Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Frankenthal

FRANKENTHAL, a town in the Rhenish district of Bavaria, is situated on the Isenach, 9 miles N.W. of Mannheim, and is connected with the Rhine by a canal 4 miles in length. It has a poorhouse, an infirmary, a deaf and dumb institution, an asylum for insane, and the ruins of an old monastery. Its principal industries are the manufacture of machinery, bell-founding, and brewing.

Frankenthal existed as a village in the 8th century, but it owes its prosperity to a colony of Flemish Protestant refugees who settled there in 1562. After this it rose very rapidly, so that in 1577 it became a town. The Spaniards made an unsuccessful attempt to capture it in 1621, and it was taken by them in 1623. In 1689 it was burned to the ground by the French, and it delivered itself up to the same power in 1796. Population in 1875, 7907.