Prešov

Prešov was a trading and craft town in Upper Hungary, known as Eperjes in Hungarian. A free royal town from 1374, it joined Košice, Bardejov, Levoča and Sabinov in the association of five towns known as the Pentapolitana. Its broad central street and the church of St Nicholas reflected the prosperity of its burghers.

In 1572 salt mining began at nearby Solivar. Prešov also became an important Protestant centre, and an Evangelical college opened in 1667. Political and religious conflict brought severe reprisals: in 1687 a tribunal established by the imperial general Antonio Caraffa condemned twenty-four citizens and nobles to death for alleged support of Imre Thököly's uprising. These executions left a grim memory in a town whose merchants and schools had long connected it with the wider life of Upper Hungary.