Brunswickcity

Brunswick (city), capital of the above-mentioned duchy, is on the Ocker, 143 miles from Berlin, and 37 miles S.E. of Hanover. It is an old city, once a Hanseatic town and of much importance while the, Hanseatic league prospered. It is irregularly built, and was contained by fortifications which, as at Brussels, Antwerp, and elsewhere, have now become boulevards and promenades. It contains a university, an institute of forests and of agriculture, and has an increasing trade in cloth, linen, gloves, mirrors, lacquer ware, tinplate, straw hats, tobacco, and beer, especially the beer called Mumme, which is a speciality of Brunswick. Of its public buildings the cathedral of St. Blaise, begun by Henry the Lion in 1176 and finished in 1469, is notable. In it is the tomb of Henry the Lion and his wife Matilda, daughter of Richard Coeur de Lion. Some interesting wall paintings were discovered about forty years ago, buried beneath a coat of whitewash. The original ducal palace is now barracks, but there is a modern palace. The Rathhaus is an old Gothic building and has some interesting statues from Henry the Fowler downwards, and the Cloth Hall is a good specimen of mediaeval architecture. There are several other noteworthy churches in the town, among them St. Magnus's (1031) and St. Andrew's, with a spire of 318 feet.