Szeged and its area have been inhabited since ancient times. Ptolemy mentions the oldest known name of the city: Partiscum. It is possible that Attila, king of the Huns had his seat somewhere in this area. The name Szeged was first mentioned in 1183, in a document of King Béla III.
During the Mongol invasion the town was destroyed and its inhabitants fled to the nearby swamps, but they soon returned and rebuilt their town. In the 14th century, during the reign of Louis the Great, Szeged became the most important town of Southern Hungary, and – as the Turkish armies got closer to Hungary – the strategic importance of Szeged grew. King Sigismund of Luxembourg had a wall built around the town. Szeged was raised to free royal town status in 1498.
Szeged was first pillaged by the Turkish army on 28 September 1526, but was occupied only in 1543, and became an administrative centre of the Ottomans (see Ottoman Hungary). She was a sanjak centre at first in Budin Eyaleti (1543–1596), after in Eğri Eyaleti. The town was freed from Turkish rule on 23 October 1686, and regained the free royal town status in 1715. In 1719 Szeged got its coat of arms (still used today) from Charles III. During the next years Szeged grew and prospered. Piarist monks arrived in Szeged in 1719 and opened a new grammar school in 1721. They also held scientific lectures and theatrical plays. However, these years brought not only prosperity and enlightenment; between 1728 and 1744 witch trials were frequent in the town; in 1728-29, the perhaps largest Hungarian witch trial was held here. In 1720, the population of the city totalled 193 households, of which 99 were Serbian.
Szeged is known as the home of paprika, a spice made from dried, powdered capsicum fruits. Paprika arrived in Hungary in the second half of the 16th century as an ornamental plant. About 100 years later the plant was cultivated as a herb, and paprika as we know it was born. Szeged is also famous for
