In Roman times until AD 450 there were three inhabited centres, one of which was near today's Peterspark. This is one of Grünstadt's “seeds”, and it was also settled in the Merovingian and Frankish periods. It was here that the Romans buried their dead, the Christian Franks later taking over. There were quite likely a Roman "burgus" (a Latin word borrowed from the Germanic whose root also yields the German "Burg" ["castle"] and the English "borough" "fortified town"; it was a kind of small, towerlike fortification) and a temple complex that later became a church. Also here, about 800, the Alsatian Weißenburg Monastery (which lay in what is now Wissembourg, France) owned a church consecrated to Saint Peter with a parish estate – the latter of which gives a clue as to the town's importance – a lordly estate with great outbuildings and 14 farms.