Hesse

Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are Darmstadt and Kassel. With an area of 21,114.73 square kilometers and a population of just over six million, it ranks seventh and fifth, respectively, among the sixteen German states. Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Germany's second-largest metropolitan area (after Rhine-Ruhr), is mainly located in Hesse.

As a cultural region, Hesse also includes the area known as Rhenish Hesse (Rheinhessen) in the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Name

The German name '' Hessen'', like the names of other German regions (''Schwaben'' "Swabia", ''Franken'' "Franconia", ''Bayern'' "Bavaria", ''Sachsen'' "Saxony"), derives from the dative plural form of the name of the inhabitants or eponymous tribe, the Hessians (''Hessen'', singular ''Hesse''). The geographical name represents a short equivalent of the older compound name ''Hessenland'' ("land of the Hessians"). The Old High German form of the name is recorded as ''Hessun'' (dative plural of ''Hessi''); in Middle Latin it appears as ''Hassia'', ''Hessia'', ''Hassonia''. The name of the Hessians ultimately continues the tribal name of the '' Chatti''.
The ancient name ''Chatti'' by the 7th century is recorded as ''Chassi'', and from the 8th century as ''Hassi'' or ''Hessi''.

An inhabitant of Hesse is called a "Hessian" (German: '' Hesse'' (masculine), plural ''Hessen'', or ''Hessin'' (feminine), plural ''Hessinnen'').
The American English term "Hessian" for 18th-century British auxiliary troops originates with Landgrave Frederick II of Hesse-Kassel hiring out regular army units to the government of Great Britain to fight in the American Revolutionary War.

The English form ''Hesse'' was in common use by the 18th century, first in the hyphenated names of the states of ''Hesse-Cassel'' and ''Hesse-Darmstadt'', but the latinate form ''Hessia'' remained in common English usage well into the 19th century.

The European Commission uses the German form ''Hessen'', even in English-language contexts, due to the policy of leaving regional names untranslated.

The synthetic element hassium, number 108 on the periodic table, was named after the state of Hesse in 1997, following a proposal of 1992.

History

The territory of Hesse was delineated only in 1945, as Greater Hesse, under American occupation. It corresponds only loosely to the medieval Landgraviate of Hesse.
In the 19th century, prior to the unification of Germany, the territory of what is now Hesse comprised the territories of Grand Duchy of Hesse, the Duchy of Nassau, the free city of Frankfurt and the Electorate of Hesse (also known as Hesse-Cassel).

Early history

The Central Hessian region was inhabited in the Upper Paleolithic.
Finds of tools in southern Hesse in Rüsselsheim suggest the presence of Pleistocene hunters about 13,000 years ago. A fossil hominid skull that was found in northern Hesse, just outside the village of Rhünda, has been dated at 12,000 years ago.
The Züschen tomb (German: Steinkammergrab von Züschen, sometimes also Lohne-Züschen) is a prehistoric burial monument, located between Lohne and Züschen, near Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany. Classified as a gallery grave or a Hessian-Westphalian stone cist (''hessisch-westfälische Steinkiste''), it is one of the most important megalithic monuments in Central Europe. Dating to c. 3000 BC, it belongs to the Late Neolithic Wartberg culture.

An early Celtic presence in what is now Hesse is indicated by a mid-5th-century BC La Tène-style burial uncovered at Glauberg. The region was later settled by the Germanic Chatti tribe around the 1st century BC, and the name ''Hesse'' is a continuation of that tribal name.

The ancient Romans had a military camp in Dorlar, and in Waldgirmes directly on the eastern outskirts of Wetzlar was a civil settlement under construction. Presumably, the provincial government for the occupied territories of the right bank of Germania was planned at this location. The governor of Germania, at least temporarily, likely had resided here. The settlement appears to have been abandoned by the Romans after the devastating Battle of the Teutoburg Forest failed in the year AD 9. The Chatti were also involved in the Revolt of the Batavi in AD 69.

Hessia, from the early 7th century on, served as a buffer between areas dominated by the Saxons (to the north) and the Franks, who brought the area to the south under their control in the early sixth century and occupied Thuringia (to the east) in 531. Hessia occupies the northwestern part of the modern German state of Hesse; its borders were not clearly delineated. Its geographic center is Fritzlar; it extends in the southeast to Hersfeld on the river Fulda, in the north to past Kassel and up to the rivers Diemel and Weser. To the west, it occupies the valleys of the rivers Eder and Lahn (the latter until it turns south). It measured roughly 90 kilometers north–south, and 80 north-west.

The area around Fritzlar shows evidence of significant pagan belief from the 1st century on. Geismar was a particular focus of such activity; it was continuously occupied from the Roman period on, with a settlement from the Roman period, which itself had a predecessor from the 5th century BC. Excavations have produced a horse burial and bronze artifacts. A possible religious cult may have centered on a natural spring in Geismar, called ''Heilgenbron''; the name "Geismar" (possibly "energetic pool") itself may be derived from that spring.
The village of , now a part of Gudensberg near Fritzlar and less than ten miles from Geismar, was likely an ancient religious center; the basaltic outcrop of Gudensberg is named after Wodan, and a two-meter tall quartzite megalith called the '' Wotanstein'' is at the center of the village.

By the mid-7th century, the Franks had established themselves as overlords, which is suggested by archeological evidence of burials, and they built fortifications in various places, including Christenberg. By 690, they took direct control over Hessia, apparently to counteract expansion by the Saxons, who built fortifications in Gaulskopf and Eresburg across the river Diemel, the northern boundary of Hessia. The Büraburg (which already had a Frankish settlement in the sixth century) was one of the places the Franks fortified to resist the Saxon pressure, and according to John-Henry Clay, the Büraburg was "probably the largest man-made construction seen in Hessia for at least seven hundred years". Walls and trenches totaling one kilometer in length were made, and they enclosed "8 hectares of a spur that offered a commanding view over Fritzlar and the densely-populated heart of Hessia".

