Krasnystaw

Krasnystaw stands on the Wieprz along the road between Lublin and Lviv. King Władysław Jagiełło granted the town its charter in 1394 on the site of an older village called Szczekarzew. From 1490 it belonged to the bishops of Chełm and served as a seat of local authority. Trade brought prosperity in the sixteenth century, but the Swedish wars of the 1650s destroyed both the town and its castle. In 1795 it passed to Austria in the third partition of Poland.