1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alzey

ALZEY, a town of Germany, in the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, 18 m. S. of Mainz by rail. Pop. (1900) 6893. There are a Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, several high-grade schools and a teachers' seminary. Alzey has industries of dyeing and weaving, breweries, and does a considerable trade in wine. It is immortalized in the Nibelungenlied in the person of “Volkêr von Alzeie,” the warrior who in the last part of the epic plays a part second only to that of Hagen, and who “was called the minstrel (spilman) because he could fiddle.” It became an imperial city in 1277. In 1620 it was sacked by the Spaniards and in 1689 burnt by the French. Annexed to France during the Napoleonic wars, it passed in 1815 to the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt.