Benešov

Benešov lies in the central Bohemian uplands southeast of Prague, on the route toward Linz. Its name derives from a lord named Beneš, and the lords of Benešov held their seat here until moving to nearby Konopiště Castle in 1317. The settlement became a market town in 1327, though Hussite forces captured and burned it in 1420.

Benešov recovered and hosted important meetings of the Bohemian Diet in 1451 and 1473. Trade on the Prague–Linz road helped it prosper in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and it received town status in 1512. Swedish troops brought suffering during the Thirty Years' War. In the eighteenth century a Piarist college and a direct postal route to Prague contributed to the town's development as a centre of learning.