In the sixteenth century local scholars were keen to assert that the town had been founded under the Romans, and sources from this period refer to the medieval Latin name as Tabernae Montanae (trans.

Although the area was indeed under the control of the Roman empire around the beginning of our era, evidence does not support the notion that Bad Bergzabern had its own origins so far back.

In 1676, during the Franco-Dutch War, the French under Louis XIV infamously laid waste the Palatinate region as part of a scheme to enlarge France.

One of the few buildings that did survive the French king's torching of the town was the local duke's administrative office, which later became the Gasthaus zum Engel.

A generation later former French frontiers were restored after the fall of Napoleon, however, and under the terms of the Second Peace of Paris (10 November 1815) the whole region came under the control of the Wittelsbach kings of Bavaria.