from its founders, the Lords of Hirschhorn, whose coat of arms shows a stag's antler. The first Lord of Hirschhorn was probably a son of a knight of Steinach. Hirschhorn Castle (Burg Hirschhorn) was built about 1250/60 on land given as a fief by Lorsch Abbey, which since 1232 was in the possession of the Archbishop of Mainz. Engelhard I (1329–61) increased his influence and his dominions considerably through Imperial fiefdoms and land mortgaged to him in return for loans. His son, Engelhard II, waged various feuds and was placed under the Imperial ban; Engelhard II's sons, however, managed to enlarge the family's estates again. Hirschhorn (Hirtzhorn) was surrounded by a town wall after the brothers Hans V, Albrecht and Eberhard of Hirschhorn had received its town charter from King Wenceslaus in 1391. When Elector Palatine Ruprecht III was elected King in 1400, Hans V of Hirschhorn was employed in Imperial service as an adviser, diplomat, and financier. His diplomatic missions also took him to the English court. King Henry V of England held Hans in such high esteem that he granted him a lifelong annual payment of 100 marks. Hirschhorn was endowed with the right to have a weekly market in 1404. The oldest town seal dates from 25 July 1406. It was in that year that Hans V, together with his brothers, founded the Carmelite monastery with its Church of the Annunciation on the slope below the castle. A first enlargement of the town (Vorstadt) is mentioned as early as in 1413. The inhabitants of the neighbouring villages sought protection within the precincts of the fortified town, so Ersheim, Ramsau, Krautlach and Weidenau were soon abandoned. Ersheim only consisted of the Ziegelhütte ("brick plant", built in 1553) and the church compound for centuries. Between 1522 and 1529, the Knights of Hirschhorn converted to Protestantism. They quarrelled with the Carmelites and closed their monastery down in 1543. In 1555 the town was hit by the Plague, and in 1556 a devastating fire destroyed nearly the whole of the oldest part of the town (Hinterstädtchen). Extensive flooding aggravated by thawing ice occurred in 1565. Decline in the Thirty Years' War While Hirschhorn was not involved in the German Peasants' War, major changes were brought about by the Thirty Years' War. After the Lords of Hirschhorn had died out with the demise of Frederic III in September 1632 - he had