Middle Ages Merseburg was first mentioned in 850. King
Henry the Fowler built a royal palace at Merseburg; in the 933
Battle of Riade, he gained his great victory over the
Hungarians in the vicinity.
Thietmar, appointed in 973, became the first bishop of the newly created
bishopric of Prague in
Bohemia. Prague had been part of the
archbishopric of Mainz for a hundred years before that. From 968 until the
Protestant Reformation, Merseburg was the seat of the
Bishop of Merseburg, and in addition to being for a time the residence of the
margraves of Meissen, it was a favorite residence of the German kings during the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. Fifteen
diets were held here during the Middle Ages, during which time its fairs enjoyed the importance which was afterwards transferred to those of
Leipzig. After Ekkehard's treacherous death on 3 April 1002,
Bolesław I Chrobry took Merseburg and Meissen, and then Milsko with Bautzen and Strehla, with the help of the local Slavic population. The German princes accepted the sovereignty of the Polish prince in these areas. Some historians believe that since the convention in Gniezno, the Brave might have had certain rights to the German throne after Otto III, guaranteed by some succession document. Merseburg was later the site of a failed assassination attempt on Polish ruler
Bolesław I Chrobry in 1002. The town suffered severely during the
German Peasants' War and also during the
Thirty Years' War.
17th century to 20th century From 1657 to 1738 Merseburg was the residence of the Dukes of
Saxe-Merseburg, after which it fell to the
Electorate of Saxony. In 1815 following the
Napoleonic Wars, the town became part of the
Prussian
Province of Saxony. Merseburg is where the
Merseburg Incantations were rediscovered in 1841. Written down in
Old High German, they are hitherto the only preserved German documents with a heathen theme. One of them is a charm to release warriors caught during battle, and the other is a charm to heal a horse's sprained foot. At the beginning of the 20th century, Merseburg was transformed into an industrial town, largely due to the pioneering work done by
Carl Bosch and
Friedrich Bergius, who laid down the scientific fundamentals of the catalytic high-pressure
ammonia synthesis from 1909 to 1913. The nearby
Leuna works continue this tradition of chemical industry. The
Merseburger Tageblatt was published as a local newspaper in Merseburg. Merseburg was badly damaged in
World War II. In 23 air raids, 6,200 dwellings were completely or partly destroyed. The historic town centre was almost completely destroyed. Briefly part of
Saxony-Anhalt after the war, it was then administered within the
Bezirk Halle in
East Germany. It became part of Saxony-Anhalt again after the
reunification of Germany. ==Demographics==