Cassel

Cassel stood on the Fulda as the residence of Hesse's landgraves. The town council's struggles for greater independence in the later fourteenth century failed, leaving princely government a powerful influence over its development. In the sixteenth century Landgrave Philip's support for the Reformation made his capital a Protestant political center, defended by fortifications that successive rulers continued to improve.

A new town grew outside those defenses after Landgrave Karl's concession of 1685 offered French Protestant refugees religious protection and economic assistance. Paul du Ry planned the Oberneustadt with the Karlskirche at its center. Its ordered streets contrasted with the older town within the walls. Among the newcomers was the clothmaker Daniel Landré, whose family established a combined dwelling, business house and textile manufactory. A princely privilege in 1725 assisted their enterprise, which employed forty-one workers the following year. The dismantling of the fortifications began in 1767, opening space between old and new districts. Cassel's transformation thus joined court patronage, refugee skills and manufacturing to the reshaping of the city's streets.