Mergentheim

Mergentheim, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Wurttemberg, situated in the valley of the Tauber, 7 m. S. from Lauda by rail. Pop. (1905), 4535. It contains an Evangelical and three Roman Catholic churches, a Latin and other schools, and a magnificent castle with a natural history collection and the archives of the Teutonic order. This is now used as barracks. The industries of the town include tanning, the manufacture of agricultural machinery and wine-making. Near the town is a medicinal spring called the Karlsbad.

Mergentheim (Mariae domus) is mentioned in chronicles as early as 1058, as the residence of the family of the counts of Hohenlohe, who early in the 13th century assigned the greater part of their estates in and around Mergentheim to the Teutonic order. It rapidly increased in fame, and became the most important of the eleven commanderies of that society. On the secularization of the Teutonic Order in Prussia in 1525, Mergentheim became the residence of the grand master, and remained so until the final dissolution of the order in 1809.

See Horing, Das Karlsbad bei Mergentheim (Mergentheim, 1887); and Schmitt, Garnisongeschichte der Stadt Mergentheim (Stuttgart, 1895).