Kamień

Kamień Pomorski combined a cathedral precinct with a small town of craftsmen and local trade beside the Dziwna waters. Its urban government had four mayors in 1308, while a ducal official continued to exercise an important role until around the middle of the sixteenth century. During the medieval period the townspeople acquired surrounding villages, linking the urban economy to rural property. Bakers, shoemakers, butchers, fishermen and carpenters formed guilds; at the beginning of the seventeenth century these counted about 120 craftsmen altogether. The Thirty Years’ War devastated this community, and a fire in 1630 destroyed much of its built fabric. Swedish and Brandenburg interests then competed over the region. Under the peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1679, Kamień and the territory along the Dziwna passed into the Brandenburg-Prussian state. The town’s history joins episcopal institutions, guild production and the disruption of repeated changes in political control.