Michelstadt (German: [ˈmɪçl̩ˌʃtat] ⓘ) in the Odenwald is a town in the Odenwaldkreis (district) in southern Hesse, Germany between Darmstadt and Heidelberg.

[4] The building of the railway line and its completion through to Darmstadt in 1870 and then Eberbach in 1881 brought Michelstadt a sharp economic upswing.

Out of what was once a small farming community grew a sizeable town with important industrial operations on the foundation of the centuries-old ironworking.

The mullets (six-pointed star shapes) come from the Counts' arms, but why the parting per fess (horizontal division across the middle) was chosen is a mystery.

Michelstadt's timber-frame town hall, whose image was used on a Deutsche Post stamp, was built in 1484 in the late Gothic style and later remodelled on the inside many times; from 1743 to 1903 it was covered in shakes.

Until the 1970s, the church housed one of the most valuable libraries in Germany in its belltower containing more than a thousand volumes belonging to Michelstadt-born Nicolaus Matz, who was capitular in Speyer, and who bequeathed this collection to his hometown and its citizens in the late 14th century.

Since the 1970s the library has been housed in a storehouse specially converted for it at the Michelstadt coaching inn that belonged to the Thurn und Taxis noble family, who played a key rôle in European postal services in the 16th century.

The Basilica's crypt once housed Saints Peter's and Marcellinus's relics, which had been stolen from Rome on Einhard's instructions by his notary Ratleik.

He thus transferred himself, his wife, the relics and his seat to Ober-Mulinheim am Main, now known as Seligenstadt, which thereby became a pilgrimage site with a new, larger basilica.

The story that has been handed down says that the relics hidden from Rome were transported to Saint-Maurice-en-Valais, now in Switzerland, whence they were then brought to Michelstadt by a cheering pilgrimage procession.

The palace complex is a series of building styles which includes remains of the old Electorate of Mainz border fortifications and moated castle (about 1300) on the north side to the Gothic works by the stonecutters who came from Strasbourg to Steinbach, to the gigantic Renaissance-style gateway arch (1588) between the moated castle's two western corner towers which replaced the castle wall and opened the gloomy, dank courtyard back up to the former castle garden, to the Renaissance palace mill, a former mint (today a run-of-the-river hydroelectric station), to the Baroque Kavaliershaus (a palace outbuilding for staff and guests) on the Mümling, to the Neoclassical residential wing, the Neues Palais (1810/11) and the late Baroque orangery in the palace park, which was built in the English style.

The former Electorate of Mainz defence facility lay on the property of the Schenk of Erbach (a forefather of the noble family, which at that time had not yet branched) and passed into his ownership in 1355.

The Roman bathhouse, on the other hand, which stands right next to the castrum, has been partially restored; the floors have been replaced and the wall has been built back up to a height of about a metre.

Not far from the outlying centre of Vielbrunn, in the area around the former hunting palace of the Princes of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg, traces of the Castrum of Hainhaus can still be found.

The town is served by a railway station on the Odenwaldbahn (RMV Line 65; Eberbach – Erbach – Michelstadt – Darmstadt – Frankfurt / Hanau).

There is also the special landing facility Flugplatz Michelstadt (airfield), which lies roughly 2 km from the town and is run by a club.