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The History of the City of Halle and its University
By Dr. Werner Piechocki †, Director of the City Archive 1951-94
 14th to 16th centuries |
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 In the 14th and 15th centuries the town struggled for political autonomy and exclusion from the territories of the Archbishopric, a process not unaccompanied by military conflict. The Rathaus, where the council assembled, was rebuilt by the master mason Nickel Hofmann, giving visible expression to their power. In 1341 the Hospital of St. Cyriac was erected near the gate named the Klaustor on an arm of the Saale. Administered by the town, it was to take in and care for all the sick as well as paupers. A series of churches and convents were built, to mention just one, the gothic church of St. Maurice near the wall in the south-west of the town, whose choir is decorated with sculpted works by Conrad von Einbeck, including a self-portrait (c.1425).
 A further mark of the self-confidence of the burghers' culture is the Red Tower on the market square, a free-standing clock tower, built between 1418 and 1506 "to praise the famous city of Halle, its whole citizenry and indeed the whole surroundings", as can be read in the document relating to its formal opening. In the 15th century lengthy conflicts between the council, the salt panners and an oposition within the city gave the Archbishop of Magdeburg a chance to intervene in 1478 when he sent troops in and forced the town back into strict feudal dependence. He had a citadel, the Moritzburg, for use as the residence of the Archbishop at the north-west edge of the city. Archbishop Ernst moved into the first rooms in 1503, after 19 years construction work. His successor, Albrecht Margrave of
Brandenburg (1490-1545), soon concentrated a quite unusual degree of power in his hands: he became administrator of the Monastry at Halberstadt and in 1514 also Archbishop of Mainz. Halle became Albrecht's favourite residence and, being the art loving Renaissance prince he was, set about radically changing its appearance.
 He had the old Dominican church converted into the cathedral (now Domkirche) and in 1520 founded the "Neue Stift", now the Residenz. However, the events of the Reformation and the Peasants' Wars stirred the city up and for all the now Cardinal Archbishop's vehement resistance the Reformation won through. His plan for a Catholic university in Halle never came to fruition. Albrecht left the city in 1541, never to return. Halle officially adopted the Reformation.
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