Aachen is the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 264,000 inhabitants. It is the western-most major city in Germany, lying approximately 61 km (38 mi) west of Cologne and Bonn, directly bordering Belgium in the southwest, and the Netherlands in the northwest. The city lies in the Meuse–Rhine Euroregion and is the seat of the district of Aachen (Städteregion Aachen).
The once Celtic settlement was equipped with several thermae in the course of colonization by Roman pioneers settling at the warm Aachen thermal springs around the 1st century. After the withdrawal of the Roman troops, the vicus Aquae Granni was brought under Frankish control around the 5th century, by which it came under Merovingian and later Carolingian rule. With the completion of the Carolingian Palace of Aachen at the transition to the 9th century, Aachen was constituted as the main royal residence of the Frankish Empire ruled by Charlemagne. Because of that, the city is sometimes called the "cradle of Europe". After the Treaty of Verdun, the city was within the borders of Middle Francia, until it became part of East Francia after the Treaty of Meerssen (870). It subsequently was part of the Holy Roman Empire and was granted city rights in 1166 by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, becoming an imperial city. It served as the coronation site where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned Kings of the Germans from 936 to 1531, until Frankfurt became the preferred place of coronation.
One of Germany's leading institutes of higher education in technology, the RWTH Aachen University (Rheinisch-Westfälisch Technische Hochschule Aachen), is located in the city. Its university hospital Uniklinikum Aachen is Europe's largest single-building hospital. Aachen's industries include science, engineering and information technology. In 2009, Aachen was ranked eighth among cities in Germany for innovation.
Aachen is located at the northern foothills of the High Fens and the Eifel Mountains. It sits on the Wurm River, a tributary of the Rur, and together with Mönchengladbach, it is the only larger German city in the drainage basin of the Meuse. The regional dialect spoken in the city is a Central Franconian, Ripuarian variant with strong Limburgish influences from the dialects in the neighbouring Netherlands. As a Rhenish city, Aachen is one of the main centres of carnival celebrations in Germany, along with Cologne and Mainz. The culinary specialty for which the city is best known is Aachener Printen, a type of gingerbread.
Etymology
The name Aachen is a modern descendant, like southern German Ach(e), German: Aach, meaning "river" or "stream", from Old High German ahha, meaning "water" or "stream", which directly translates (and etymologically corresponds) to Latin Aquae, referring to the springs. The location has been inhabited by humans since the Neolithic era, about 5,000 years ago, attracted to its warm mineral springs. Latin Aquae figures in Aachen's Roman name Aquae granni, which meant "waters of Grannus", referring to the Celtic god of healing who was worshipped at the springs. This word became Åxhe in Walloon and Aix in French, and subsequently Aix-la-Chapelle to distinguish it from Aix-en-Provence, after Charlemagne had his palatine chapel built there in the late 8th century and then made the city his empire's capital.
The city is known by a variety of different names in other languages:
History
Early history
Flint quarries on the Lousberg, Schneeberg, and Königshügel, first used during Neolithic times (3000–2500 BC), attest to the long occupation of the site of Aachen, as do recent finds under the modern city's Elisengarten pointing to a former settlement from the same period. Bronze Age (around 1600 BC) settlement is evidenced by the remains of barrows (burial mounds) found, for example, on the Klausberg. During the Iron Age, the area was settled by Celtic peoples who were perhaps drawn by the marshy Aachen basin's hot sulphur springs where they worshipped Grannus, god of light and healing. Proofs of a Celts settlements on Aachens territories at the beginning of the Gallic War do not exist at the moment.
The 25-hectare (60 acre) Roman spa resort town of Aquae Granni was, according to legend, founded by Grenus, under Hadrian, around 124 AD. Grenus refers to the Celtic god, and it seems it was the Roman 6th Legion at the start of the 1st century AD that first channelled the hot springs into a spa at Büchel, adding at the end of the same century the Münstertherme spa, two water pipelines, and a probable sanctuary dedicated to Grannus. A kind of forum, surrounded by colonnades, connected the two spa complexes. There was an extensive residential area. The Romans built bathhouses near Burtscheid. A temple precinct called Vernenum was built near the modern Kornelimünster/Walheim. Today, remains have been found of three bathhouses, including two fountains in the Elisenbrunnen and the Burtscheid bathhouse.
Roman civil administration in Aachen eventually broke down as the baths and other public buildings (along with most of the villae rusticae of the surrounding countryside) were destroyed around AD 375 at the start of the migration period. The last Roman coin finds are from the time of Emperor Gratian (AD 375–383). Rome withdrew its troops from the area, but the town remained populated. By 470, the town came to be ruled by the Ripuarian Franks and subordinated to their capital, Cologne. During the Roman period, Aachen was the site of a flourishing Jewish community.
Middle Ages
Pepin the Short had a castle residence built in the town, due to the proximity of the hot springs and also for strategic reasons as it is located between the Rhineland and northern France. Einhard mentions that in 765–766 Pepin spent both Christmas and Easter at Aquis villa (Et celebravit natalem Domini in Aquis villa et pascha similiter) ("and [he] celebrated the birth of the Lord [Christmas] in the town Aquis, and similarly Easter"), which must have been sufficiently equipped to support the royal household for several months. In the year of his coronation as king of the Franks, 768, Charlemagne came to spend Christmas at Aachen for the first time. He remained there in a mansion which he may have extended, although there is no source attesting to any significant building activity at Aachen in his time, apart from the building of the Palatine Chapel (since 1930, cathedral) and the Palace.
