhausen. In 1818 he started studying architecture and became a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Berlin. After travelling to France and Italy together with Eduard Knoblauch in 1829 and 1830 and to Russia together with Heinrich Strack in 1831, Stüler became ''Hofbauinspektor'' (Royal Buildings Inspector), ''Hofbaurat'' (Royal privy councillor for buildings) and director of the commission for the building of the Berliner Stadtschloss in 1832. In 1837, he planned the rebuilding of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, but failed to realise these plans because Tsar Nicholas I of Russia decided to rebuild the original Baroque/Rococo palace instead of Stülers Neo-Renaissance concept. Stüle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erfurt
Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits in the middle of an almost straight line of cities consisting of the six largest Thuringian cities forming the central metropolitan corridor of the state, the "Thuringian City Chain" ('' Thüringer Städtekette'') with more than 500,000 inhabitants, stretching from Eisenach in the west, via Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar and Jena, to Gera in the east. Erfurt and the city of Göttingen in southern Lower Saxony are the two cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants closest to the geographic center of Germany. Erfurt is located south-west of Leipzig, north-east of Frankfurt, south-west of Berlin and north of Munich. Erfurt's old town is one of the best preserved medieval city centres in Germany. Tourist attractions include the Merchants' Bridge (''K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unstrut
The Unstrut () is a river in Germany and a left tributary of the Saale. The Unstrut originates in northern Thuringia near Dingelstädt (west of Kefferhausen in the Eichsfeld area) and its catchment area is the whole of the Thuringian Basin. It breaks out of the basin through the Thuringian Gate west of Heldrungen and, in its lower reaches, flows through Saxony-Anhalt before emptying into the Saale near Naumburg. The total length of the Unstrut is . Towns along the Unstrut include Mühlhausen, Sömmerda, Bad Frankenhausen, Artern, Roßleben, and Freyburg, Germany, Freyburg. The main tributaries of the Unstrut are the Gera (river), Gera, Wipper (Unstrut), Wipper, Helme, and Lossa (Unstrut), Lossa. The countryside around the Saale and Unstrut rivers forms the wine-growing region of Saale-Unstrut. The well-known brand of sparkling wine, ''Rotkäppchen'' ("Little Red Riding Hood") is produced in the cellars of Freyburg. Name Old High German ''Strödu'' means 'boggy thicket' and '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thuringian Basin
The Thuringian Basin (german: Thüringer Becken) is a depression in the central and northwest part of Thuringia in Germany which is crossed by several rivers, the longest of which is the Unstrut. It stretches about from north to south and around from east to west. Its height varies from about 150 to . The Basin is surrounded by a wide outer girdle of limestone (Muschelkalk) ridges (including Hainich, Dün, Hainleite, Hohe Schrecke, Schmücke, Finne), and to the southwest by the Thuringian Forest and to the southeast by sharply divided terraces (the Ilm-Saale and Ohrdruf Muschelkalk plateaus, and the Saale-Elster Bunter sandstone plateau). The Thuringian Basin belongs to the triassic period, during which horizontal beds of Bunter sandstone, Muschelkalk and Keuper were laid down. Below those lie the salt and gypsum layers of Magnesian Limestone (Zechstein). In the Cenozoic era the surrounding ridges were uplifted, whilst the Thuringian Basin sank to form a saucer-shaped depressio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaiserpfalz
The term ''Kaiserpfalz'' (, "imperial palace") or ''Königspfalz'' (, "royal palace", from Middle High German ''phal ne'' to Old High German ''phalanza'' from Middle Latin ''palatia'' luralto Latin ''palatium'' "palace") refers to a number of castles and palaces across the Holy Roman Empire that served as temporary, secondary seats of power for the Holy Roman Emperor in the Early and High Middle Ages. The term was also used more rarely for a bishop who, as a territorial lord (''Landesherr''), had to provide the king and his entourage with board and lodging, a duty referred to as ''Gastungspflicht''. Origin of the name ''Kaiserpfalz'' is a German word that is a combination of ''Kaiser'', meaning "emperor", which is derived from "caesar"; and ''Pfalz'', meaning "palace", and itself derived from the Latin ''palatium'', meaning the same (see palace). Likewise ''Königspfalz'' is a combination of ''König'', "king", and ''Pfalz'', meaning "royal palace". Description and purpose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
