Line (1444-1543) The Principality of Palatinate-Veldenz (1543-1694) The last named is taken to be the actual "Lauterecken comital line", which characterized the town with the building of two castles, whose appearance is preserved in Matthäus Merian's engraving from about 1650. Thus, from 1543 to 1694, Lauterecken was the residence town of the sideline of Palatinate-Veldenz-Lauterecken. In 1689, however, the town and castles were destroyed. When Count Gerlach I founded the original County of Veldenz, Lauterecken had evidently outstripped the neighbouring village of Medard. Even before 1350 (likely in 1349), Lauterecken had been raised to town. In the latter half of the 14th century, the fortifications sprang up with three gates (Untertor or "Lower Gate", Bergtor or "Mountain Gate", Obertor or "Upper Gate") and five towers, of which three stood near the gravely endangered Lower Gate and two others at corners in the defensive wall (these two can be seen in the Merian engraving). Any attempt by historians to describe a castle integrated into the town fortifications at this early time has come up against considerable difficulties. There can, however, be no doubt that there was a castle complex either within the town or nearby that served a mainly defensive purpose rather than that of simply representing the local lords. In 1384, it was said that the work on the original town fortifications was completed. At the so-called brotherly partition in 1387, Count Friedrich of Veldenz received the town of Lauterecken with its castle and Burgmannen along with a few outlying villages, while Medard passed as a village in the Amt of Odenbach to Count Heinrich. In 1393, Count Friedrich III founded an actual Amt of Lauterecken, which he expanded by adding to the hitherto small region the Ämter of Nerzweiler, Reichenbach and Bosenbach. Belonging to this new Amt were the following places: Albersbach, Aschbach, Bettenhausen, Bosenbach, Eßweiler, Föckelberg, Fockenberg, Gimsbach, Hinzweiler, Hundheim, Jettenbach, Kollweiler, Lauterecken, Limbach, Lohnweiler, Matzenbach, Miesenbach, Mühlbach, Nerzweiler, Neunkirchen am Potzberg, Niedersteegen, Niederstaufenbach, Obermohr, Oberstaufenbach, Obersteegen, Oberweiler im Tal, Reichenbach, Reichenbachstegen, Rothselberg, Rutsweiler am Glan, Schrollbach, Theißberg, Wiesweiler and other places that now no longer exist. In 1444, the County of Veldenz met its end when Count Friedrich III of Veldenz died without a male heir. His daughter Anna wed King Ruprecht's son Count Palatine Stephan. By uniting his own Palatine holdings with the now otherwise heirless County of Veldenz – his wife had inherited the county,