The earliest witnesses to
human beings settling in what is now Westerburg are some urns that point to
cremations performed here about 700 BC. The earliest documentary mention of the constituent community of Wengenroth is dated 9 November 879 from the time when
Gebhard, Count of the Lahngau donated holdings here to the
St. Severus Monastery in
Gemünden. The first time that Westerburg was named in a document came in 1209 when Siegfried III of
Runkel acquired Westerburg by marrying a countess from the
House of Leiningen and thereafter began calling himself Siegfried von Runkel und von Westerburg. Two of his sons had bequests from him: Siegfried IV of Runkel, whose seat was in Westerburg, and Dietrich I of Runkel, whose seat was in Runkel. Family squabbles began about 1250 and under Siegfried's grandsons led to a permanent rift between the houses of
Westerburg and Runkel by 1288. Dietrich's son Siegfried V of Runkel drove his cousin Heinrich out of Runkel, whereupon Siegfried, who was Siegfried IV's son, began calling himself Heinrich I of Westerburg. There are express indications of settlement next to the castle for the first time in 1270. On 7 July 1292, Westerburg was raised to town at the same time as
Wetzlar by King
Adolf of
Nassau, who also granted both towns the same town rights. In 1303, a jurymen's court (
Schöffengericht) was approved in the town. Later these jurymen, whose number soon became fixed at eight, took turns serving as the town's mayor. No later than 1304, there were individual fortification works. Later, the town was divided into the upper town (Oberflecken) within the ring of walls finished by 1400 and the unwalled lower town (Unterflecken). There are known to have been 20
Burgmann houses in the upper town, but only from documents;
archaeology has yielded no confirmation. In 1514, the first townsman's house (
Bürgerhaus) is mentioned, and in 1560, a new building. In 1630, a
prison is avouched. In 1448 and 1534, great fires beset the town. After the unification of the County of Leiningen-Dagsburg with the
Barony of Westerburg in 1467, Reinhard IV of Westerburg, who as of 1481 began calling himself Count Reinhard I at Leiningen-Westerburg, moved his seat to the County of Leiningen. Only as of 1557 was Westerburg once again a seat for sidelines of the once more sundering House of Leiningen or its family branch, Leiningen-Westerburg. Westerburg townsmen (
Bürger) had at their disposal several privileges, in particular
blood court jurisdiction (
Halsgerichtsbarkeit) at their jurymen's court. Moreover,
taxation privileges and laying out economic estates about the town time and again put the townsmen at loggerheads with the lords of the day. In 1806, Westerburg passed to the
Duchy of Berg. After 1815, the town was assigned to the
Duchy of Nassau. On 2 September 1814, the lower town burnt down, and likewise the upper town on 13 October 1819. As of 1866,
Prussia held sway. From 1866 to 1885, Westerburg belonged to the
Amt of Rennerod and thereby also to the newly formed district of Oberwesterwaldkreis, whose seat was in
Bad Marienberg. District reform in 1885 brought Westerburg a broader administrative function once again as it became the seat of a like-named district, which was in force until 1932. In that year, the Oberwesterwaldkreis was newly founded and Westerburg became its seat. In 1974, however, the two districts of Oberwesterwaldkreis and Unterwesterwaldkreis were amalgamated, and since then, Westerburg has no longer been a district seat. Ecclesiastically, Westerburg was assigned to the St. Severus Monastery at Gemünden. The Late
Romanesque tower of what is now an
Evangelical church might stem from the first church building next to the castle
chapel. A further chapel stood in the lower town by 1350. It is believed that shortly after 1560, the
Reformation was introduced into Westerburg.
Jews are first mentioned in 1616. In 1760, the Jewish community comprised 75 persons with one
rabbi, and by 1754, there was a Jewish school. Public schooling is first known to have been instituted in 1557. Later, the school was also run temporarily as a
Latin school. The oldest
census, from 1540, shows 124 assessable inhabitants. Eighty-six households are witnessed in 1607, and 39 in 1656. In 1760, 1,144 inhabitants were counted, and in 1807, 1,245. Most inhabitants of course worked at
agriculture or
market gardening in the
Middle Ages and on into early modern times, but they were hardly townsman farmers (
Ackerbürger). Westerburg seems much more to have been a craft centre for the surrounding region in which even such rare crafts as
arrowsmithing and
crossbow making were settled. Also showing this are the many traders’ markets held in the town. Several
guilds formed in this comparatively small town: in 1581 the
bakers’ guild, which joined with the
brewers’ guild in 1657, in 1532 the
woolweavers’ and
clothmakers’ guild (dissolved in 1710), in 1574 the
tanners’ and
shoemakers’ guild, in 1611 the
linen weavers’ guild, and by 1658 also the
tailors’ and
merchants’. The woolweavers are known to have had their own hall, "Westerburger Hall" in Frankfurt am Main in 1605. Furthermore, it has been established that there were several mills, a forest
smithy, a
limekiln (mentioned in 1537) and a
brickworks (built in 1612). By 1518 there was also a sickhouse, and the town had an
apothecary by 1697. ==Politics==