Saint Kilian
After Rome's downfall, Kreuznach became in the year 500 a royal estate and an imperial village in the newly growing Frankish Empire. Then, the town's first church was built within the old castrum's walls, which was at first consecrated to Saint Martin, but later to Saint Kilian, and in 1590, it was torn down. According to an 822 document from Louis the Pious, who was invoking an earlier document from Charlemagne, about 741, Saint Martin's Church in Kreuznach was supposedly donated to the Bishopric of Würzburg by his forebear Carloman. According to this indirect note, Kreuznach once again had a documentary mention in the "Annales regni Francorum" as Royal "Pfalz" (an imperial palace), where Louis the Pious stayed in 819 and 839. Kreuznach was mentioned in documents by Louis the Pious (in 823 as "villa Cruciniacus" and in 825 and 839, as "Cruciniacum castrum" or "Cruciniacum palatium regium"), Louis the German (in 845 as "villa Cruzinacha" and in 868 as "villa Cruciniacum"), Charles III, "the Fat" (in 882 as "C[h]rucinachum", "Crutcinacha", "Crucenachum"), Arnulf of Carinthia (in 889), Henry the Fowler (in 923), Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (in 962 as "Cruciniacus") and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (in 1179 as "Cruczennach"). On the other hand, the "Crucinaha" in Emperor Otto III's documents from 1000 (which granted the rights to hold a yearly market and to strike coins) is today thought to refer to Christnach, an outlying centre of Waldbillig, a town nowadays in Luxembourg. In mediaeval and early modern Latin sources, Kreuznach is named not only as "Crucenacum", "Crucin[i]acum" (adjective "Crucenacensis", "Crucin[i]acensis") and the like, but also as "Stauronesus, Stauronesum" (adjective "Staurone[n]s[i]us"; from σταυρός "cross" and νῆσος "island") or "Naviculacrucis" (from "navicula", a kind of small boat used on inland waterways, called a "Nachen" in German, and "crux" "cross"). Sometimes also encountered is the abbreviation "Xnach" (often with a Fraktur X, with a cross-stroke: formula_1). About 1017, Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor enfeoffed his wife Cunigunde's grandnephew, Count Eberhard V of Nellenburg, with the noble estate of Kreuznach and the Villa Schwabenheim belonging thereto. After his death, King Henry IV supposedly donated the settlement of Kreuznach to the High Foundation of Speyer in 1065, who then transferred it shortly after 1105 – presumably as a fief – to the Counts of Sponheim. On Epiphany 1147, it is said that Bernard of Clairvaux performed a miraculous healing at Saint Kilian's Church. In 1183, half of the old Frankish village of Kreuznach at the former Roman castrum – the "Osterburg" – burnt down. Afterwards, of the 21 families there, 11 moved to what is now the Old Town ("Altstadt"). In the years 1206 to 1230, Counts Gottfried III of Sponheim (d. 1218) and Johann I of Sponheim (d. 1266) had the castle Kauzenburg built, even though King Philip of Swabia had forbidden them to do so. Along with the building of this castle came the rise of the New Town ("Neustadt") on the Nahe's north bank. In the years 1235 and 1270, Kreuznach was granted town rights, market rights, taxation rights and tolling rights under the rule of the comital House of Sponheim, which were acknowledged once again in 1290 by King Rudolf I of Habsburg. In 1279, in the Battle of Sprendlingen, the legend of Michel Mort arose. He is a local legendary hero, a butcher from Kreuznach who fought on the Sponheim side in the battle against the troops of the Archbishop of Mainz. When Count Johann I of Sponheim found himself in difficulties, Michel Mort drew the enemy's lances upon himself, sparing the Count by bringing about his own death. Early knowledge of the town of Kreuznach is documented in one line of a song by the minstrel Tannhäuser from the 13th century, which is preserved in handwriting by Hans Sachs: "vur creűczenach rint aűch die na". In Modern German, this would be "Vor Kreuznach rinnt auch die Nahe" ("Before Kreuznach, the Nahe also runs"). Records witness Jewish settlement in Kreuznach beginning in the late 13th century, while for a short time in the early 14th century, North Italian traders ("Lombards") lived in town. In the 13th century, Kreuznach was a fortified town and in 1320, it withstood a siege by Archbishop-Elector Baldwin of Trier (about 1270–1336). In 1361, Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor granted Count Walram I of Sponheim (about 1305–1380) a yearly market privilege for Kreuznach. In 1375, the townsfolk rose up against the town council. Count Walram's response was to have four of the uprising's leaders beheaded at the marketplace. Through its long time as Kreuznach's lordly family, the House of Sponheim had seven heads: