Editing Wernigerode (section)

=== Emergence of the town ===
There are no written sources confirming exactly when the town was established. According to the latest research{{snd}}for example, by Eduard Jacobs and Walther Grosse{{snd}}there were no early relations with the Abbey at [[Corvey]] ([[Weser]]) and the abbot there, [[Warin I of Corvey|Warin]], instead the town name suggests it was a protected clearance settlement.

The first area to be settle was the {{lang|de|Klint}}, where there was a [[lowland castle]], the so-called {{lang|de|Schnakenburg}}. In 1805 the ruins of this castle site were demolished. The only part remaining is {{lang|de|Haus Gadenstedt}} at {{lang|de|Oberpfarrkirchhof}} 12 which dates to the year 1582. At the time of the first settlelement there was still ancient forest, typical of the Harz, on the heights of the {{lang|de|Klint}}, which had first to be cleared, hence the suffix {{lang|de|rode}} in the town name which means 'clearing'.

The town was first mentioned in the records in 1121 in connection with Count Adalbert of [[Haimar]] who had moved here from the region near [[Hildesheim]] and henceforth was titled the Count of Wernigerode. On 17 April 1229 the settlement was granted [[town rights]] along the lines of that for [[Goslar]]. In 2004 Wernigerode celebrated the 775th anniversary of that occasion.

As a result of the immigration of new townsfolk from the surrounding villages a new settlement, later called {{lang|de|Neustadt}}, grew up on the northeastern edge of the old town. It was a farming settlement that lay outside the walls of the old town. [[St. John's Church, Wernigerode|St. John's Church]] was built as the parish church of Wernigerode's {{langr|de|Neustadt}} in the last third of the 13th century in the [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]] style.