Following Saxon incursions into Chattish territory in the 7th century, two ''gaue'' had been established; a Frankish one, comprising an area around Fritzlar and Kassel, and a Saxonian one. In the 9th century, the Saxon Hessengau also came under the rule of the Franconians.

Holy Roman Empire

From 962 the land which would become Hesse was part of the Holy Roman Empire. In the 10th and 11th centuries it was mostly encompassed by the Western or Rhenish part of the stem duchy of Franconia.

In the 12th century, Hessengau passed to the Landgraviate of Thuringia. As a result of the War of the Thuringian Succession (1247–1264) the former Thuringian lands were partitioned between the Wettin Margraviate of Meissen, which gained Thuringia proper, and the new Landgraviate of Hesse, which remained with the Ludovingians. From that point on the Ludovingian coat of arms came to represent both Thuringia and Hesse.

It rose to prominence under Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous, who was one of the leaders of German Protestantism. After Philip's death in 1567, the territory was divided among his four sons from his first marriage (Philip was a bigamist) into four lines: Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Rheinfels, and the also previously existing Hesse-Marburg. As the latter two lines died out quite quickly (1583 and 1605, respectively), Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt were the two core states within the Hessian lands. Several collateral lines split off during the centuries, such as in 1622, when Hesse-Homburg split off from Hesse-Darmstadt, and in 1760 when Hesse-Hanau split off from Hesse-Kassel. In the late 16th century, Kassel adopted Calvinism, while Darmstadt remained Lutheran and consequently the two lines often found themselves on opposing sides of conflicts, most notably in the disputes over Hesse-Marburg and in the Thirty Years' War, when Darmstadt fought on the side of the Emperor, while Kassel sided with Sweden and France.

The Landgrave Frederick II (1720–1785) ruled Hesse-Kassel as a benevolent despot, from 1760 to 1785. He combined Enlightenment ideas with Christian values, cameralist plans for central control of the economy, and a militaristic approach toward diplomacy. He funded the depleted treasury of the poor government by loaning 19,000 soldiers in complete military formations to Great Britain to fight in North America during the American Revolutionary War, 1776–1783. These soldiers, commonly known as Hessians, fought under the British flag. The British used the Hessians in several conflicts, including in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. For further revenue, the soldiers were loaned to other places as well. Most were conscripted, with their pay going to the Landgrave.

Modern history

French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars

In 1789 the French Revolution began and in 1794, during the War of the First Coalition, the French Republic occupied the Left Bank of the Rhine, including part of Lower Katzenelnbogen (, Hesse-Kassel's part of the former County of Katzenelnbogen which was held by the appanage Hesse-Rotenburg). Emperor Francis II formally recognised the annexation of the Left Bank in the 1801 Treaty of Lunéville. This led in 1803 to the , a substantial reorganisation ( mediatisation) of the states and territories of the Empire. Several exclaves of Mainz were mediatised to Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt, and Hesse-Darmstadt also gained the Duchy of Westphalia from Cologne, the parts of Worms on the right-bank of the Rhine, and the former Free City of Friedberg. Nassau-Weilburg gained the right-bank territories of Trier among other territories. Orange-Nassau gained the Prince-Bishopric of Fulda (as the Principality of Nassau-Orange-Fulda). The Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel was also elevated to the status of Prince-Elector (), with his state thereby becoming the Electorate of Hesse or Electoral Hesse (german: Kurhessen, link=no, being the German-language term for the Empire's College of Electors).

In July 1806 Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau-Weilburg, Nassau-Usingen, and the newly-merged Principality of Isenburg became founding members of Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine. Hesse-Darmstadt expanded further in the resulting mediatisation, absorbing numerous small states (including Hesse-Homburg and much of the territory of the Houses of , and Sayn-Wittgenstein). It was also elevated by Napoleon to the status of Grand Duchy, becoming the Grand Duchy of Hesse. Orange-Nassau, which refused to join the Confederation, lost Siegen, Dillenburg, Hadamar and Beilstein to Berg and Fulda to the Prince-Primate of the Confederation (and former Elector of Mainz) Karl Theodor von Dalberg; the remainder of its territory was merged with that of Nassau-Usingen and Nassau-Weilburg in August 1806 to form the Duchy of Nassau. Waldeck also joined the Confederation in 1807.

The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in August 1806, rendering Hesse-Kassel's electoral privilege meaningless. Hesse-Kassel was occupied by the French in October 1806 and the remainder of Lower Katzenelnbogen was annexed to the French Empire as . The rest of its territory was annexed to the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807; Hesse-Hanau (a secundogeniture of Hesse-Kassel) was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt in 1810 along with the other territories held by the Prince-primate: Frankfurt, Fulda, Aschaffenburg and Wetzlar.

As a result of the German campaign of 1813 the Kingdom of Westphalia and the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt were dissolved and Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Hanau were restored; Orange-Nassau was also restored in its territories previously lost to Berg.

As a result of the 1815 Congress of Vienna Hesse-Kassel gained Fulda (roughly the western third of the former Prince-Bishopric, the rest of which went to Bavaria and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach) from Frankfurt and part of Isenburg, while several of its small northern exclaves were absorbed into Hanover, some small eastern areas were ceded to Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Lower Katzenelnbogen was ceded to Nassau. Hesse-Darmstadt l