The first documentary mention is found in a document from Emperor Otto II, in which he bequeathed the royal court and the settlement to his wife Theophanu. Their daughter Sophia founded on the Cyriakusberg about 1000 a canonical foundation for women (in which women did not take vows, but nonetheless lived in a conventlike environment) consecrated to Saint Cyriacus, which existed until the introduction of the Reformation into Hesse in 1527. All that is left of it now, though, is the "Karlsturm" (tower). Market rights were granted about 1188, and town rights followed by 1249. It was in this time that the groundwork was laid for the cloth- and leathermaking that flourished on into modern times.