‘Heiligenstadt’ means ‘holy place’ – but which holy place is unclear.
The village first appears around 1120/1125 as ‘St. Michael’; from about 1190 the documents call it ‘sanctus locus’, the holy place. It was probably a holy place from pagan times, but what it was remains unexplained; the old link to Saint Severin is now considered refuted. Beethoven lived here several times and wrote his ‘Heiligenstadt Testament’ on 6 October 1802.