the , a state forest that still stands today on the town's outskirts, by way of Gollenberg, by Börfink and on towards Trier. The Frankish settlement of Birkinvelt was held in the 13th century by the Counts of Sponheim. In 1223, the county was split into the "Front" and "Rear" Counties of Sponheim, and Birkenfeld passed to the latter, and was then held by the counts whose seat was at the Starkenburg (castle, now a ruin) near Trarbach. In 1293, Castle Birkenfeld had its first documentary mention. In 1332, Birkenfeld was granted town rights by Emperor Louis the Bavarian. After the last Count of Sponheim died in 1437, the "Rear" County was inherited by the Margraves of Baden and the Counts of Veldenz. In 1584, a House of Wittelsbach sideline, in the person of Charles I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, resided in town. In this same year, expansion work also began on the castle to turn it into a princely residence in the Renaissance style. Exactly 140 years later, the last remnants of the Princely holding of court at Schloss Birkenfeld, as it had come to be known, were swept away. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the town itself became in 1635 a theatre of war. Also that year, the Plague broke out in Birkenfeld and claimed 416 lives. In 1776, under Margrave Karl Friedrich, Birkenfeld became seat of the Badish . In this time, Birkenfeld blossomed. The town experienced an economic and cultural upswing. In 1779, for instance, the first "Higher School" was founded. One night in February 1797, Johannes Bückler, known as Schinderhannes, burgled a cloth factory owned by the Brothers Stumm, who would later become coal and steel entrepreneurs on the Saar. A large part of the cloth stolen during this break-in Schinderhannes sold to a fence in Hundheim. In 1798, during the French Revolutionary Wars, the Left Bank of the Rhine was ceded to France, whereafter Birkenfeld belonged to the Department of Sarre. After the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) which ended the Napoleonic Wars, most of the Left Bank became part of Prussian Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine (Rhine Province after 1822), the Bavarian Circle of the Rhine or the Hessian Rhenish Hesse. However, a small area between the Prussian and Bavarian parts was given as exclaves to three other states: the Principality of Lichtenberg went to Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha after 1826), Meisenheim