Schweinitz

Schweinitz grew beside a castle on the Schwarze Elster, where the Schweinitzer Fließ joins the river. A settlement with a church was recorded in 1339, and it received town rights in 1373. The castle passed to Saxony-Wittenberg in 1362 and became a favoured hunting residence of the electors. A tower collapsed in 1406, killing two sons of Elector Rudolf III and members of their household. Elector Ernest rebuilt the residence later in the century, but a fire destroyed much of the town in 1505. Martin Luther preached in Schweinitz from 1521; Elector John the Steadfast died at the castle in 1532. The castle was largely dismantled in 1576, and fires again devastated the town in 1637 and 1665.