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 Wurzburg . 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 176o 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 .