Pegau, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, situated in a fertile country, on the Elster, 18 m. S.W. from Leipzig by the railway to Zeitz. Pop. (1905), 5656. It has two Evangelical churches, that of St Lawrence being a fine Gothic structure, a 16th-century town-hall; a very old hospital and an agricultural school. Its industries embrace the manufacture of felt, boots and metal wares.
Pegau grew up round a monastery founded in 1096, but does not appear as a town before the close of the 12th century. Markets were held here and its prosperity was further enhanced by its position on a main road running east and west. In the monastery, which was dissolved in 1539, a valuable chronicle was compiled, the Annales pegavienses, covering the period from 1039 to 1227.
See Fi ssel, Anfang and Ende des Klosters St Jacob zu Pegau (Leipzig, 1857); and Dillner, Grossel and Gunther, Altes and neues aus Pegau (Leipzig, 1905). The Annales pegavienses are published in Bd. XVI. of the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores.
