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Memmingen

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the Ach, a tributary of the Iiler, 35 m. S.W. of Augsburg on the railway to Ulm. Pop. (1905), 11,618. It is partly surrounded with walls, and has some interesting old gates and houses. It contains the fine Gothic church of St Martin, which contains 67 beautifully carved choir-stalls, and a town hall dating from about 1580. Its industrial products are yarn, calico, woollen goods, thread. A considerable trade is carried on in hops, which are extensively cultivated in the neighbourhood, and in cattle, wool, leather and grain.

Memmingen, first mentioned in a document of Iwo, belonged originally to the Guelf family, and later to the Hohenstaufens. In 1286 it became a free city of the empire, a position which it main tained down to 1802, when it was allotted to Bavaria. In 1331 it was a member of the league of Swabian towns; in 1530 it was one of the four towns which presented the Confessio Tetrapolitana to the emperor Ferdinand I.; and a few years later it joined the league of Schmalkalden. During the Thirty Years' War it was alternately occupied by the Swedes and the Imperialists. In May 1800 the French gained a victory over the Austrians near Memmingen.

See Dobel, Memmingen im Reformationszeitalter (Augsburg, 1877-1878), and Clauss, Memmingen Chronik,1826-1892(Memmingen, 1894).