Hofgeismar

Hofgeismar was a town of the archbishops of Mainz in northern Hesse, first mentioned in 1082. It served their interests in a region contested with the landgraves of Hesse. In 1462, during the Mainz ecclesiastical conflict, the archbishop pledged Hofgeismar and other places to the landgrave to raise money for war, and Hessian rule followed. In 1686 Hofgeismar became a place of refuge for Huguenots who had fled France after the revocation of religious toleration. Landgrave Charles invited them to settle in his lands, and communities grew in and around the town. Their churches and settlements added a new strand to the history of a place long shaped by the rivalry of Mainz and Hesse.