Parchim

Parchim lies on the Elde in Mecklenburg. Its old town and the new town founded on the western bank in 1240 joined together in 1282. A fire damaged Saint George's Church in 1289; it was rebuilt and consecrated in 1307. The town's walls were erected between 1289 and 1310, and an outer defensive earthwork was begun in the mid-fourteenth century. In 1377 the town bought the princely castle.

The Reformation reached Parchim around 1530, and its Franciscan convent was dissolved in the 1550s. Fires in 1586 and 1612 and plague in 1626 preceded severe damage during the Thirty Years' War. Parchim recovered in subsequent decades, serving as the seat of a court from 1667 to 1708.