Sayda

Sayda lies high in the Ore Mountains on an old road across the mountains into Bohemia. Its Slavic name appears in a document associated with the foundation of Osek Abbey in 1207. A castle guarded the route, also called the old salt road, and the settlement passed between Bohemian and Meissen rulers before becoming part of the Margraviate of Meissen in the early fourteenth century.

From the fourteenth century the Schönberg family held Sayda as a fief. Bernhard von Schönberg provided in his will for a hospital for the sick and needy, founded as Saint John's Hospital in 1508 after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem with Duke Albert of Saxony. Fires repeatedly damaged the town, including a blaze in 1435 and later fires in 1559, 1702 and 1743.