Gernrode () is a historic town and former municipality in the Harz District, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2014, it has been part of Quedlinburg. It was the seat of the former Verwaltungsgemeinschaft ("municipal association") of Gernrode/Harz. First mentioned in 961, Gernrode received the privilege to bear its own coat of arms and seal, commonly regarded as town privileges. The town is best known for the Ottonian church of Saint Cyriakus, the collegiate church of a former Imperial chapter of nuns, and as the start of the narrow gauge Selke Valley Railway. Geography Gernrode is situated at the northeastern rim of the Harz mountain range and the Harz/Saxony-Anhalt Nature Park, about south of Quedlinburg. It lies at above sea level, at the foot of the Ramberg massif. It is nationally recognized for its health facilities and has state recognition as a spa town, where one may take the cure and recuperate in general (staatlich anerkannter Kur- und Erholungsort). The town is also known as 'Gernrode/Harz', because of its location in the Harz mountains, and to distinguish it from Gernrode in the district of Eichsfeld in Thuringia, also called 'Gernrode (Eichsfeld)'. History In 959 the Saxon margrave Gero founded a convent of canonesses in the Schwabengau territory, within the grounds of the Geronisroth fortification he built about the same time. He also founded the collegiate church for the convent, which King Otto I took under his special protection by a 961 deed. It was dedicated to Saint Cyriacus, whose relics Gero brought back for the church from his second journey to Rome in 963. Without male heirs, he bequested his vast properties to the convent and made his daughter-in-law Hathui (d. 1014), widow of his son Siegfried, first abbess (r.959-1014). She was succeeded by Adelaide I (r.1014-1045), a sister of Emperor Otto III, who was also Princess-abbess of Quedlinburg (r.999-1045). Initially the Gernrode convent was on a par with the Imperial abbeys of Quedlinburg and Gandersheim. However, its secular Vogt protectors from the Ascanian princes of Anhalt, descendants of Albert the Bear, became increasingly powerful. Yet in 1188, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held a Hoftag in Gernrode and donated a bell to the St. Stephan church (Stephanikirche, also known as the Market church or Marktkirche), the second historical church in Gernrode built in 1046. In the thirteenth century, Adelaide II was abbess of Gernrode (r.1207-1220). The Protestant Reformation came to Anhalt