It is unknown whether these town fortifications arose before town rights were granted or only afterwards, but whatever the case, they only afforded the inhabitants protection from attack, and thereby also only offered any incentive to settle here, until firearms were developed. In the 17th and 18th centuries, they had rather the opposite effect to the originally intended one, provoking enemies’ attacks instead, for it was believed that the town must harbour considerable booty. It was the Herrsteiners themselves who actually knocked parts of their girding wall down in 1674 when the enemy was making his way through the country.