Schleusingen

Schleusingen grew beneath the Bertholdsburg, built as a residence and fortress by Count Poppo VII of Henneberg between 1226 and 1232. After the county was divided in 1274, it became the seat of the Schleusingen branch. The town received municipal rights in 1412 and market rights in 1533, though a great fire had devastated it in 1353.

During the Peasants' War of 1525, people and valuables from nearby monasteries were brought to the Bertholdsburg for greater safety. Count Wilhelm IV had founded the friary in 1502. The Reformation was introduced in 1544, and a former friary became a state school, inaugurated as a Gymnasium in 1577. When the last Henneberg count, Georg Ernst, died without an heir in 1583, Schleusingen passed to the Ernestine and Albertine Saxon dukes under joint administration.