Charlemagne spent most winters in Aachen between 792 and his death in 814. Aachen became the focus of his court and the political centre of his empire. During the Carolingian empire, a Jewish community lived near the royal palace. In Jewish texts, the city of Aachen was called Aish or Ash (אש). In 797, Isaac, a Jewish merchant, accompanied two ambassadors of Charlemagne to the court of Harun al-Rashid. He returned to Aachen in July 802, bearing an elephant called Abul-Abbas as a gift for the emperor. After Charlemagne's death, he was buried in the church which he had built; his original tomb has been lost, while his alleged remains are preserved in the Karlsschrein, the shrine where he was reburied after being declared a saint; his saintliness, however, was never officially acknowledged by the Roman Curia as such.
By the terms of the Treaty of Verdun 834, Aachen became part of Middle Francia, governed by emperor Lothair. He was succeeded by Lothair II as king of Lotharingia by the terms of the Treaty of Prüm. By the Treaty of Meerssen 870, Aachen came to East Francia. Within East Francia, later the Holy Roman Empire until 1166, Aachen was part of the Duchy of Lower Lotharingia.
In 936, Otto I was crowned king of East Francia in the collegiate church built by Charlemagne. During the reign of Otto II, the nobles revolted and the West Franks under Lothair raided Aachen in 978. Aachen was attacked again by Odo of Champagne, who attacked the imperial palace while Conrad II was absent. Odo relinquished it and was killed afterwards. The palace and town of Aachen had fortifying walls built by order of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa between 1172 and 1176. Over the next 500 years, most kings of Germany who ruled the Holy Roman Empire were crowned in Aachen. The original audience hall built by Charlemagne was torn down and replaced by the current city hall in 1330. During the 13th century, many Jews converted to Christianity, as shown in the records of the Aachen Minster (today's Cathedral). In 1486, the Jews of Aachen offered gifts to Maximilian I during his coronation ceremony. The last king to be crowned here was Ferdinand I in 1531.
During the Middle Ages, Aachen remained a city of regional importance, due to its proximity to Flanders; it achieved a modest position in the trade in woollen cloths, favoured by imperial privilege. The city remained a free imperial city, subject to the emperor only, but was politically far too weak to influence the policies of any of its neighbours. The only dominion it had was over Burtscheid, a neighbouring territory ruled by a Benedictine abbess, which was forced to accept that all of its traffic must pass through the "Aachener Reich".
As an imperial city, Aachen held certain political privileges that allowed it to remain independent of the troubles of Europe for many years. It remained a direct vassal of the Holy Roman Empire throughout most of the Middle Ages. It was also the site of many important church councils, including the Council of 837 and the Council of 1166, a council convened by the antipope Paschal III.
Parts of Aachen belonged to Imperial Abbey of Burtscheid, Reichsabtei Kornelimünster, Duchy of Juelich and the Duchy of Limburg.
Manuscript production
Aachen was an important site for the production of historical manuscripts. Under Charlemagne's purview, both the Ada Gospels and the Coronation Gospels may have been produced in Aachen. In addition, quantities of the other texts in the court library were also produced locally. During the reign of Louis the Pious (814–840), substantial quantities of ancient texts were produced at Aachen, including legal manuscripts such as the leges scriptorium group, patristic texts including the five manuscripts of the Bamberg Pliny Group. Finally, under Lothair I (840–855), texts of outstanding quality were still being produced. This however marked the end of the period of manuscript production at Aachen.
16th–18th centuries
In 1598, following the invasion of Spanish troops from the Netherlands, Rudolf deposed all Protestant office holders in Aachen and went as far as expelling them from the city. From the early 16th century, Aachen started to lose its power and influence. First the coronations of emperors were moved from Aachen to Frankfurt. 1614 Aachen became theatre of the Siege of Aachen (1614) within the War of the Jülich Succession. Although religious changes were forced several times in Aachen and Protestant communities were banned, hardly any fighting took place during the Thirty Years' War.
The religious wars had been followed by the great fire of 1656. After the destruction of most of the city in 1656, the rebuilding was mostly in the Baroque style. The decline of Aachen culminated in 1794, when the French, led by General Charles Dumouriez, occupied Aachen. The area of Aachen had been scene of battles within the Flanders Campaign in autumn 1794: Battle of Ourthe, Battle of Aldenhoven, Siege of Maastricht.
In 1542, the Dutch humanist and physician Francis Fabricius published his study of the health benefits of the hot springs in Aachen. By the middle of the 17th century, the city had developed a considerable reputation as a spa, although this was in part because Aachen was then – and remained well into the 19th and early 20th century – a place of high-level prostitution. Traces of this hidden agenda of the city's history are found in the 18th-century guidebooks to Aachen as well as to the other spas.
The main indication for visiting patients, ironically, was syphilis; only by the end of the 19th century had rheumatism become the most important object of cures at Aachen and Burtscheid.
Aachen was chosen as the site of several important congresses and peace treaties: the first congress of Aachen (often referred to as the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in English) on 2 May 1668, leading to the First Treaty of Aachen in the same year which ended the War of Devolution. The second congress ended with the second treaty in 1748, ending the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1789, there was a constitutional crisis in the Aachen government, and in 1794 Aachen lost its status as a free imperial city.
In 1629, the Aachen Jewish community was expelled from the city. In 1667, six Jews were allowed to return. Most of the Aachen Jewish community settled in Burtscheid. As recently as the late 18th century the Abbess of Burtscheid was still prevented from building a road linking her territory to the neighbouring estates of the duke of Jülich; the city of Aachen deployed its handful of soldiers to chase away road-diggers.
19th century
On 9 February 1801, the Peace of Lunéville removed the ownership of Aachen and the entire "left bank" of the Rhine from Germany (the Holy Roman Empire) and granted it to France. In 1815, control of the town was passed to the Kingdom of Prussia through an agreement reached by the Congress of Vienna. The third congress took place in 1818, to decide the fate of occupied Napoleonic France.