The Christianisation of Thuringia
began in the 6th century and ended in the 8th century. The Franks (Kingdom of the Franks, not to be confused with today's German region Franken) defeated the Thuringian Kingdom in the Battle of Unstrut river in the year 521 and integrated the area west of the Saale steady into their kingdom. Missionaries, especially the Anglo-Saxon (Wynfrith-)Boniface (Bonifatius), the "Missionary of the Thuringians", who hit Thuringia in 724, converted the Thuringians to the new faith. And almost as a matter of course there is in Taubach a Boniface Beck, which begins at the Boniface Spring, real called Boniface Well, in the midst of the "Six Chestnuts" on the area of the Mellingen territory, flows through the Boniface Valley and empties into the Ilm river in the Taubach district. It is preserved that Boniface with his entourage have rested at this spring. The lower course of this beck is also called Brückenbach (Bridges Beck). The Taubachien had largely belonged to Protestant faith since the Reformation.
In the 15th century, Taubach was an Angerdorf (ribbon-built village), which stretched along the today's Umpferstedter Straße, following the course of the Taubach Beck which is channeled in the present time. The church was built south of the village, at the way to the watermill. The first references to a church can be found in a memoir of the pastor Georgius Seiler, who worked in Taubach from 1595 to 1650. Seiler, who survived undisturbed the Thirty Years' War, the Thuringian Deluge, three plague outbreaks (1597, 1611 and 1635) as well as the outbreaks of the dysentery in 1599, 1616 and 1624 in Taubach, was obviously very closed to God, complained that there was no notations of the building of the church, except the in stone carved inscription "Anno Millesimo quadrigentesimo sexagesimo Ecclesia hac est opstructa" ("In year thousand fourhundred sixty church here is erected" => so 1460), and that the church was consecrated to St. Ursula (from Cologne). The author is not knowing whether the church tower have had an east-facing annexe at that time.
The church tower was built in 1600 and 1601 and its lower part is still part of the church today. The wooden construction of the tower was erected by the Weimar master carpenter Mr Heinrich Dicke, and the slate roofing of the tower assumed the Weimar slater master Mr Hanns Thimmer. The renovation of the church, which was not entirely made of stone but, at least in parts, consisted of a timber framing structure with wattle and daub infill at that time, was made by Weimar bricklayer master Mr Baltazar Heit. The tower ball was set up on Monday, the 3rd(Jul.)/13th(Gre.) August 1601 and the work was concluded with it. At that time, the church was an east tower church with a long house west of today's church, as an old, walled, but clearly recognizable round arch suggests in the west face of the tower. How old are the oldest parts of the tower is not yet examined. The church tower must have had an east-facing choir annexe at that time, which were housed the stairs for the tower.
The pastor Mr Georgius Seiler, specifies the weight of the tower ball with 15 ℔ (7 kg), the contents with a three quarter bucket or a half ton (≈105 pints; ≈50 l) and the weight of the weather vane with 12 ℔ iron (5.6 Kg).
In another memoir of the pastor Mr Georgius Seiler can be read that a lightning hit into the Taubach church and its tower and demolished a small spot of slate underneath the tower ball on 27th May(Jul.)/6th June(Gre.) 1633 (Monday after Rogation Sunday(Jul.) / 3rd Monday after Trinity Sunday(Gre.)). Fortunately a fire damage did not happen.