hen began to build a new palace in modern Baden-Baden. Margrave Christoph I finally moved the residence of the margraves to Baden-Baden. This gradually ended the first period of Pforzheim's flourishment. The rich merchants gradually left the town, which declined to the status of a country town of mostly small traders.
1486: The Weavers Ordinance (Wollweberordnung) for the towns Pforzheim und Ettlingen was approved by Margrave Christoph I. This was a contract concerning the town privileges of Pforzheim. This regulation of the weaving trade did not allow the formation of a regular guild (Zunft).
1491: A contract between Margrave Christoph I and the citizens of Pforzheim was concluded, granting the town of Pforzheim several privileges concerning taxes and business.
1496: Foundation of the first printer's shop by Thomas Anshelm. During the first half of the 16th century Pforzheim's printers contributed significantly to the establishment of this (in those days) new medium.
1501: Margrave Christoph I of Baden enacted the "Ordinance on the timber rafting profession in Pforzheim". The single timber logs that were floated from the deeper Black Forest areas down the Enz, Nagold and Wuerm rivers were bound together in the Au area to form larger timber rafts. Those rafts were then floated down the lower Enz, Neckar and Rhine rivers. The timber rafting stations of Weissenstein, Dillstein and Pforzheim were well known in the profession.
1501 was also the year for which an outbreak of the plague (probably the bubonic plague) is recorded in the Swabian chronicle Annalium Suevicorum by Eberhard Karls University of T�bingen professor Martin Grusius, published 1596. It is not known how many of Pforzheim's citizens died in that year, but there are reports of 500 deceased in the close-by city of Calw and about 4000 in Stuttgart, which accounted for approximately one quarter to one half of the populations of those towns. Outbreaks of the disease were
