1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fritzlar

FRITZLAR, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Cassel, on the left bank of the Eder, 16 m. S.W. from Cassel, on the railway Wabern-Wildungen. Pop. (1905) 3448. It is a prettily situated old-fashioned place, with an Evangelical and two Roman Catholic churches, one of the latter, that of St Peter, a striking medieval edifice. As early as 732 Boniface, the apostle of Germany, established the church of St Peter and a small Benedictine monastery at Frideslar, “the quiet home” or “abode of peace.” Before long the school connected with the monastery became famous, and among its earlier scholars it numbered Sturm, abbot of Fulda, and Megingod, second bishop of Würzburg. When Boniface found himself unable to continue the supervision of the society himself, he entrusted the office to Wigbert of Glastonbury, who thus became the first abbot of Fritzlar. In 774 the little settlement was taken and burnt by the Saxons; but it evidently soon recovered from the blow. For a short time after 786 it was the seat of the bishopric of Buraburg, which had been founded by Boniface in 741. At the diet of Fritzlar in 919 Henry I. was elected German king. In the beginning of the 13th century the village received municipal rights; in 1232 it was captured and burned by the landgrave Conrad of Thuringia and his allies; in 1631 it was taken by William of Hesse; in 1760 it was successfully defended by General Luckner against the French; and in 1761 it was occupied by the French and unsuccessfully bombarded by the Allies. As a principality Fritzlar continued subject to the archbishopric of Mainz till 1802, when it was incorporated with Hesse. From 1807 to 1814 it belonged to the kingdom of Westphalia; and in 1866 passed with Hesse Cassel to Prussia.