Erlangen
Erlangen is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt, and with 120,646 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the eight major cities in Bavaria. The number of inhabitants exceeded the threshold of 100,000 in 1974, making Erlangen a major city according to the statistical definition officially used in Germany.
Together with Nuremberg, Fürth, and Schwabach, Erlangen forms one of the three metropolises in Bavaria. With the surrounding area, these cities form the European Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg, one of 11 metropolitan areas in Germany. The cities of Nuremberg, Fürth, and Erlangen also form a triangle on a map, which represents the heartland of the Nuremberg conurbation.
An element of the city that goes back a long way in history, but is still noticeable, is the settlement of Huguenots after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Today, many aspects of daily life in the city are dominated by the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Siemens technology group.
Geography
Erlangen is located on the edge of the Middle Franconian Basin and at the floodplain of the Regnitz River. The river divides the city into two halves of about equal sizes. In the western part of the city, the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal lies parallel to the Regnitz.Neighboring municipalities
The following municipalities or nonmunicipal areas are adjacent to the city of Erlangen. They are listed clockwise, starting in the north:The unincorporated area Mark, the municipalities Möhrendorf, Bubenreuth, Marloffstein, Spardorf, and Buckenhof, and the forest area Buckenhofer Forst, the independent cities of Nuremberg and Fürth, the municipality Obermichelbach, the city of Herzogenaurach, and the municipality Hessdorf.
City arrangement
Erlangen officially consists of nine districts and 40 statistical districts, 39 of which are inhabited. In addition, the urban area is subdivided into twelve land registry and land law relevant districts whose boundaries deviate largely from those of the statistical districts. The districts and statistical districts are partly formerly independent municipalities, but also include newer settlements the names of which have also been coined as district names. The traditional and subjectively perceived boundaries of neighborhoods often deviate from the official ones.Districts and statistical districts
Gemarkungen
Erlangen is divided into the following Gemarkungen:- Büchenbach
- Bruck
- Eltersdorf
- Erlangen
- Frauenaurach
- Großdechsendorf
- Hüttendorf
- Klosterwald
- Kosbach
- Kriegenbrunn
- Mönau
- Tennenlohe
Historical city districts
- Brucker Werksiedlung
- Erba-Siedlung
- Essenbach
- Heusteg
- Königsmühle
- Paprika-Siedlung
- Schallershof
- Siedlung Sonnenblick
- Stadtrandsiedlung
- St. Johann
- Werker
- Zollhaus
Climate
History
Overall history
Early history
In the prehistory of Bavaria, the Regnitz valley already played an important role as a passageway from north to south. In Spardorf a blade scraper was found in loess deposits, which could be attributed to the Gravettians, which places it at an age of about 25,000 years. Due to the relatively barren soils in the area farming and settlements could only be detected at the end of the Neolithic. The "Erlanger Zeichensteine" in the Mark-Forst north of the city also originated in this time period. The stone plates were later reused as grave borders in the Urnfield period.Once investigated in 1913, it was found that the burial mound in Kosbach contained finds from the urnfield time as well as from the Hallstatt and La Tène period. Next to the hill, the so-called "Kosbacher Altar", which was originated in the late Hallstatt period, was constructed. The altar is unique in this form and consists of a square stone setting with four upright, figural pillars at the corners and one under the center. The reconstruction of the site can be visited in the area, the middle guard is exhibited in the Erlangen city museum.
From Villa Erlangen to the Thirty Years' War
Erlangen is first mentioned by name in a document from 1002. The origin of the name Erlangen is not clear. Attempts of local research to derive the name of alder and anger, do not meet toponymical standards.As early as 976, Emperor Otto II had donated the church of St. Martin in Forchheim with accessories to the diocese of Würzburg. Emperor Henry II confirmed this donation in 1002 and authorized its transfer from the bishopric to the newly founded Haug Abbey. In contrast to the certificate of Otto II, the accessories, which also included the "villa erlangon" located in Radenzgau, were described in more detail here. At that time the Bavarian Nordgau extended to the Regnitz in the west and to the Schwabach in the north. Villa Erlangon must therefore have been located outside of these borders and thus not in the area of today's Erlangen Altstadt. However, as the name Erlangen is unique to today's town in Germany, the certificate could have only referred to it. The document also provides an additional piece of evidence: In 1002, Henry II bestowed further areas west of the Regnitz, including one mile from the Schwabach estuary to the east, one mile from this mouth upstream and downstream. These two squares are described in the document only by their lengths and the two river names. No reference to a specific place is given. They are also unrelated to the accessories of St. Martin, which included the "villa erlangon", another reason why it must have been physically separated from the area of the two miles. Size and extent of the two squares correspond approximately to the area requirement of a village at the time, which supports the assumption that at the time of certification a settlement was under construction, which should be legitimized by this donation and later, as in similar cases, has adopted th name of the original settlement. The new settlement was built in a triangle, today bordered by the streets Hauptstraße, Schulstraße and Lazarettstraße, on a flooding-free sand dune.
Only 15 years later, in 1017, Henry II confirmed an exchange agreement, through which St. Martin and its accessories were given to the newly founded Bishopric of Bamberg, where it remained until 1361. During these centuries, the place name appears only sporadically.
On 20 August 1063, Emperor Henry IV created two documents "actum Erlangen" while on a campaign. Local researchers therefore concluded that Erlangen must have already gained so much in extent that in 1063, Henry IV took his residence there with many princes and bishops and was therefore the seat of a King's Court. It was even believed that this court could have been located in the Bayreuther Straße 8 and given away without mention by the certificate of 1002. Other evidence of this estate is also missing. It is regarded as most likely today, that Henry IV was not residing in the "new" Erlangen, but rather in the older "villa erlangon", as the north–south valley road changed to the left river bank of the Regnitz and then ran in the direction of Alterlangen, Kleinseebach-Baiersdorf to the north, to avoid the heights of the Erlangen Burgberg.
