Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Thuringia

THURINGIA (Germ. Thüringen), a territorial term without modern political significance, designates, strictly speaking, only that district in Upper Saxony that is bounded by the Werra, the Harz Mountains, the Saale, and the Thuringian Forest; but in common parlance it is frequently used as equivalent to the Thuringian states, i.e., the group of small duchies and principalities lying between Prussia, Hesse-Nassau, Bavaria, and the kingdom of Saxony.^[1] The name is derived, with great probability, from that of the Hermunduri, a branch of the great Suevic family; and the ancient Thuringians, a heathen tribe first mentioned in the 5th century by Vegetius Renatus, are believed to be the descendants of that Teutonic people. The Thuringians seem at one time to have occupied territories stretching from the Elbe not far from Hamburg to the Danube at Ratisbon; but about 531 their empire was overthrown by the united Franks and Saxons. The north part of their lands fell to the Saxons, and was known for some time as the North Thuringian gau; the district to the south of the Thuringian Forest was called Franconia after its conquerors; and the name Thuringia was restricted almost to the narrow limits to which it now properly applies. The advance of the Sorbs to the east bank of the Saale about the middle of the 7th century made the limitation still more exact. Thuringia remained under Frankish dominion, and various Frankish counts ruled in the different "gaus" into which it was divided. Christianity, if not introduced, was confirmed in this district by the British Boniface; a

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1. The Thuringian states are Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and the two principalities of Reuss, all of which are separately described. Besides these, the term Thuringia also, of course, includes the various "exclaves" of Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, and Bohemia which lie embedded among them.