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As the Roman Empire went into decline by about the third century AD, their settlements in Germania became increasingly vulnerable to attacks by Alemannic tribes from the north. The Romans withdrew south of the Rhine and the once grand administrative centre of Augusta Raurica (only about 20km from modern-day Basel), which during its heyday was home to about 20,000 people, eventually reverted to the status of a small fishing village.

The first determined attempts to settle and ‘civilise’ the Black Forest came in the seventh century with the arrival of Irish monks, who were on a mission to evangelise the heathen outposts of Europe. Most of the grand and powerful clerical centres in the Black Forest, such as St Trudpert in Münstertal and St Blasien, originally started as hermitages. In their diligent effort to ‘gain dominion over nature’, the monks cut down the forest and built their pious outposts in the wilderness.

Rötteln Church, built on the foundations of one of the earliest Christian sites in the region (Stage 13A)