Chojna

Chojna, long known as Königsberg in the Neumark, grew as a fortified town in the borderlands east of the Oder. Its churches and walls reflected the prosperity of merchants and craftsmen in a region claimed by Brandenburg and Pomerania. The Teutonic Order acquired the Neumark in 1402, and the town paid homage to its new rulers; their efforts to recover revenues and their difficulty in securing the country later bred discontent.

Brandenburg recovered the region in 1454. The introduction of Lutheranism in the sixteenth century changed the ownership of religious estates, while the Thirty Years' War and later conflicts between Brandenburg and Sweden devastated villages around the town. Noble estates expanded in the late seventeenth century as demand for grain and other farm produce grew.