Schwäbisch Hall

Schwäbisch Hall was a Free Imperial City in the Kocher valley, enriched by salt springs and the minting of Heller pennies. In 1337 it was free of local lords under rights confirmed by King Rudolf I.

Emperor Louis IV granted Hall a council constitution in 1340. Johannes Brenz became its pastor in 1522 and made it an early Lutheran city. Exactions and plague devastated Hall during the Thirty Years' War; it never regained its former prosperity and Württemberg annexed it in 1802.