1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Waiblingen

WAIBLINGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, in the centre of a fruitful vine-growing district on the Rems, 10 m. N.E. from Stuttgart by the main line of railway to Nuremberg via Nördlingen and at the junction of a branch to Hessenthal. Pop. (1905) 5997. It has two Evangelical churches, one of which is a fine Gothic structure of the 15th century, restored in 1866, a Roman Catholic church and a modern town hall. Its industries, which include the making of pottery and silk and the cultivation of fruit and vines, are considerable. Waiblingen is mentioned in the 9th century, when it had a palace of the Carolingian sovereigns. Subsequently it belonged to the dukes of Franconia, and gave a surname to the emperor Conrad II. It was in this way that the Hohenstaufen family, which was descended in the female line from Conrad, received the name of Waiblingen, corrupted by the Italians into Ghibelline.