Kutná Hora

Kutná Hora grew wealthy from the silver beneath its hills. Mining began near Sedlec in the thirteenth century, drawing settlers and transforming the fortunes of the nearby Cistercian abbey. In 1300 King Wenceslaus II issued a mining code, and soon afterwards the royal mint at the Italian Court began striking Prague groschen. The town became Bohemia's chief financial centre after Prague, its wealth reflected in the great Gothic church of Saint Barbara, patron of miners.

During the Hussite Wars the town and Sedlec Abbey suffered destruction, but mining revived later in the fifteenth century. Deep shafts increasingly faced flooding, and declining ore deposits reduced production in the sixteenth century. After the Battle of White Mountain the Jesuits established a college beside Saint Barbara's church. A plague column erected in 1714–1715 honoured the dead of the epidemic and placed figures of miners among its saints, recalling the work that had made the town rich.