Marburg an der Lahn Hessen Germany

Marburg, like many settlements, has developed at the crossroads of two important early medieval highways: the trade route linking Cologne and Prague and the trade route from the North Sea to the Alps and on to Italy, the former crossing the river Lahn here.

The settlement is protected and customs are raised by a small castle built during the ninth or tenth century by the Giso.

Marburg has been a town since 1140, as proven by coins.

From the Gisos, it falls around that time to the Landgraves of Thuringia, residing on the Wartburg above Eisenach.

Elizabeth, the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary, widowed at twenty by the death of Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, in 1227, enters the newly founded Franciscan third order and places herself under Konrad’s spiritual direction, at whose behest Elizabeth enters a life of extreme austerity, devoting herself to charitable activities.

Construction begins on Marburg’s Saint Elizabeth's Church, built by the Order of the Teutonic Knights in her honor, in 1235, the year Elizabeth of Hungary is canonized.

One of the earliest purely Gothic churches in German-speaking areas, the church is held to be a model for the architecture of Cologne Cathedral.

It is built from sandstone in a cruciform layout.

Pope Gregory IX appoints Konrad von Marburg as special inquisitor in Germany in 1239.

Konrad’s early life is not well known, but he is described by contemporary church sources as well educated and highly knowledgeable.

It is possible that he received a university education; he is also noted for his strong asceticism and his zeal in defending the church.

Konrad long was considered to have been a member of the Dominican Order, but modern scholarly consensus holds that he was not.

Much of his early work within the church is related to the suppression of heresy, and he has taken an active part in the Albigensian Crusade in southern France.

Pope Innocent III had been one of Konrad's early supporters.

Eventually, however, Konrad had returned to Germany, the land of his birth, and gradually acquired a position of considerable influence at the court of Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia.

Philip introduces the Reformation into Hesse, founding Marburg, the world’s first Protestant university, in 1527.

Philip I of Hesse, after the Diet of Speyer had confirmed the edict of Worms, feels the need to reconcile the diverging views of Martin Luther and Huldruych Zwingli in order to develop a unified Protestant theology.

At the Marburg Colloquy, arranged in 1529 to establish doctrinal unity as a preliminary to the political unity of Protestantism, Johannes Oecolampadius defends Huldrych Zwingli's position on the nature of the Eucharist against that of Martin Luther.

It takes place between October 1 and October 4, 1529.

The leading Protestant reformers of the time attend at the behest of Philip.

His primary motivation for this conference is political; he wishes to unite the Protestant states in political alliance, and to this end, religious harmony as an important consideration.

Besides Luther and Zwingli, the reformers Stephan Agricola, Johannes Brenz, Martin Bucer, Caspar Hedio, Justus Jonas, Philipp Melanchthon, Johannes Oecolampadius, and Andreas Osiander participate in the meeting.

Luther’s failure to reach doctrinal accord with Zwingli, who denies Christ's real presence in any form in the Eucharist, splits the Reform movement.

Exiled from Berlin for his atheistic stance, Christian Wolff presently proceeds from Saxony to Marburg in Hesse-Kassel, to whose university he had received a call even before this crisis, which is now renewed.

Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, receives him with every mark of distinction, and the circumstances of his expulsion draw universal attention to his philosophy.

It is everywhere discussed.

The brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm had published their two-volume collection of European folk tales in 1812 and 1815.

The brothers,  philologist scholars, had added to the collection from 1807 onward.

Jacob had established the framework, maintained through many iterations; from 1815 until his death, Wilhelm assumes sole responsibility for editing and rewriting the tales.

He makes the tales stylistically similar, adds dialogue, improved the plots, and incorporates psychological motifs.

Over the years, Wilhelm works extensively on the prose, expands and adds detail to the stories to the point that many grow to be twice the length of those in the earliest published editions.

In the later editions, Wilhelm polishes the language to make it more enticing to a bourgeois audience, eliminates sexual elements, and adds Christian elements.

After 1819, he begins writing for children (children were not initially considered the primary audience), adding entirely new tales or adding new elements to existing tales, elements that are often strongly didactic.

Some changes are made in light of unfavorable reviews, particularly from those who object that not all the tales are suitable for children because of scenes of violence and sexuality.

He works to modify plots for many stories; for example, "Rapunzel" in the first edition of Kinder-und Hausmärchen clearly shows a sexual relationship between the prince and the girl in the tower, which he edits out in subsequent editions.

Wilhelm Grimm, the younger of the Brothers Grimm, produces his one major scholarly treatise, “Die deutsche Heldensage” (“German Heroic Legends”) in 1829, enumerating the heroes and legends of the German people.