History.---Aix-la-Chapelle is the Aquisgranum of the Romans, named after Apollo Granus, who was worshipped in connexion with hot springs. As early as A.D. 765 King Pippin had a "palace" here, in which it is probable that Charlemagne was born. The greatness of Aix was due to the latter, who between 777 and 786 built a magnificent palace on the site of that of his father, raised the place to the rank of the second city of the empire, and made it for a while the centre of Western culture and learning. From the coronation of Louis the Pious in 813 until that of Ferdinand I. in 1531 the sacring of the German kings took place at Aix, and as many as thirty-two emperors and kings were here crowned. In 851, and again in 882, the place was ravaged by the Northmen in their raids up the Rhine. It was not, however, till late in the 12th century (1172-1176) that the city was surrounded with walls by order of the emperor Frederick I., to whom (in 1166) and to his grandson Frederick II. (in 1215) it owed its first important civic rights. These were still further extended in 1250 by the anti-Caesar William of Holland, who had made himself master of the place and of the imperial regalia, after a long siege, in 1248. The liberties of the burghers were, however, still restrained by the presence of a royal advocatus (Vogt) and bailiff. In 1300 the outer ring of walls was completed, the earlier circumvallation being marked by the limit of the Altstadt (old city). In the 14th century Aix, now a free city of the Holy Roman Empire, played a conspicuous part, especially in the league which, between 1351 and 1387, kept the peace between the Meuse and the Rhine. In 1450 an insurrection led to the admission of the gilds to a share in the municipal government. In the 16th century Aix began to decline in importance and prosperity. It lay too near the French frontier to be safe. and too remote from the centre of Germany to be convenient, as a capital; and in 1562 the election and coronation of Maximilian II. took place at Frankfort-on-Main, a precedent followed till the extinction of the Empire. The Reformation, too, brought its troubles. In 1580 Protestantism got the upper hand; the ban of the empire followed and was executed by Ernest of Bavaria, archbishop-elector of Cologne in 1598. A relapse of the city led to a new ban of the emperor Matthias in 1613, and in the following year Spinola's Spanish troops brought back the recalcitrant city to the Catholic fold. In 1656 a great fire completed the ruin wrought by the religious wars. By the treaty of Luneville (1801) Aix was incorporated with France as chief town of the department of the Roer. By the congress of Vienna it was given to Prussia. The contrast between the new regime and the ancient tradition of the city was curiously illustrated in 1818 by a scene described in Metternich's Memoirs, when, before the opening of the congress, Francis I., emperor of Austria, regarded by all Germany as the successor of the Holy Roman emperors, knelt at the tomb of Charlemagne amid a worshipping crowd, while the Protestant Frederick William III. of Prussia, the new sovereign of the place, stood in the midst, "looking very uncomfortable."
See Quix, Geschichte der Stadt Aachen (1841)
Pick, Aus Aachens Vergangenheit (Aachen, 1895)
Bock, Karls des grossen Pfalzkapelle (Cologne, 1867)
and Beissel, Aachen als Kurort (1889).
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