nearly 800 Bracteates, buried in 1185 in the central city. In 1180, Gotha was first mentioned as a city, when the area between Brühl and Jüdenstraße became the core of urban development, highlighting the early presence of Jews in this old trading town. The parish church of this first urban settlement was St. Mary's Church (demolished in 1530) at Schlossberg. The castle (at the site occupied today by Friedenstein Castle) was first mentioned in 1217. As the Ludowingians died out in 1247, Gotha became part of the Wettins' territories, where it remained until 1918. The new town east of Querstraße was established in the early 15th century (with the Neumarkt, first mentioned in 1428). The monastery (first Cistercians, since 1258 Augustinians) was founded before 1251 and abandoned in 1525. Until 1665, the bourse of Gotha was located in the centre of Hauptmarkt square inside the Renaissance building, which hosts the town hall today. The medieval town hall was located on the north-eastern edge of Hauptmarkt, at the site of today's Innungshalle. Water supply was a big problem, because Gotha is not located on a river. In 1369, Landgrave Balthasar had the Leinakanal built. This channel, over 25 kilometres long, brought fresh water from the Thuringian Forest (Hörsel and Apfelstädt rivers) to the city. The main businesses of medieval Gotha were cloth-making and the woad trade. Early modern period The Reformation was introduced in Gotha in 1524 and the castle was rebuilt as a larger fortress between 1530 and 1541. Gotha was already part of the Ernestine Wettins territory after the 1485 Treaty of Leipzig. However, the Ernestines' loss of power after the Schmalkaldic War in 1547, the Treaty of Erfurt in 1572, when the city became part of Saxe-Coburg, and the Thirty Years' War resulted in Gotha's decline. The local castle, Grimmenstein, was razed by Imperial troops in 1572. The turnaround was brought about by the selection of Gotha as a ducal residence in the 1640 territorial partition, when Ernest the Pious founded the duchy of Saxe-Gotha. The strongly Protestant and absolutist sovereign quickly began to reorganize his small state (even before the war had ended) and in particular fostered the school system, for example by introducing compulsory education up to the age of 12 in 1642. This was the origin of the often noted liberal education of the Gotha citizenry and the following cultural heyday. Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff