Wetterau
The Wetterau is a fertile undulating tract, watered by the
Bettina von Arnim writes of Wetterau in her text Diary of a Child in the chapter "Journey to the Wetterau".
Geography
The Wetterau is located north of
History
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/R%C3%B6merturm%2C_Auf_dem_Gaulskopf.jpg/220px-R%C3%B6merturm%2C_Auf_dem_Gaulskopf.jpg)
The Wetterau has a long history and is one of the oldest cultural landscapes in Germany. It was always a very fertile region and was populous from as early as the Neolithic Age. Artifacts from successive civilizations that populated the area also exist. Prominent discoveries are tombs from the Bronze Age, Stufe Wölfersheim or from the Celts, Glauberg. Many historical findings are exhibited in the Wetterau-Museum in Friedberg.
The Wetterau was of high strategic relevance for the Roman Empire during its advance into the free Germania. After the end of the Germanic and Gallic wars (58 to 51 BC) a number of Roman forts and roads were built in the Wetterau. A series of fortifications, part of the limes, surrounded the fertile Wetterau region. The region was part of Germania.
Middle Ages
The first documented reference is from 779 in the Codex Aureus of Lorsch.
The economic power of the Wetterau has increased continuously through specific promotion of its urban centres
At the end of the
Modern times
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Elvis_Presley_Memorial%2C_former_proving_ground_Eichkopf.jpg/220px-Elvis_Presley_Memorial%2C_former_proving_ground_Eichkopf.jpg)
The regional unity of the Wetterau was not primarily a political concept, but rather its result. Since 1422 the late medieval policy initially led to establishment of the estates of the realm, the alliance of knights, and lords and counts of the Wetterau. These supported the development of a regional identity that even survived increasing urban differentiation.
Four stabilizing elements characterize the transition from medieval to modern times in the Wetterau:
- Four imperial cities, of which eventually only Frankfurt had significance;
- A network of knights and nobility, the Wetterau knighthood, that was concentrated in the imperial castle in Friedberg;
- Twenty count lineages that distinguished themselves form the lower gentry;
- A number of joint ownerships of cities (Friedberg, Kronberg, Falkenstein, Gelnhausen, Lindheim, Dorheim, Staden, Florstadt); often these were identical with the two groups mentioned before.
Sources
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 409.
- Kümmerly+Frey: The New International Atlas. Rand McNally (1980)