Knigsbronn - Kloster Knigsbronn, Zang, Ruine Herwartstein, Brenztopf, Itzelberg, Ochsenberg (English, German, Paperback)

Aus Wikipedia. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: Knigsbronn is a town in the district of Heidenheim in Baden-Wrttemberg in southern Germany. Knigsbronn (Koenigsbronn) as an administrative community also includes the villages of Itzelberg, Ochenberg and Zang. It lies in the Brenz valley within the hills of the Swabian Alb, a landscape shaped by karst (limestone). A spring near the town center is the source of the Brenz, a tributary of the Danube. There is some evidence that the area was first populated in the stone age. The foundations of a castle of the early Middle Ages possibly erected around 1000 AD on the site of an even earlier castle, of robber-knights, as it is being told can be found on the rock Herwartstein overlooking the valley, which was allegedly destroyed by the son of the emperor of Holy Roman Empire of mediaeval Germany. Below, In the valley, a hamlet called "Springen" had formed. In 1303, a monastery was founded (and allegedly erected with stones from the destroyed castle) for Cistercian monks. It was to become one of the most influential and wealthiest monasteries in Southern Germany. The place was re-named "Knigsbronn" which means "Kings's Spring". In 1552, the monastery and village that had grown next to it were destroyed and a year later the area became Protestant (Lutheran). When the village was supposed to turn catholic again in 1629, the population rebelled and stayed Protestant. The monastery had been a centre of pre-industrial-age metallurgy and in 1366 had been granted the right to mine and process iron ore from Emperor Charles IV., only one year after he had given it erroneously to a local count. The monks then started what became later the industrial company with the longest historic tradition in Germany, the Schwbische Httenwerke GmbH. 1651 a furnace was lit and smelting didn't stop until 1908, when it had ceased to be profitable. However, the business was successfully shifted to finished products...http://booksllc.net/?l=de