Kluczbork

Kluczbork began as a settlement of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, who received lands in Silesia and founded a town here in the thirteenth century. Its Magdeburg rights date from 1253. A mint operated under Duke Bolesław III, and in 1426 Duke Louis II of Brzeg granted the town a salt market.

Clothmaking gained importance in the sixteenth century, though fires repeatedly damaged the town. After 1660 members of the Polish Brethren settled here, holding synods in 1663 and 1668. The last Piast duke of Brzeg died in 1675, bringing Kluczbork under direct Habsburg rule. A fire in 1737 destroyed nearly the whole town, sparing only a few houses and its castle, and only a few years later it passed to Prussia during the Silesian Wars.