THURIN'GIA (Ger. Thiiringen). A pic turesque region of Germany, traversed by the Thfiring,er Wald (q.v.), lying between the Prus sian Province of Saxony on the north and Bavaria on the south, and between the Kingdom of Saxony on the east and the Prussian Province of Hesse Nassau on the west. It embraces a number of duchies and principalities together with some Prussian districts. The so-called Thuringian States are Saxe-Weimar-Eisenaeh, Saxe-Coburg Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Schwarz burg-Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and the two Reuss principalities. The largest city is Erfurt, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. The region took its name from the Thuringians, who at the time of the great migration of nations es tablished an extensive kingdom near the centre of the present Germany. In the early part of the sixth century the Franks overthrew this king dom, of which the northern part was joined to the country of the Saxons, and the southern to Franeonia. The name Thuringia came to be ap plied to the country between the rivers Werra and Saale, and the Harz and Thuringian moun tains. Under the weak Merovingian rulers dukes arose in this Thuringia, which for a time was virtually independent. Christianity was intro duced in the eighth century. Under the Carlo vingian sovereigns Thuringia constituted an im portant frontier province or march, whose gov ernor was charged with the lack of repressing or keeping down the Slavic Serbs. In the tenth
century the country was under the rule of the dukes of Saxony. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the landgraves of Thuringia held a prominent place among the German princes. They had their seat at the famous Castle of Wartburg. (See Landgrave Hermann 1. (1190 1216) is noted as a patron of the minnesingers. The old dynasty of landgraves became extinct in 1247. The landgravate of Thuringia then passed to the House of Wettin. which ruled in the margraviate of Meissen, and which in the fifteenth century came into possession of the electoral duchy of Saxony. On the partition of the Saxon dominions in 1485 between the Ernestine and Al bertine lines the bulk of the Thuringian pos sessions passed to the Ernestine or electoral branch. After the War of the Sehmalkald League (1546-47) the Ernestine house was stripped of its possessions outside of Thuringia. Here arose the various modern Saxon (Thuringian) duchies. See `ATE-WEIM AR-EISENACH. Consult : Iinochenhauer. Geschichtr Thitringens in dcr karo lingischen and siichsischen Zeit (Gotha, I863); id., Gcschichte Thiiringens zur Zeit des ersten Landgrafenhauses (Gotha, 1871).