Miesbach

Miesbach was a market town in the Bavarian Alpine foreland and the centre of the lordship of Waldeck. First recorded as a market in 1367, it stood on the salt road between Rosenheim and Tölz. From the early fifteenth century it served as an administrative seat for the lordship, which passed to the Maxlrain family in 1516. The Reformation gained support under Wolf Dietrich von Maxlrain, before Bavarian pressure brought it to an end in 1584. In 1616 the market brought a case against its lord over taxes and compulsory labour, reaching a settlement the following year. The lordship became the imperial county of Hohenwaldeck in 1637. When the male Maxlrain line died out in 1734, it passed to the Bavarian elector, though it retained a separate court district until reorganisation in 1803. Farming, especially livestock raising, sustained much of the surrounding population.