Ansbach

Ansbach lies on the Franconian Rezat southwest of Nuremberg. A Benedictine monastery was established here around 748 by the Frankish noble Saint Gumbertus, and the neighbouring village of Onoltesbach was recorded as a town in 1221. In 1331 the Hohenzollern burgrave of Nuremberg acquired Ansbach and made it a dynastic residence. After 1440 a branch of the family ruled here as margraves. Georg the Pious introduced the Reformation in 1528, and Gumbertus Abbey was secularised in 1563. The margraves continued to hold court at Ansbach, building their residence, the Markgrafenschloss, between 1704 and 1738. In 1791 the last margrave sold his realm to Prussia. Napoleon forced Prussia to transfer Ansbach to Bavaria in 1805.