Chrudim

Chrudim, a town of Bohemia, Austria, 74 m. E.S.E. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 13,017, mostly Czech. It has an important horse market, besides manufactures of sugar, spirits, beer, soda-water and agricultural machinery. There are also steam corn-mills and saw-mills. Chrudim is mentioned as the castle of a gaugraf as early as 993. The new town was founded by Ottokar II., who settled many Germans in it and gave it many privileges. After 1421 Chrudim was held by the Hussites, and though Ferdinand I. confiscated most of the town property, it prospered greatly till the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War. In 1625 the greater part of its Hussite inhabitants left the town, which suffered much later on from the Swedes. Chrudim was the birthplace of Joseph Ressel (1793-1857), honoured in Austria as the inventor of the screw propeller.