of Sehatz decided to put an end to the continuous assaults of piracy and plunder and raise a villa walled and strengthened from where they could defend in group against the enemy. Due to its extent, its strategic location and its direct contact with the sea, the chosen place was Zumaia. Nevertheless, the villa was not constituted juridically until 1347, when Alfonso XI of Castile provided the municipal charter to its citizens of "Villagrana de Zumaya's Villa", to which was granted the Jurisdiction of San Sebastián. In the 16th century, Zumaia relied on 136 houses, 70 of them distributed among six streets that existed inside the wall, and the remaining ones dispersed by three neighborhoods that were staying out of the wall. In total there were 108 neighborhood surnames, 53 of them with the qualification of nobility. Nowadays there is no evidence of the fortification that only was interrupted at a height of solar houses and towers that could play the same function of defending as the wall. The entrance halls included the Principal Entrance Hall of the villa and the great cross that presided over them. They were destroyed in the middle of the 18th century to clear the surroundings of the town. The only natural door was the one of the bar of the sea, which was apparently the most dangerous for being the most accessible. Since the 16th century the bells of the parish have been melted many times. In 1578 the mayor ordered to ring them three times consecutively so that citizens were well-informed and came more assiduously to the meetings of the regiment, which was retired long time ago. Moreover, on the eve of the General Meetings—that were celebrated in the villa every 18 years, to offer fuel-wood and coal to the secretary of the province—two oaks were cut. In one of these sessions, on 27 December 1620, the same day in which Ignatius of Loyola, Patron Saint of Gipuzkoa was chosen, the patron saint of the town was named as the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Economic changes and development With the pass of centuries, has brought logically many changes not only in the former ordinances municipal written in 1584, but also in the urban development as well as in the customs and way of living of citizens. However, the best keys to notice the development of the villa from its foundation to