ported for many places in southwestern Germany, Bohemia, the Alsace region in nowadays France, Switzerland, and Italy. Common graves with massive numbers of human bones at the cemetery of St. Michael Church and the cemetery on the estate of the Dominican order near nowadays Waisenhausplatz found during the last century may indicate that hundreds of citizens became the victims of the plague. There are indications that a fraternity for taking care of the sick and removing the bodies of the deceased from houses was formed in 1501, whose members later on stayed together and became known as the choral society Singergesellschaft, which is still active today as the Loebliche Singergesellschaft of 1501. (They are probably one of the oldest clubs in Europe).
1520s: The ideas of the protestant religious movement advanced by Martin Luther spread rapidly in Pforzheim. Its most prominent promoters were Johannes Schwebel, a preacher at Holy Ghost church (Heiliggeistkirche), and Johannes Unger, the principal of the Dominican Latin school.
1535�1565: Due to the heritage division of the clan of the Margraves of Baden, Margrave Ernst of Baden made Pforzheim the residential town of his family line. He decided to use the Schlosskirche St. Michael as the entombment site for his family line.
1549: A large fire caused severe damage to the town.
1556: After the conclusion of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, Margrave Karl II introduced Lutherism (protestantism) as the state religion in the district Baden-Durlach, which included Pforzheim. The (Catholic) monasteries were gradually shut down.
1565: Margrave Karl II chooses Durlach as the new residential town. Pforzheim stayed one of the administrative centers of Baden.
1618: At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, the number of inhabitants of Pforzheim is estimated to have been between 2500 and 3000. This was the largest town among all towns in Baden, even though at that time it had already declined
