It might seem a bit paradoxical that the city renowned for its splendid architecture of the early 20th century is at the same time one of the oldest towns in the Czech territory. It is as if Hradec wished to symbolise that the end of one era is never anything other than the beginning of a new one. A settlement from the 10th century became a royal town in 1225. Some time later the King allocated the local castle to Czech Queens. In 1339 the local parish church burnt down. It was most likely Charles IV, at that point still Margrave of Moravia, who contributed to the construction of the new grandiose Gothic Holy Spirit Church, later to become a cathedral. Its completion is attributed to Charles’s last wife Elizabeth of Pomerania, who died here in 1393 thus ending the period of Charles IV. Hand in hand with this event, the history of the local castle also reached its demise, because it was soon to disappear within the urban development.