The first documented mention can be found in the Nuremberg Memoir Book for the year 1298. The occasion was a pogrom in Freystadt, which was in connection with the so-called Rintfleisch persecutions that spread from Lower Franconia. Since Freystadt was founded ex radice (German: from the root), it can be assumed that a large part of the rights that elevated the place to city status had already been granted when the settlement was founded. Proof of its status as a city and the existence of city rights is a document from 1332,[4] which has the Freystädter seal on it. Due to this oldest evidence of city rights - the use of a seal is such a right - the 650th anniversary of the granting of city rights was celebrated in 1982.
As far as the individual rulers to whom the city was subordinate, Freystadt had a very eventful history as a border town. When the founding family of the Lords of Stein (Hilpoltstein) died out in 1384, the place passed as an inheritance to Sweigker von Hohenfels, who sold the town to the (Upper) Bavarian dukes just two years later. In 1392 Freystadt was mentioned as part of the Bavarian sub-duchy of Bavaria-Ingolstadt, which emerged from the last Bavarian division.[5] In the so-called Bavarian War, which was waged by the individual Wittelsbach lines, but also other princes, especially in northern Bavaria, Count Palatine Johann von Neumarkt received Freystadt, which he had already conquered around 1420, with the Treaty of Lauf in 1427. After the death of his childless son Christoph, Freystadt as part of the territory fell to the Count Palatine of Mosbach as an inheritance. When these died out in 1499, Freystadt came into the possession of the Count Palatine near the Rhine, where it only remained for five years as it was occupied by troops of the Margrave of Ansbach in the Landshut War of Succession in 1504. It was held as a pledge by this until around 1519, although it is not clear whether Freystadt subsequently briefly became part of the Duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg or returned directly to the Electoral Palatinate.
Source: Wikipedia