Korbach

Korbach grew where the roads from Cologne to Leipzig and from Frankfurt to Bremen crossed in the county of Waldeck. A Carolingian royal court stood here by the year 800, and in 980 Otto II granted the settlement to Corvey Abbey. The bishop of Paderborn gave Korbach town rights in 1188. Its merchants and craftsmen prospered, and new settlements grew beyond the old town walls.

The old and new towns were united in 1377, with a new town hall built at their former boundary. A double circuit of walls was completed in 1414, while the town's merchants joined the Hanseatic League. The Reformation brought Protestantism to Waldeck. Korbach suffered heavily in the Thirty Years' War, and a great fire destroyed almost all its houses in 1664.