History of Prachatice

Foundation of the Town on the Trade Path	The Decline In 17th Century
14th century	18th Century
Trade With Salt	19th Century
Culture Development	20th Century
15th century - the Hussite Wars	Today - an Urban Restoration Area
Development in 16th century

     The salt trade assured the continuous income for the town.In 1384 Vaclac IV confirmed a year older privilege of Vilem of Landstejn by which the rights of the town were multiplied by the right of salt store.Prachatice was the only town where other towns could buy Bavarian salt.17 years later after the foundation of the salt store in Prachatice,the store was founded in the Bavarian side in Passau,too and so both of the towns were connected by the firm business union.
     The rights of the citizens were defended by the firm order which set when and which citizen is allowed to buy and sell the salt.Prachatice citizens also did business with the corn which they bought inland and which they sold again to Passau. So the trade with Passau incited the unprecendented prosperity of malting..The presence of foreign merchants also increased the importance and lucrativeness of the town markets (since 1349 of the annual markets in St.James' Week,too).Prachatice gained its leading position among the towns on the "Golden Path" also thanks to the fact it was the only fortificated town from the provincial border to Pisek in that time and it provided the merchants with the safest protection.
     King Vaclav IV also assigned all the goods transported from Bavaria into Bohemia or vice versa must go via Prachatice.This provilege became the important argument in later almost continuous dispute of the town with the nearby towns.Already in 14th century the biggest rival was the town Kasperske Hory whose inhabitants started to build so called "Golden Way" via Aussergefield (Kvilda) to Passau in 1366.

(Text: Mgr.Jana Koutná using the article of Jan Himler:Prachatice,in: Zprávy památkové péče Praha 1950)