Krosno

Krosno stands between the Wisłok and Lubatówka in the Carpathian foothills. A fortified royal town, it grew wealthy from clothmaking and trade along the roads between Poland, Red Ruthenia and Hungary. Its prosperity earned it the name Parva Cracovia, or Little Kraków.

King Casimir the Great established Krosno under Magdeburg law in the fourteenth century, and stone walls were completed under Władysław Jagiełło. By the fifteenth century its craftsmen included bakers, shoemakers, tailors, smiths and fullers. Merchants traded local cloth, cattle and metal goods as well as Hungarian wine, and the town possessed an early water supply. In the sixteenth century its schools and workshops flourished; many sons of Krosno studied at the Kraków Academy. Hungarian and Scottish merchants settled here, while Jewish traders faced restrictions on residence and commerce within the walls. War, raids, plague and requisitions in the seventeenth century brought a long decline.