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Alsfeld cheers?800 years of the city of Alsfeld?

Historians date the age of a town or village unambiguously; the date of the earliest, secure written evidence applies. In the case of Alsfeld, this is the year 1069, when “adelesfelt” is mentioned for the first time in the so-called “Fuldaer Kaiserurkunde”. However, this document only testifies to the existence of a place with the name Alsfeld at that time, but it says nothing about how long this settlement already existed and whether this “adelesfelt” was a castle, a village or a town.

The “birth certificate” for the town of Alsfeld is a document dated March 13, 1222, in which a Wezzilo of Nidda and his wife Sophia donated their estate at Hergeren to the Arnsburg monastery. In this deed of donation three “scabini”, aldermen, from Alsfeld were mentioned among the witnesses for the first time. Citizens and especially aldermen were men with civil rights who were recruited from the old-established, highly respected patrician families and represented the administrative ruling class of the town; they were therefore not village but town residents.

Important indications, such as Thuringian town foundations in Upper Hesse from the year 1138, market rights, wall rights and minting rights (from the year 1170) speak for older town rights, but there is no written evidence for this. MNic