La Tène times. Bearing witness to this longtime industry are the many mines that can be found within city limits. In 1224, Siegen is mentioned as a newly built town whose ownership was shared by the Count of Nassau, Heinrich the Rich, and Engelbert II of Berg, Archbishop of Cologne after the latter transferred one half of the ownership to the former. Moreover, there is proof that the Oberes Schloss ("upper stately home") was already standing at this time. On 19 October 1303, the town was granted Soester Stadtrecht, or Soest town rights. The town remained under the two overlords' joint ownership until 1 February 1381, only then passing fully into Nassau hands. In the 16th century, the town of Siegen bore a formidable defensive look. It was surrounded by mighty walls with 16 towers and three town gates, and was home to a great castle. The town was stricken several times by townwide fires. Documents record such fires in 1592, and from 10 to 20 April 1695. In 1536, Heinrich the Rich built a "paedagogium" in the buildings that had once housed a Franciscan Monastery. It later grew into today's Gymnasium at Siegen's Löhrtor (gate). John VII of Nassau-Siegen ("John the Middle") built the Unteres Schloss ("lower stately home") on the site of an old Franciscan Monastery. In 1616, John VII founded a knightly war school in the still standing old armoury on Burgstraße, "expressly to produce an officer corps for Calvinism". His son John VIII ("The Younger") returned in 1612 to the Roman Catholic Church, and wanted to use force to make the townsfolk also convert back to Roman Catholicism. In 1632, Nassau-Siegen was conquered by the Swedes, after which his half-brother John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen, the Dutch commander in Brazil, re-introduced Protestantism. John VIII died in 1638 and was succeeded by his only son Johan Frans Desideratus, who had to cede part of Nassau-Siegen (north of the Sieg river) to the Protestant branch of the family. John Maurice's leadership served in 1650–1651 to bring about a split in the Siegerland along denominational lines. Under Wilhelm Hyacinth of Nassau-Siegen, violence broke out between the two denominational groups. When on 29 March 1707 townsman Friedrich Flender was killed, Wilhelm Hyacinth was himself unseated and furthermore driven out of the town. Wilhelm Hyacinth was the last in the line of Nassau-Siegen's Catholic rulers, dying in 1743. Already in 1734, though,