er'foort, an important town in the Prussian province of Saxony, on the Gera, 14 mi. w. of Weimar. It has a fine cathedral, dating from the thirteenth century, and several handsome Gothic churches. The university, founded in 1378 and suppressed in 1816, was long an important institution. There are still a royal academy of science and a royal library with 60,000 volumes. The monastery (now an orphanage) was the residence of Luther from 1501 to 1508. The manufactures are varied, including clothing, machinery, leather, shoes, ironmongery and chemicals. Erfurt was one of the most important commercial towns of central Germany in the Middle Ages. Population in 1900,85,190.