Gerdauen

Gerdauen grew beside a Teutonic castle on land once held by the Old Prussians. Lithuanian forces attacked the settlement repeatedly in the fourteenth century, but it recovered and received Chełmno law from Grand Master Konrad von Jungingen in 1398. Walls followed in 1406, a school in 1409 and a Dominican monastery in 1428. During the Thirteen Years' War the castle was damaged in 1455. In 1807 Polish cavalry fought Russian troops at Gerdauen and captured the town during the Napoleonic campaigns.