WORMS, an ancient and interesting but decayed t. of Hesse-Darmstadt, in a highly fruitful district on the left bank of the Rhine, 20 in. s.e. of the town of Darmstadt, and communicating with Mainz and Mannheim by railway. Pop. '75, 16,597. Among its churches, the chief is the cathedral, a massive building in the Byzantine style, with four towers, founded In the 8th, and completed in the 12th century. On a hill near the church called the Liebfrauenkirelie, a highly esteemed wine, called Lieyrauenmileh, is grown. The manufacture of polished leather employs 1200 hands; tobacco is also manufactured, and a trade in the wines and the agricultural produce of the vicinity is carried on. Worms is one of the oldest cities of Germany, and is the scene of the Nibelungen-Lied (q.v.). It was occupied by the Romans, destroyed by Attila, and after ward rebuilt by Clovis. It was frequently the residence of Charlemagne and his Car lovingian successors, was the place of convocation of many German diets, and was erected into 'a free imperial city by the emperor Henry V. The most famous diet held
Here was that at which Luther defended himself before Charles V. and the princes of the empire (commemorated by an imposing monument to Luther erected at Worms in 1868). The industry and commerce of Worms were great during the middle ages, and its pop., as far back as the time of the Hohenstaufens, averaged 60,000, and even amounted to 30,000 at the close of the thirty years' war, but it was almost wholly destroyed by the French in the destructive war of 1689; and though soon after it was rebuilt on a smaller scale, it has never recovered its former prosperity. The site of the old town is only partially occupied by the present one, the rest being laid out in gardens. Here, in 1743, an offensive and defensive alliance was entered into by Great Britain and Austria with Sardinia.