History

 To establish a new village at that time, the noble or clerical authorities authorised a so-called „locator“, who supervised the clearing of forests, allocated land to families and oversaw the construction of the whole village. Around the year 1175 the settlement reached the edge of today‘s Novobystřicko. The record from 18th April 1175 states that Count Konrad II of Raabs gave 30 tracts of uncleared forest, and a homestead on the fast-flowing stream named Vistritz, to the Johanite monks. The monks soon started with forest clearing and built a monastic cell around which a village called Mnich sprang up. The monastic cell later became a church, the first parish church of Bystřice (this, the oldest romanesque church in the district, was demolished in 1945). Albeř was also founded around the year 1175.

 When Rudolf Habsburg married his daughter to the son of Otakar II in 1276, he gave her 240,000 marks of silver as a dowry and she was in exchange pledged various areas, among them Bystřicko. If they remained without a heir, all these domains should fall under the Czech Crown. This happened in 1282, when the manors of Bystřice and Landštejn were separated from Austria. At that time very little changed as both lands, Bohemia and Austria, were imperial tenures. Bystřice was just a village then though probably the most important in the region. Around 1280 at the latest the building of the castle and a new grange started.

 In the record from 3rd June 1341 Bystřice is already mentioned as a town. The new town was given an east-west oriented square and apart from the castle there were 60 houses inside the town walls/ramparts. The farmers that didn’t have space inside the town walls settled around today‘s Jan Hus square. To the east of the castle a castle pond was built. There were two ways into the town – the Vienna gate with a big tower on the east and the Prague lower and upper gates on the west (destroyed in 1825).

 After 1399 Landštejn was inherited by Lipolt of Krajk and he also took over the domain of Bystřice after some time. Lipolt of Krajk was the king‘s commandant in Budějovice at the beginning of the Hussite turbulences and as a trustworthy Catholic he was against the Hussites. Jan Žižka came via Sedlo to Bystřice and after a short, most likely 8 day long siege, the Hussites, equipped with crossbows, longbows, halberds, flails, javelins and rakes captured the town through treason, probably at the end of September 1420. The town was plundered and pillaged by the Hussites, the inhabitants driven to the town square where most were killed, and all of Bystřice was burned. Relatively soon, the town was rebuilt and from then on probably named Neu Fistritz, then Neubistritz, i.e. Nová Bystřice.

 From the year 1615 Bystřice belonged to the Slavatas. Adam Paul Slavata aimed to create the economic centre of the manor of Novobystřicko. He strove to support the local craftsmen. By his request, they made for example pistols, muskets and pikes, which were then deposited in the castle armoury. He wanted to renew the mining around Senotín and he invited German miners into the area of today‘s Hůrky to look for pyrite (iron sulphide) for the manufacture of vitriol (sulphuric acid) (some say that maybe even silver was found here). After another big fire in 1651, Count Slavata ensured a quick renovation of the castle and the town, the money for the rebuilding of the church coming mostly from the town’s finances. In 1657 he died heirless at the castle of Bystřice, from where the spectacular funeral procession into the church of St Kateřina in Jindřichův Hradec began, while the heart and entrails were buried in the church of SS Peter and Paul in Nová Bystřice. At the beginning of the Thirty Years‘ War Bystřice suffered marches and plundering by the army.

A hundred years later, Novobystřicko was bought by Countess Terezie of Trautmannsdorf. She decided to improve the financial situation using the so called property lottery. Afterwards she completed the construction of an iron-mill and a furnace beyond Albeř (Terezín) and she also had a late baroque mansion built here. In 1817 the Countess sold the manor to the Baron Antonín Hochberg of Hennersford. After a long time Novobystřicko thus gained an efficient master who took care of the welfare of the manor and its inhabitants. It was after the Napoleonic wars and the manor started to flourish, and the Baron was very popular with the locals (he died in 1828). In the year 1834 the main square in Nová Bystřice was tiled.

In connection with industrialisation a number of local families emigrated from the countryside to Vienna or to America between 1870 and 1939 and the population in the local province plummeted. On 30th October 1897 the 33 km long narrow gauge railway line from Nová Bystřice to Jindřichův Hradec opened, built amongst others by Italian workers. At that time the passenger train used to go 3 times a day, otherwise wood was carried to Hradec and coal to Bystřice. After the creation of Czechoslovakia the border regions of Bohemia and Moravia were incorporated into the country. During the Second World War 1150 were reported killed or missing in the district, Nová Bystřice itself mentions 65 fallen. On the 10th May 1945 Novobystřicko was taken by Russian soldiers, and German prisoners of war were assembled in the Soviet prisoners‘ camp near Blato. On 28th May 1945 the Czech partisans acomplished the evacuation of the German population according to the Benes decrees. German inhabitants had to leave their homes within an hour or two and were allowed to take 30 kg of luggage per person, excepting any valuables.