Człopa

Człopa lies among the lakes and forests of the old northern borderlands of Greater Poland. The Czarnkowski family received the surrounding lands from Duke Przemysł II and were allowed to raise a fortified stronghold. Briefly occupied by Brandenburg in the fourteenth century, the town was recovered by Casimir the Great in 1368 and ravaged by the Teutonic Knights in 1406. It later belonged to a succession of Polish noble families, until Prussia annexed it in the First Partition of Poland in 1772.