ELLWANGEN  , a

town of Germany in the kingdom of Wurttemberg, on the Jagst, 12 m . S.S.E. from Crailsheim on the railway to Goldshofe . Pop . 5000 . It is romantically situated between two hills, one crowned by the castle of Hohen-Ellwangen, built in 1354 and now used as an agricultural college, and the other, the Schonenberg, by the pilgrimage church of Our Lady of Loreto, in the Jesuit style of architecture . The town possesses one Evangelical and five Roman Catholic churches, among the latter the Stiftskirche, the old abbey church, a Romanesque building dating from 1124, and the Gothic St Wolfgangskirche . The classical and modern schools (Gymnasium and Realschule) occupy the buildings of a suppressed Jesuit college . The industries include the making of parchment covers, of envelopes, of wooden hafts and handles for tools, &c., and tanneries . There are also a wool-market and a horse-market, the latter famous in Germany . The Benedictine abbey of Ellwangen is said to have been founded in 764 by Heruif, bishop of Langres; there is, however, no record of it before 814 . In 1460 the abbey was converted, with the consent of Pope Pius II., into a Ritterstift (college or institution for noble pensioners) under a secular provost, who, in 1555, was raised to the dignity of a prince of the Empire . The provostship was secularized in 1803 and its territories were assigned to Wurttemberg .

The town of Ellwangen,which

grew up round the abbey and received the status of a town about the middle of the 14th century, was until 1803 the capital of the provostship . See Seckler, Beschreibung der gefiirsteten Probstei Ellwangen (Stuttgart, 1864) ; Beschreibung des Oberamts Ellwangen, published by the statistical bureau (Landesamt) at Ellwangen (1888) . For a list of the abbots and provosts see Stokvis, Manuel d'histoire (Leiden, 1890-1893), iii. p . 242 .