WEISSENBURG  , a

town of Germany, in the imperial province of Alsace-Lorraine, district of Lower Alsace, on the Lauter, at the foot of the eastern slope of the Vosges Mountains, 42 M . N.E. of Strassburg by the railway Basel-Strassburg-Mannheim . Pop . (19oo) 6946 . The beautiful Roman Catholic abbey church of SS . Peter and Paul, dating from the 13th century, contains some fine early stained glass . The industries include the manufacture of paper, matches, stockings and beer, and hops and wine are also extensively cultivated . Weissenburg grew up round a Benedictine abbey which was founded in the 7th century by Dagobert II. and became the seat of a famous school . Here Otfrid, who was a native of the district, completed (c . 868) his Old High German Gospel book (see GERMAN LITERATURE) . The town became a free imperial city in 1305 . It has been the scene of two memorable battles .

The famous "Weissenburg lines," consisting of entrenched

works erected by Villars in 17o6 along the Lauter, and having a length of 12 m., were stormed in October 1793 by the Prussians and Saxons under the Austrian general Wurmser . The Allies were in their turn dispossessed by Pichegru in December and forced to retreat behind the Rhine . These lines, as well as the fortifications of Weissenburg, are now dismantled . On the 4th of August 187o the Germans under the crown prince of Prussia, afterwards the emperor Frederick, gained the first victory of the war over a French corps (part of the army commanded by MacMahon) under General Douay, who was killed early in the engagement . The name Weissenburg occurs in three other places; the town of Weissenburg-am-Sand in Bavaria (q.v.) ; a Swiss invalid resort in the Niedersimmental, above Lake Thun, with sulphate of lime springs, beneficial for bronchial affections; also a Hungarian comitat (Magyar Fejervar), with Stuhlweissenburg as capital . WEISSENBURG-AM-SAND, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian district of Middle Franconih., situated in a pleasant and fertile country at the western foot of the Franconian Jura, 1300 ft. above the sea, and 33 M. by rail S.W. of Nuremberg by the railway to Munich . Pop . (1905) 6709 . It is still surrounded by old walls and towers, and has two Gothic churches and a Gothic town-hall . The town has a mineral spring, connected with which is a bathing establishment . A Roman castle has recently been discovered, and there is a collection of antiquities in the modern school . The old fortalice of Wulzburg (2060 ft.) overlooks the town .

Gold and silver fringe, bricks, cement wares, beer and cloth are manufactured . Weissenburg dates from the 8th century, and in the 14th was made a free imperial town . It passed to Bavaria in 1806 . See C . Meyer, Chronik der Stadt Weissenburg in Bayern (Munich, 1904) ; and Fabricius, Das Kastell Weissenburg (Heidelberg, 1906) .