Höxter 

After his successful battle below Brunsburg Castle, Charlemagne decides to found a monastery and strives to Christianize the Saxon tribal population.

Emperor Louis the Pious acquires the settlement “villa hucxori” and donates it to the newly founded imperial abbey of Corvey. The abbey quickly developed into one of the most important centers of faith in Europe and played a decisive role in the Christianization of Northern Europe.

Corvey receives the minting privilege, which is accompanied by the founding of a market at the Weser ford in Höxter. Thanks to its favorable location on the Hellweg long-distance trade route, the market right led to an enormous upswing in the settlement, which was still dominated by farmers.

The Corvey economic center in Höxter is given its own protective fortification due to its importance for the monastery. The market fortification in Höxter is the oldest documented protection of a market on the entire Hellweg.

The Weser bridge in Höxter was first mentioned in a document, making it the oldest documented crossing in the entire Weser region.

Disputes with the neighboring county of Schwalenberg lead to an attack on Höxter and the destruction of the existing fortifications. King Frederick Barbarossa himself calls on the citizens of Höxter to rebuild the town fortifications.

The citizens of the town increasingly emancipated themselves from Corvey's rule. After a council was elected for the first time in 1225, the council and commoners adopted Dortmund's town charter around 1260. This means that jurisdiction is now subject to the council and no longer to the Corvey court.

The town of Corvey with its own Weser bridge is located directly outside the monastery gates. The citizens of Höxter were no longer willing to accept this strong competition. Together with bands of the Bishop of Paderborn, they attack the town and burn it down along with the bridge. The town of Corvey falls into ruin and is never rebuilt.  

The Hellweg is increasingly losing its economic importance in favor of new bridge towns. Formerly a central long-distance trading center, the city is transforming into a regional marketplace.t.

The citizens of Höxter join the Reformation. However, the abbot of Corvey as sovereign and the surrounding villages remain Catholic. During this era of spiritual reorientation, many of the Weser Renaissance half-timbered buildings that still characterize the townscape today were built.

During the Thirty Years' War, Höxter is occupied by all the warring powers. Because the town fathers refuse to surrender, General Geleen orders an attack. Catholic soldiers march through the town, murdering and plundering. Around 1,500 inhabitants fall victim to the bloodbath of Höxter.

The Corvey administrator Christoph Bernhard von Galen, known as “Bomben-Bernd”, rules with a strong hand. He takes advantage of a dispute within the town, threatens with superior armed force and enforces the Counter-Reformation and his absolute claim to rule. Little remains of the city's former freedoms and privileges.

After the secularization of Corvey and the dissolution of the ecclesiastical principalities, the former prince-bishopric of Corvey and Höxter initially came under Nassau-Oranian rule. In 1807, both were annexed to the Kingdom of Westphalia and in 1813 to the Kingdom of Prussia.

In the middle of the 19th century, development breaks through the boundaries of the medieval city wall for the first time. With the König-Wilhelm-Gymnasium and the first Prussian Baugewerkschule, educational institutions of supra-regional importance are established in the town.

The merger of the core town of Höxter with the surrounding villages creates the present-day district town of Höxter and develops into an important medium-sized center in the Weserbergland region.

Corvey is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site under the title “The Carolingian Westwork and the Civitas Corvey”.