many of their names live on in names given fields and meadows. Frankenberg was soon girt by a mighty town wall. Of the 25 towers and gates, only the Hexenturm ("Witches Tower") still stands today; all five town gates have vanished. Heyday The new community grew quickly, underpinned by a healthy merchant and craftsman class. It was a sign of the growing prosperity that already in 1286, after the church dependence of Geismar had been broken, building work began on the great Marienkirche (Church of Mary) – now known as the Liebfrauenkirche – which was built using the Elisabethkirche in Marburg as a model. Frankenberg buyers and sellers broadly fostered trade links, as witnessed not only by the weekly markets, but also by the four yearly fairs. The economic upswing also afforded a quick upward cultural development. Already in the 13th century, Frankenberg had a town school (Lateinschule), which reached its greatest heights about 1500. Onto the church, which had been completed in 1353, the Marienkapelle (Mary's Chapel) was built between 1370 and 1380, one of Thyle von Frankenberg's masterworks. New Town's founding The steady population growth brought the need for a bigger town, and so, on the Landgrave's initiative, the New Town was established at the foot of the mountain towards the Eder. It rose along the Siegener Straße (a commercial road), even having its own administration, although it was still under the Old Town's church and court, and had no marketplace of its own. Only in 1556 was it united with the Old Town into one municipality. The Great Fire and its aftermath On 9 May 1476, a fire broke out that burnt the whole New Town and Old Town down. Even the Liebfrauenkirche was burnt right out. Although the townsfolk promptly tackled the job of building their town over again, Frankenberg, which had hitherto been among Hesse's most important towns, never fully recovered from this catastrophic fire. In 1507, half the New Town burnt down again. The seat of the Amt of Frankenberg, which had existed since the 14th century and which included the town areas of Frankenberg and Frankenau as well as half the court region of Geismar, was relocated to the Wolkersdorf Hunting Lodge, itself built on the site of an old moat-ringed castle. Thus was born the Amt of Wolkersdorf, to which belonged the Röddenau lower courts (with the amalgamated courts of Rengershausen and