Hadamar

Hadamar lies beside the Elbbach, where monks from Eberbach Abbey once worked a farm. Count Emich of Nassau-Hadamar bought it in 1320 and turned it into a moated castle. Four years later Emperor Louis IV granted his residence the town rights of Frankfurt. A yearly fair is recorded here in 1430.

After a destructive fire, Count Johann Ludwig rebuilt Hadamar in the seventeenth century. He enlarged the castle into a Renaissance residence and laid out a new town with broad marketplaces and fountains. Having returned to Catholicism, he brought Jesuits to Hadamar; they opened a school in 1652. Johann Ludwig served as an imperial representative in the negotiations for the Peace of Westphalia and became a prince in 1650, making Hadamar the seat of a principality.