Permanent settlements on the city's territory are known from the
Neolithic period onwards.
Middle Ages During the
Middle Ages, an important market settlement arose here at the junction of two important roads – from
Bohemia to
Hungary and from the
Mediterranean to Poland. The first written reference to Trnava dates from 1211. In 1238, Trnava was the first town in (present-day) Slovakia to be granted a town charter (civic privileges) by the king. The former agricultural center gradually became a center of manufacture, trade, and crafts. By the early 13th century, the
king of Hungary had invited numerous
Germans to settle in Trnava; this settlement increased after the
Tatar invasion in 1242. At the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, a part of Trnava was enclosed by very long city walls. The original
Hungarian and
Slovak market settlement and the Germans stayed behind this wall. Trnava was also the place of many important negotiations:
Charles I, the king of Hungary, signed here a currency agreement with the Czech King
John of Luxemburg in 1327, and King
Louis I (who often stayed in the town and died there in 1382) signed a friendship agreement with Emperor
Charles IV there in 1360.
Hussites and Slovak majority The temporary German majority in Trnava's population yielded in favour of the Slovaks during the campaigns undertaken by the Czech
Hussites in the 15th century. In April 1430, the Hussites penetrated close to the town and defeated the Hungarian army in the
Battle of Trnava. However, they suffered heavy losses and withdrew to
Moravia. On 24 Jun 1432, a small group of Hussites masked as tradesmen entered the town, overcame the guards in the night, and captured the town without a fight. Then, they made Trnava the center of their campaigns in northwestern
Kingdom of Hungary from 1432 to 1435.
16th–18th centuries The town, along with the rest of the territory of present-day
Slovakia, gained importance after the conquest of most of what is today
Hungary by the
Ottoman Empire in 1541, when Trnava became the see (1541–1820) of the
Archbishopric of Esztergom (before 1541 and after 1820 the see was the town of Esztergom, which was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1543). The cathedrals of the archbishopric were the
Saint John the Baptist Cathedral and the
Saint Nicholas Cathedral in the town. Many ethnic Hungarians fleeing from the Turks moved to the town after 1541, also from present-day Hungary, which mainly remained
under Ottoman rule until being gradually reconquered and the last Ottoman troops on present-day Hungarian territory were defeated in 1699. In the 16th and especially the 17th century, Trnava was an important center of the
Counter-Reformation in the
Kingdom of Hungary (at the time largely identical with the territory of present-day Slovakia and a strip of western Hungary). The Archbishop
Nicolaus Olahus invited the
Jesuits to Trnava in 1561 to develop the municipal school system. Subsequently, he had a seminary opened in 1566, and in 1577, Trnava's priest
Nicolas Telegdi founded a book-printing house in the town. The first Catholic Bible translation into Hungarian (based on the Latin
Vulgate) was also completed in the town by the Jesuit
György Káldi, who was born there in 1573. The 17th century was also characterized by many anti-
Habsburg uprisings in the country – these revolts of
Stephen Bocskay,
Gabriel Bethlen,
George I Rákóczi, and
Imre Thököly negatively affected Trnava's life. On 26 December 1704,
Francis II Rákóczi's army suffered a decisive defeat against the Imperial Army, led by
Sigbert Heister, near Trnava. It was after the establishment of the archbishopric and canonry that Trnava acquired the nickname of "A Little Rome". As the city of Rome was a center of the universal Catholic Church, the town of Trnava had been seen in popular view as the center of Catholicism in the Kingdom of Hungary. As contemporary scholar
Matthias Bel wrote: "You could say it is a town which is appearing as Rome on a small scale, and this, as to temples and also sacred institutions which were infused within it. Truly, that's why the people call it a Little Rome, knowing that small things are compared with big ones." The Jesuit
Trnava University (1635–1777), the only university of the Kingdom of Hungary at that time, was founded by Archbishop
Péter Pázmány. Founded to support the Counter-Reformation, Trnava University soon became a center of Slovak education and literature, since some of the teachers and half of the students were Slovaks. Pázmány himself was instrumental in promoting the usage of Slovak instead of Czech and had his work "
Isteni igazságra vezető kalauz" (Guide to the Truth of God) and several of his sermons translated into Slovak. From the late 18th century Trnava became a center of the literary and artistic
Slovak National Revival. In 1840 horse-drawn railway started to operate on the route Bratislava–Svätý Jur, as the first railway line in the Kingdom of Hungary. With connection to Trnava, the planned route was solemnly opened in June 1846 to be later prolonged to Sered in December 1846. During the
Hungarian Revolution of 1848 Richard Guyon's army had been repulsed out of Trnava after clash with an
Austrian army under command of on 14 December, in 1848.
In time after Austro-Hungarian Compromise In 1867
Austro-Hungarian compromise had come into force, becoming a milestone in the politics and administration of the empire. For this period had been determined as a self-governed urban district (
rendezett tanácsú város/Stadt mit geordnete Magistrat) within
Pozsony County, also being the seat of the Trnava rural district. Slovak national foundations, like
Matica slovenská were suppressed or banned in
Kingdom of Hungary as a result of the
Magyarization policy. In that time of national and linguistic oppression of Slovaks, the (
Spolok sv. Vojtecha) was founded in Trnava in 1870. Initially being tasked with publishing of catholic literature, the association with its headquarters in Trnava had been working as the foremost Slovak language institution until
Dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918. In the 19th but mainly in the early 20th century, the town grew behind its city walls, and a part of the wall was demolished in the 19th century, but most of it is still well-preserved. In 1873 a reconstructed railway route from Bratislava to Trnava, trafficking with steam engines, instead of previous horse-drawn, had been handed over to use. First steam train reached at Trnava railway station on May 1, 1873. The renewed connection launched a modernization of the town, which started with the erection of a big sugar factory, a malt-house, and the Coburgh's factory (later referred to as
Trnavské automobilové závody, i.e., "Trnava Car Factory").
After 1918 After the creation of
Czechoslovakia in 1918, Trnava was one of the most industrialized towns of the country. During
World War II, Trnava was occupied on 1 April 1945 by troops of the
Soviet 2nd Ukrainian Front. In 1977, by a decision of
Pope Paul VI, Trnava became the see of a separate
Slovak archbishopric (although the seat moved to Bratislava in 2008, the city still remains a seat of its
own archbishopric). With the establishment of this archbishopric, Slovakia became independent of Hungary also in terms of church administration for the first time in centuries. After the establishment of Slovakia (1993), Trnava became the capital of the newly created
Trnava Region in 1996. ==Geography==