HERSFELD  , a

town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, is pleasantly situated at the confluence of the Geis and Hann with the Fulda, on the railway from Frankforton-Main to Bebra, 24 M . N.N.E. of Fulda . Pop . (1905) 8688 . Some of the old fortifications of the town remain, but the ramparts and ditches have been laid out as promenades . The principal buildings are the Stadt Kirche, a beautiful Gothic building, erected about 1320 and restored in 1899, with a fine tower and a large bell; the old and interesting town hall (Rathaus) and the ruins of the abbey church . This church was erected on the site of the cathedral in the beginning of the 12th century; it was built in the Byzantine style and was burnt down by the French in' 761 . Outside the town are the Frauenberg and the Johannesberg, on both of which are monastic ruins . Among the public institutions are a gymnasium and a military school . The town has important manufactures of cloth, leather and machinery; it has also dye-works, worsted mills and soap-boiling works . Hersfeld owes its existence to the Benedictine abbey (see below) . It became a town in the 12th century and in 1370 the burghers, having meanwhile shaken off the authority of the abbots, placed themselves under the protection of the landgraves of Hesse .

It was taken and retaken during the

Thirty Years' War and later it suffered from the attacks of the French . The Benedictine abbey of Hersfeld was founded by Lullus, afterwards archbishop of Mainz, about 769 . It was richly endowed by Charlemagne and became an ecclesiastical principality in the '2th century, passing under the protection of the landgraves of Hesse in 1423 . It was secularized in 1648, having been previously administered for some years by a member of the ruling family of Hesse . As a secular principality Hersfeld passed to Hesse, and with electoral Hesse was ;united with Prussia in '866 . In the middle ages the abbey was famous for its library . See Vigelius, Denkwurdigkeiten von Hersfeld (Hersfeld, '888); Demme, Nachrichten and Urkunden zur Chronik von Hersfeld (Hersfeld, 1891-1901), and P . Hafner, Die Reichsabtei Hersfeld bis zur Mitte desI3ten Jahrhunderts (Hersfeld, '889) .