Celje

Celje lies in the lower Savinja valley beneath its castle. The Roman town of Celeia received municipal rights under Emperor Claudius in 45 and stood on the road from Aquileia to Pannonia. Rebuilt in the early Middle Ages, Celje became the seat of the counts of Celje in 1341. Their castle overlooked a market town at the meeting of several rivers and roads.

The counts gained princely rank in 1436, and Frederick II granted Celje town privileges in 1451. When the dynasty died out in 1456, the Habsburgs inherited its lands. Walls and a moat were built in 1473. During the Slovene peasant revolt of 1515, rebels took the old castle but the town held out. Many nobles adopted Protestantism during the Reformation, before Catholicism was restored in the Counter-Reformation.