Altenkirchen

Altenkirchen in the Westerwald was recorded in 1131 as an estate of the church of Saints Cassius and Florentius in Bonn. The counts of Sayn acquired it and built a castle, and King Louis the Bavarian granted town rights in 1314. The counts introduced the Reformation in 1561, and their estates met here in 1574 and 1584.

Inheritance divisions made Altenkirchen the seat of a branch of the house of Sayn that passed by marriage to the dukes of Saxe-Eisenach in 1661. A great fire destroyed almost the whole town in 1728. It later passed through Brandenburg-Ansbach, Prussia and Nassau before returning to Prussia in 1815. French and imperial forces fought a battle nearby in 1796; the French general Marceau died in the town after being wounded in later fighting.