Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Rothenburg ob der Tauber (German pronunciation: [ˈʁoːtn̩bʊʁk ʔɔp deːɐ̯ ˈtaʊbɐ] ) is a town in the district of Ansbach of Mittelfranken (Middle Franconia), the Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. It is well known for its well-preserved medieval old town, a destination for tourists from around the world. It is part of the popular Romantic Road through southern Germany. Today it is one of only three towns in Germany that still have completely intact city walls, the other two being Nördlingen and Dinkelsbühl, both also in Bavaria.
Rothenburg was a free imperial city from the late Middle Ages to 1803. In 1884 Johann Friedrich (von) Hessing (1838–1918) built Wildbad Rothenburg o.d.T. 1884–1903.
History[edit]
Middle Ages[edit]
The location was most likely inhabited by Celts before the first century CE.
In 950, the weir system in today's castle garden was constructed by the Count of Comburg-Rothenburg.
In 1070, the counts of Comburg-Rothenburg, who also owned the village of Gebsattel, built Rothenburg castle on the mountain top high above the River Tauber.
The counts of the Comburg-Rothenburg dynasty died out in 1116 with the death of the last count, Count Heinrich. Emperor Heinrich V instead appointed his nephew Konrad von Hohenstaufen as the successor to the Comburg-Rothenburg properties.
In 1142, Konrad von Hohenstaufen, who became King Konrad III (1138–52) traded a part of the monastery of Neumünster in Würzburg above the village Detwang and built the Stauffer-Castle Rothenburg on this cheaper land. He held court there and appointed officials to act as caretakers.
In 1170, the city of Rothenburg was founded at the time of the building of Staufer Castle. The center was the marketplace and St. James' Church (in German: the St. Jakob). The development of the oldest fortification can be seen, the old cellar/old moat and the milk market. Walls and towers were built in the 13th century. Preserved are the “White Tower” and the Markus Tower with the Röder Arch.
From 1194 to 1254, the representatives of the Staufer dynasty governed the area around Rothenburg. Around this time, the Order of St. John and other orders were founded near St. James' Church and a Dominican nunnery (1258).
From 1241 to 1242, the Staufer Imperial tax statistics recorded the names of the Jews in Rothenburg. Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch of Rothenburg (died 1293, buried 1307 in Worms) had a great reputation as a jurist in Europe.
In 1274, Rothenburg was accorded privileges by King Rudolf of Habsburg as a free imperial city. Three famous fairs were established in the city and in the following centuries, the city expanded. The citizens of the city and the Knights of the Hinterland build the Franziskaner (Franciscan) Monastery and the Holy Ghost Hospital (1376/78 incorporated into the city walls). The German Order began the building of St. James' Church, which the citizens have used since 1336. The Heilig Blut (Holy Blood) pilgrimage attracted many pilgrims to Rothenburg, at the time one of the 20 largest cities of the Holy Roman Empire. The population was around 5,500 people within the city walls and another 14,000 in the 150 square miles (390 km2) of the surrounding territory.
The Staufer Castle was destroyed by an earthquake in 1356; the St. Blaise chapel is the last remnant today.
Cultural references[edit]
Rothenburg has appeared in several films, notably fantasies. It was the location for the Vulgarian village scenes in the 1968 family movie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It is sometimes mistaken as the town at the end of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971); that town was Nördlingen. The town served as a loose basis for the fictional town of Lebensbaum ("life tree") in the video game Shadow of Memories (Shadow of Destiny in the American market).[9] Shots of the town are shown in some parts of The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and the trailer for the film. The camera flies over the town from the direction of the valley towards the Town Hall.[10] A plaque exists on the rebuilt town wall to commemorate this. Filming was done in Rothenburg for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010) and Part 2 (2011), but didn't make it into the final version of the movies.
Robert Shackleton's Unvisited Places of Old Europe contains a chapter, "The Old Red City of Rothenburg", about the city and its history. Rothenburg is the primary location for Elizabeth Peters's mystery novel, Borrower of the Night (1973) about the search for a missing Tilman Riemenschneider sculpture.
The town featured as the location in the Belgian comic book, The Adventures of Yoko Tsuno in the episode of La Frontière de la vie (On the Edge of Life, 1977) and it inspired the look of the town in the Japanese manga and anime series A Little Snow Fairy Sugar (2001).[11]
Rothenburg's famous street Kobolzeller Steige and Spitalgasse is depicted on the cover of two Blackmore's Night albums, 1999's Under a Violet Moon and their 2006 album Winter Carols.
It is often thought to have inspired the town center of Mêlée Island in the 1990 point-and-click graphic adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island, but creator Ron Gilbert has claimed the resemblance is a coincidence.[12]
The video game Team Fortress 2 features a map titled "Rottenburg", a play on the original's namesake along with visually similar architecture.
The southern part of the marketplace is prominently featured in the video game Gabriel Knight 2 depicting the fictional town of Rittersberg.
The WWII-era first-person shooter Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, from the Medal of Honor video game series, features a level in which the player must fight their way through a snowy town near the Siegfried Line in Germany that is strikingly similar to Rothenburg, buildings with similar architecture can be seen throughout the town, as well as similar-looking streets, as the player makes their way through.
