Lubliniec

Lubliniec was founded around 1270 by Władysław, Duke of Opole, on the road from his residence to Kraków. His successors granted town rights under Magdeburg law and built a castle for the ducal estate. Duke Jan II later gave the townspeople privileges to brew, hold markets and establish guilds, helping Lubliniec develop under the Piast rulers of Upper Silesia.

When Jan died without an heir in 1532, the duchy returned to the Bohemian Crown under the Habsburgs. During the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1655, the revered Black Madonna of Częstochowa was briefly hidden in the castle. Lubliniec passed to Prussia in 1742 and later became a centre of the Polish Bar Confederation. Its commander Kazimierz Pułaski visited the town several times in the 1770s.