Freistadt

Freistadt was laid out in the thirteenth century on the road from the Danube towards Bohemia. Its prosperity rested on privileges granted to merchants and on the traffic in salt and iron travelling north and Bohemian fish travelling south. By the later Middle Ages walls, towers and gates enclosed the town, and its old castle served as a salt store. A new castle rose at the northeastern corner of the defences.

Fires in 1507 and 1516 destroyed the houses within the walls, after which they were rebuilt with protective firewalls. Protestantism spread through the trading community, but during the Counter-Reformation Protestants were expelled in 1627. Freistadt lost its old privileges after the Thirty Years' War and declined as a trading centre, although salt continued to pass through it on the way to Bohemia. A communal brewery was established in 1770, and a new brewhouse followed in 1777.