The New International Encyclopædia/Ansbach

ANSBACH, äns'bäG, or ANSPACH (originally Onolzbach). A town of Bavaria, capital of the circle of Middle Franconia (Mittelfranken), on the Rezat, 25 miles southwest of Nuremberg (Map: Germany, D 4). Its only notable buildings are the churches of St. Gumbert and St. John, and the castle, once the residence of the margraves of Ansbach, now used as a library and picture gallery. The town has several schools, a theatre, and a public slaughter house. It has manufactures of cotton and half-silken fabrics, tobacco, earthenware, playing cards, cutlery, and white lead; also a considerable trade in wool, flax, and corn. Ansbach sprang up around a Benedictine monastery founded by St. Gumbert in the eighth century. It was the capital of the principality of Ansbach, which from the close of the Middle Ages was for three centuries ruled by margraves of the Franconian branch of the House of Hohenzollern (of Brandenburg, later of Prussia). After belonging for a short time to Prussia, Ansbach and its territory, together with the Old principality of Bayreuth, which had also been ruled by margraves of the Hohenzollern line and had shared the fortunes of Ansbach, were transferred by Napoleon I. to Bavaria, Pop., 1890, 14,200; 1900, 17,555.