Staufer dynasty governed the area around Rothenburg. Around this time, the Order of St. John and other orders were founded near St. James' Church and a Dominican nunnery (1258). From 1241 to 1242, the Staufer Imperial tax statistics recorded the names of the Jews in Rothenburg. Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch of Rothenburg (died 1293, buried 1307 in Worms) had a great reputation as a jurist in Europe. In 1274, Rothenburg was accorded privileges by King Rudolf of Habsburg as a free imperial city. Three famous fairs were established in the city and in the following centuries, the city expanded. The citizens of the city and the Knights of the Hinterland build the Franziskaner (Franciscan) Monastery and the Holy Ghost Hospital (1376/78 incorporated into the city walls). The German Order began the building of St. James' Church, which the citizens have used since 1336. The Heilig Blut (Holy Blood) pilgrimage attracted many pilgrims to Rothenburg, at the time one of the 20 largest cities of the Holy Roman Empire. The population was around 5,500 people within the city walls and another 14,000 in the of the surrounding territory. The Staufer Castle was destroyed by an earthquake in 1356, the St. Blaise chapel is the last remnant today. The Thirty Years' War In October 1631, during the Thirty Years' War, the Catholic Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, wanted to quarter his 40,000 troops in Protestant Lutheran Rothenburg. Rather than allow entrance, the town defended itself and intended to withstand a siege. However, Tilly's troops quickly defeated Rothenburg, losing only 300 soldiers. A popular legend called the Meistertrunk states that when General Tilly condemned the councilmen to death and was set to burn the city down, the councilmen tried to sway him with a large drink of 3 1/4 liters wine. Tilly proclaimed that if anyone could drink it all in one drink, he would spare the city. The mayor at the time, Georg Nusch, succeeded, and General Tilly kept his word. However, the story is almost certainly apocryphal. It does not appear in the chronicle of Sebastian Dehner, written about fifteen years after the facts, the earliest account. The Meistertrunk appears for the first time in the chronicle of Georg Heinrich Schaffert, more than a century later. After the winter, they left the town poor and nearly empty, and in 1634 a bubonic plague outbreak killed many more townsfolk. Without any money