Merseburg

Merseburg stands on the Saale south of Halle. King Henry the Fowler built a royal residence here, and his victory over the Hungarians in 933 was won nearby. In 968 the city became the seat of a bishopric. German kings frequently stayed at Merseburg in the tenth to twelfth centuries, holding imperial assemblies here, while its fairs attracted merchants before Leipzig rose to greater prominence.

The bishopric endured until the Reformation, after centuries in which its bishops shared the town with the royal and princely courts. Merseburg suffered heavily during the German Peasants' War and again in the Thirty Years' War. Its cathedral and castle preserve the memory of a city that had been both an ecclesiastical centre and a favoured royal residence on the Saale.