HELMSTADT, or Helmstedt, a town of Germany in the duchy of Brunswick, is situated on the railway from Magdeburg to Brunswick, 23 miles E. of Brunswick. It is the seat of a circle directorate, and of a circle and a district court. The principal buildings are the Juleum in the Byzantine style, founded by Duke Julius of Brunswick in 1575 for the university which was abolished in 1809, and now containing an old library of 40,000 volumes; the church of St Stephen’s, dating from the 12th century; the Lutheran female institution, with a beautiful church in the Roman style; and the Catholic church and ruined monastery of St Ludger. The educational institutions include a gymnasium, two city schools, an agricultural school, and two female schools of the higher grade. The principal manufactures are yarn, soap, tobacco, sugar, vitriol, earthenware, and tobacco pipes. Not far from the town there is an iron mineral spring especially efficacious in gouty affections. Near it a monument has been erected to those who fell in the Franco-German war of 1870-71; and in the town there is also a monument to those who fell at Waterloo. The population in 1875 was 7783.

Helmstadt originated in connexion with the Ludger monastery, founded by Ludger, the first bishop of Miinster, about the end of the 8th century. It obtained town rights in 1099, and although destroyed by the archbishop of Magdeburg in 1199 it was soon rebuilt. In 1457 it joined the Hansa, and in 1490 it came into the possession of Brunswick. See Kunhard, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Universität Helmstadts, 1797; Ludewig, Geschichte und Beschreibung der Stadt Helmstädt, 1821; Geschichte der ehemaligen Hochschule Julia Carolina zu Helmstädt, 1876.