Goslar

Goslar was a free imperial city on the northwestern slopes of the Harz, enriched by the nearby Rammelsberg silver mines. In 1337 it belonged to the Hanseatic League and governed itself.

Its 1359 mining law was widely copied. In 1527 Duke Henry V of Wolfenbüttel seized the mines, starting a long dispute; the theologian Nicolaus von Amsdorf issued a church constitution in 1531. Swedish troops occupied the city during the Thirty Years’ War, and it never recovered the mines. Prussia annexed Goslar in 1802; the Congress of Vienna assigned it to Hanover in 1815.