Düren

Düren lies on the Rur between Aachen and Cologne. Frankish rulers kept a royal residence here, and Charlemagne's visits helped the markets around it develop. The town received rights in the early thirteenth century, but in 1242 it lost its imperial freedom and became a principal town of the counts of Jülich. Its walls enclosed markets for grain, livestock and other goods.

In 1501 a relic of Saint Anne was brought from Mainz; Pope Julius II allowed Düren to keep it in 1506, and the saint became its patron. War, plague and destruction afflicted the town in the seventeenth century, including an attack in 1689 during the Nine Years' War. Cloth and metalworking had long supported local craftsmen, and from the early seventeenth century paper mills used the soft waters of the Rur. French rule began in 1794, followed by Prussian rule in 1815.