Kornmarkt Church

The protected Kornmarkt Church is one of the twelve medieval church buildings in the Thuringian town of Mühlhausen. Construction of the Church of St. Crucis of the former Franciscan monastery began in the 13th century. Today, the church serves as a Peasants' War Museum.

In 1225, brothers of the Franciscan order, founded in 1210, are said to have come to Mühlhausen for the first time. At that time, the order's brothers had settled in both Erfurt and Eisenach, where they founded a monastery in 1225. In Mühlhausen, they initially struggled to establish themselves, as the local clergy rejected the barefoot brothers who were conducting pastoral care. Around the same time, the Teutonic Order was in the process of bringing the city's parish ministry under its authority. It did not appreciate the reforming forces that targeted a socially low population group. Later, the Teutonic Knights made a contract with the Franciscans that restricted their activities in the city. However, the Franciscans of the Saxon province officially settled in Mühlhausen in 1231 after being gifted a plot of land for a monastery, on which there was already a chapel that they initially used as an oratory. Construction of a church in its present dimensions began in the mid-13th century. The remnants of a predecessor building were incorporated, and they can still be seen in the north wall of the nave. The aisle church, with its large dimensions, became a common early building type of the mendicant orders in Thuringia in the 13th century. In an environment of representative building, it was not easy to maintain the simplicity in accordance with the order's rule.

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