For them, it was the epitome of the German 'Home Town', representing all that was quintessentially German. Rothenburg held a special significance for Nazi ideologists. In 1884 Friedrich Hessing built up till 1903 the "Hessingsche Wildbad". Laws were created to prevent major changes to the town. Some years later, especially artists of Romanticism, such as Hans Thoma and Carl Spitzweg, visited Rothenburg, too, followed by the first tourists. The famous German landscape painter Eugen Bracht visited Rothenburg in 1877 although he stayed only two days, he was clearly impressed. Since 1803, the town has been a part of Bavaria. Without any money or power, Rothenburg stopped growing, thus preserving its 17th-century state. Īfter the winter, they left the town poor and nearly empty, and in 1634 a bubonic plague outbreak killed many more townsfolk. The Meistertrunk appears for the first time in the chronicle of Georg Heinrich Schaffert, more than a century later. It does not appear in the chronicle of Sebastian Dehner, written about fifteen years after the facts, the earliest account. However, the story is almost certainly apocryphal. The mayor at the time, Georg Nusch, succeeded, and General Tilly kept his word. Tilly proclaimed that if anyone could drink it all in one drink, he would spare the city. A popular legend called the Meistertrunk states that when General Tilly condemned the councilmen to death and was set to burn the city down, the councilmen tried to sway him with a large drink of 3 1/4 liters wine. However, Tilly's troops quickly defeated Rothenburg, losing only 300 soldiers. Rather than allow entrance, the town defended itself and intended to withstand a siege. In October 1631, during the Thirty Years' War, the Catholic Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, wanted to quarter his 40,000 troops in Protestant Lutheran Rothenburg. The Meistertrunk scene in the astronomical clock of the Ratstrinkstube The Staufer Castle was destroyed by an earthquake in 1356, the St.
The population was around 5,500 people within the city walls and another 14,000 in the 150 square miles (390 km 2) of the surrounding territory. The Heilig Blut (Holy Blood) pilgrimage attracted many pilgrims to Rothenburg, at the time one of the 20 largest cities of the Holy Roman Empire. James' Church, which the citizens have used since 1336. The German Order began the building of St. The citizens of the city and the Knights of the Hinterland build the Franziskaner (Franciscan) Monastery and the Holy Ghost Hospital (1376/78 incorporated into the city walls).
Three famous fairs were established in the city and in the following centuries, the city expanded.
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In 1274, Rothenburg was accorded privileges by King Rudolf of Habsburg as a Free Imperial City. Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch of Rothenburg (died 1293, buried 1307 in Worms) had a great reputation as a jurist in Europe. James' Church and a Dominican nunnery (1258).įrom 1241 to 1242, the Staufer Imperial tax statistics recorded the names of the Jews in Rothenburg. John and other orders were founded near St. Preserved are the “White Tower” and the Markus Tower with the Röder Arch.įrom 1194 to 1254, the representatives of the Staufer dynasty governed the area around Rothenburg. Walls and towers were built in the 13th century. The development of the oldest fortification can be seen, the old cellar/old moat and the milk market. In 1170, the city of Rothenburg was founded at the time of the building of Staufer Castle. He held court there and appointed officials called 'reeves' to act as caretakers. In 1142, Konrad von Hohenstaufen, who became Konrad III (1138–52), the self-styled King of the Romans, traded a part of the monastery of Neumünster in Würzburg above the village Detwang and built the Stauffer-Castle Rothenburg on this cheaper land. The last count, Count Heinrich, Emperor Heinrich V appointed instead his nephew Konrad von Hohenstaufen as the successor to the Comburg-Rothenburg properties. The counts of the Comburg-Rothenburg dynasty died out in 1116. In 1070, the counts of Comburg-Rothenburg, who also owned the village of Gebsattel, built Rothenburg castle on the mountain top high above the River Tauber. In 950, the weir system in today's castle garden was constructed by the Count of Comburg-Rothenburg. The city was most likely inhabited by Celts before the 1st-century C.E.