Otherwise, Erlangen was usually only mentioned if the bishop pledged it due to lack of money. How exactly the village developed is unknown. Only the designation "grozzenerlang" in a bishop's urbarium from 1348 may be an indication that the episcopal village had outstripped the original "villa erlangon".
In December 1361, Emperor Charles IV bought "the village Erlangen including all rights, benefits and belongings". and incorporated it into the area designated as New Bohemia, which was a fief of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Under the crown of Bohemia, the village developed rapidly. In 1367 the emperor spent three days in Erlangen and gave the "citizen and people of Erlangen" grazing rights in the imperial forest, Nuremberg Reichswald. In 1374, Charles IV granted the inhabitants of Erlangen seven years of tax exemption. The money should instead be used to "improve the village". At the same time he lent the market right to Erlangen. Probably soon after 1361, the new ruler of the administration of the acquired property west of the town built the Veste Erlangen, on which a bailiff resided. King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia built a mint and officially granted township to Erlangen in 1398. He also granted all the usual town privileges: Collection of tolls, construction of a department store with bread and meat bank and the construction of a defensive wall.
Two years later, in 1400, the prince-electors voted to "un-elect" Wenceslaus, who sold his Frankish possessions, including Erlangen, to his brother-in-law, the Nuremberg burgrave Johann III due to lack of funds in 1402. During the process of division of the burggrave property in Franconia, Erlangen was added to the Upper Principality, the future Principality of Bayreuth. The Erlangen coining facility ceased its operation because the Münzmeister was executed for counterfeiting in Nuremberg.
During the Hussite Wars the town was completely destroyed for the first time in 1431. The declaration of war by Margrave Albrecht Achilles to the city of Nuremberg in 1449 led to the First Margrave War. However, as the army of Albrecht could not completely enclose the city, Nuremberg troops broke out again and devastated the Margravial towns and villages. As reported by a Nuremberg chronicler, they "burnt the market at most in Erlangen and brought a huge robbery". As soon as the town had recovered, Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria attacked the Margrave in 1459. Erlangen was raided and plundered again, this time by Bavarian troops. In the following years the town recovered again. Erlangen was spared from the Peasants' War in 1525 and the introduction of the Reformation in 1528 was peaceful. However, when Margrave Albert Alcibiades triggered the Second Margrave War, Erlangen was attacked again by the Nurembergers and partially destroyed. It was even considered to completely abandon the town. Because Emperor Charles V imposed the imperial ban on Albrecht, the Nurembergers incorporated Erlangen into their own territory. Albrecht died in January 1557. His successor, George Frederick, requested that the imperial sequestration over the Principality of Kulmbach be reversed and was able to take back the government one month later. Under his rule, the town recovered from the war damage and remained unharmed until well into the Thirty Years' War.
Little is known about the place itself and about the people who lived here during this period.
From 1129, members of the noble family "von Erlangen" appear as witnesses in notarizations. They were probably ministers of the von Gründlach family. The family had numerous possessions in and around Erlangen as antecedents of the von Gründlach imperial fiefdom. Despite multiple mentions in documents, it is no longer possible to establish a line of ancestry. At the beginning of the 15th century, the family died out.
In a foundation deed of 1328 a property is mentioned on which "heinrich the old sits". Twenty years later, in the Episcopal Urbar of 1348, seven landowners who were obliged to pay interest were named. For the first time, the entire city is recorded in the register of the Common Penny of 1497: 92 households with 212 adults. If one assumes 1.5 children under the age of 15 per household, the population is calculated to be around 350. This figure is unlikely to have changed much in the subsequent period. The Urbar of 1528 lists 83 taxable house owners and the Türkensteuerliste of 1567 97 heads of households, plus five children under guardianship. A complete list of all households, including tenants, arranged by street, was drawn up in 1616 by the Old Town priest Hans Heilig: At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, the city counted 118 households with about 500 people.
The old town of Erlangen has been completely destroyed several times, most recently in the great fire of 1706. Only parts of the city wall date back to the late Middle Ages. After the fire of 1706, the cityscape with its street layout had to be rigorously adapted to the regular street scheme of the newly built "Christian-Erlang", which had its own administration until the administrative reform of 1797. Only the streets Schulstraße, Lazarettstraße and Adlerstraße were spared. The low cellars, however, survived all destruction and fires mostly unscathed. Above them, the buildings were newly erected. For this reason, two Erlangen architects have been surveying the cellars of the old town on behalf of the Heimat- und Geschichtsverein since 1988. At the same time, the city archaeology of Erlangen has excavated in the courtyard of the Stadtmuseum. Both measures give an approximate picture of the late medieval or early modern location: Pfarrstraße ran further north, northern Hauptstraße somewhat further east than today. The western houses at Martin-Luther-Platz protruded to different extents into today's area; on its eastern side the buildings ran diagonally from today's Neue Straße to the city gate "Oberes Tor". The eastern city wall first led south from Lazarettstraße, then turned slightly southwest from Vierzigmannstraße and cut the base of today's Old Town Church at the northeast corner of the nave. Foundations of this wall, which run exactly in the described direction, were discovered during the excavations in the courtyard of the town museum. Outside the upper gate the upper suburb began to develop. In front of the city gate "Bayreuther Tor" was the lower suburb with the mill at the Schwabach. The Veste was located in the west of the city.