Wetzlar

Wetzlar was a Free Imperial City on the Lahn in the Wetterau. Its ironworking, wool weaving and trade across the river supported a prosperous town in the fourteenth century.

Feuds with the counts of Solms left Wetzlar in debt; in 1387 it came under forced administration and joined the Swabian League of Towns. The imperial supreme court moved there from Speyer in 1689. Karl von Dalberg ended the city's imperial freedom in 1803, and the court dissolved in 1806; Wetzlar passed to Prussia in 1815.