Bayreuth

Germany

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Bayreuth, city, Bavaria Land (state), east-central Germany. It lies on the Roter (Red) Main River between the Fichtelgebirge (mountainous plateau) and the Franconian Jura Mountains, northeast of Nürnberg.

First mentioned in 1194, it developed around a castle of the counts of Andechs-Meran and occupied a strategic position at the intersection of several trade routes. After the house of Andechs-Meran died out, Bayreuth passed to the Hohenzollerns in 1248 and became an important centre of the Upper Franconia region. In 1603 the city became the residence of the margraves, who actively patronized the arts and were responsible for many fine Baroque buildings. The reign of the margrave Frederick and his wife, Wilhelmina, the sister of Frederick the Great, was a particularly rich period (1735–63). The New Palace, the old opera house, and parts of the Hermitage (Eremitage) date from that era. Bayreuth was ceded to Prussia in 1791 and passed to Bavaria in 1810.

Bayreuth is an administrative and service centre for the Franconia region. Tourism is also important, and the city has a diversified manufacturing sector. The University of Bayreuth opened in 1975. The city is also the site of two education faculties of the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.

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Bayreuth is best known for its association with the composer Richard Wagner. He settled there in 1872, and the foundation stone of the Festival Theatre (Festspielhaus) was laid that same year. It opened in 1876 with the premiere performance of the Ring of the Nibelungen cycle. Since Wagner’s death in 1883, the festivals have been carried on by his relatives, including his wife, Cosima, his son Siegfried, and his grandsons Wolfgang and Wieland. The composer’s home, villa Wahnfried, has been preserved; the graves of the composer and his wife are in the garden. The composer Franz Liszt and the writer Jean Paul Friedrich Richter are also buried in Bayreuth. The annual music festivals, held in July and August, are a significant factor in Bayreuth’s economy. Pop. (2003 est.) 74,818.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.

Franconia

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Franconia

historical duchy, Germany

Also known as: Franken

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

German:: Franken

Key People:: Georg Heinrich, Freiherr von Gortz; Eberhard; St. Kilian

Related Places:: Bavaria; Baden-Württemberg; Rhineland-Palatinate; Hessen; Germany

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Franconia, one of the five great stem, or Stamm (tribal), duchies—the other four being Saxony, Lotharingia (Lorraine), Swabia, and Bavaria—of early medieval Germany. Today it is divided between Rhenish Franconia, now located in the Länder (states) of Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg, and Hesse, and East Franconia, now in the Länder of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria.

The Franks forcibly settled the region from the early 6th century ad, and in the early 8th century the Merovingian dynasty claimed it as a royal demesne (crown land). After the division of the Carolingian empire under the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Franconia became the nucleus of the East Frankish (German) kingdom, and, when the Carolingian line died out, Franconia’s duke became the first elected German king as Conrad I (911–918). In 919 the German crown passed to a Saxon dynasty. Franconia remained a royal demesne nurturing no strong ducal dynasty, and their tenure of it provided a support to German kings and Holy Roman emperors. By the 12th century, the name had come to refer only to East Franconia.

The church was always strong in the region, and its bishoprics included the archbishopric of Mainz (in Rhenish Franconia) and Bamberg and Würzburg (East Franconia). After the mid-13th century, the fragmentation of Franconia into secular and ecclesiastical principalities was accelerated. In 1340 these territories organized the Landfriedensbund (regional peace-keeping league), which served as the basis of the Franconian Kreis (circle, or administrative district) set up in the early 16th century.

In Napoleon’s reorganization of Germany, the Franconian region was divided between the kingdoms of Bavaria and Württemberg and the Grand Duchy of Baden. King Louis I of Bavaria revived the use of the name in 1837 by creating the provinces of Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia, which still form the northwestern corner of the present Land of Bavaria.