Lorsch

Lorsch is a town in the Bergstraße district in Hessen, Germany, 60 km south of Frankfurt. Lorsch is well known for the Lorsch Abbey, which has been named a World Heritage Site. In 1991, the town hosted the 31st Hessentag state festival.

Geography

Location

Lorsch, which is described as "The Gateway to the Bergstraße", actually lies about 5 km west of the Bergstraße in the Rhine rift just west of the Odenwald between Darmstadt to the north and Mannheim to the south. The town lies not far from the Weschnitz’s lower reaches. In the town’s southeast is found the Weschnitzinsel conservation area.

Neighbouring communities

Lorsch borders in the north on the community of Einhausen and the town of Bensheim, in the east on the town of Heppenheim, in the southeast on the community of Laudenbach and the town of Hemsbach (both in Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, Baden-Württemberg), in the south on the town of Lampertheim and in the west on the town of Bürstadt.

History

The Lorsch Abbey was founded in 764 by the Frankish Count Cancor and his mother Williswinda. The abbey was one of the greatest centres of Carolingian art. Several Carolingian kings of Germany were buried there. The monastery was settled by Benedictines from the Gorze monastery near Metz. In a document from 885, the abbey is mentioned as Lauressam, from which, over the course of time, came the town’s current name. In the Early and High Middle Ages, the abbey was a powerful Imperial monastery with holdings in the nearby Odenwald, on the Bergstraße and in Rhenish Hesse, and also in Alsace and Lorraine.

Lorsch (disambiguation)

Lorsch may refer to several different things: