Memleben

Memleben is a village and part of the Kaiserpfalz municipality of the Burgenlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is known for former Memleben Abbey, the site of a medieval Kaiserpfalz.GeographyIt is located southwest of Nebra on the Unstrut River. The former municipality was merged with the neighbouring villages of Bucha and Wohlmirstedt into Kaiserpfalz on 1 July 2009.Nowadays the village has about 800 inhabitants. It also has an animal training center open to the public.HistoryA settlement called Mimelebo was already documented in a 780 register of the Hersfeld Abbey estates, issued by Archbishop Lullus of Mainz. In the 10th century the Pfalz or villa regia of Memleben, a kind of seasonal king's court, was one of the favourite places of the German king Henry the Fowler and his son Emperor Otto I. Henry the Fowler died here, probably by a stroke, on 2 July 936; his son Emperor Otto I also used Memleben as a temporary residence and died here on 7 May 973. According to the Res gestae saxonicae by the contemporary chronicler Widukind of Corvey, his intestines were buried in a Memleben church.