Slaný

Slaný lies northwest of Prague on the road toward Saxony. Benedictines established a hospital and a church dedicated to Saint Gotthard here in 1136, and King Wenceslaus II granted the settlement town rights after 1295. Fire and an earthquake damaged the fortified town in the fourteenth century, but its position on the trade route encouraged its growth.

The Taborites captured Slaný in 1425 and held it until 1434. Their preachers counted it among the holy cities expected to survive the end of the world, while the Benedictine monks were forced to leave. The town later supported George of Poděbrady's election as king and received privileges from him. During the Bohemian Revolt it housed the family of Frederick V; after White Mountain, its new Catholic lords of the Martinic family built a Baroque church and monastery.