Rochlitz

Rochlitz grew beside the Zwickauer Mulde beneath its castle. Slavic villages existed in the area by the tenth century, and a market settlement developed near a river ford. The medieval town itself was founded around 1200, with an elongated market street and the church of Saint Cunigunde. Its walls were strengthened in the fourteenth century, and in 1380 the town acquired a regional monopoly on bleaching cloth.

Hussite troops attacked Rochlitz in 1430. The town recovered, and Saint Cunigunde's was rebuilt in late Gothic style. Elisabeth of Rochlitz introduced the Reformation in 1537; ten years later Protestant troops won a battle here during the Schmalkaldic War. Town and castle were taken repeatedly in the Thirty Years' War, and fires in 1632 and 1682 caused further damage.