Fulda
[key], city, Hesse, central Germany, on the Fulda River. It is a banking
and financial center. Manufactures include textiles and clothing. Fulda grew
around a Benedictine abbey founded in 744 by Sturmius, a pupil of St.
Boniface, the missionary. From this abbey Christianity was spread throughout
central Germany; numerous scholars were associated with the abbey school.
From the 13th cent. the abbots of Fulda ruled the town and the surrounding
area as princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1752 they were raised to
the rank of prince-bishops. Fulda was secularized in 1802, and most of it
passed to Hesse-Kassel in 1816. Since 1829, Fulda has again been an
episcopal see and is now the site of the annual conference of the Catholic
bishops of Germany. A theological seminary is in the city. Noteworthy
buildings include the baroque cathedral (1704–12), in the crypt of
which St. Boniface is buried; the Michaelskirche (c.820), a
Carolingian-style church; and a castle (1720).
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