Schlettstadt

Schlettstadt, a town of Lower Alsace, on the left bank of the Ill, 27 miles by rail SSW. of Strasbourg. It manufactures wire-gauze. In the 13th century it was made a free imperial town, and in the 15th was chosen by Agricola as the seat of a higher school that greatly helped to foster humanistic studies; Erasmus was a pupil. In 1634 the town became French; it was fortified by Vauban in 1676. The Germans, after capturing the town in 1870, razed the fortifications. Here Martin Bucer (q.v.), the Reformer, was born. Pop. (1875) 9094; (1895) 9304.