Helmstedt

Helmstedt grew in the eastern lands of Brunswick, associated with the Benedictine abbey of Saint Ludger. Its churches and monastic institutions long shaped the town before a new foundation made it a centre of Protestant scholarship. Duke Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel introduced the Reformation in his lands and established a university at Helmstedt, ceremonially opened on 15 October 1576. The duke's successor Henry Julius provided a grand Renaissance building, the Juleum Novum, constructed between 1592 and 1597. Scholars taught theology, law, medicine and philosophy, and the university remained an important place of learning through the seventeenth century. In 1810, during the Napoleonic period, it was closed after more than two centuries of teaching.