Mstów

Mstów lies on the Warta in western Lesser Poland. Its monastery of Canons Regular was already established when Polish bishops gathered here in 1212. A merchant road from Kraków to Greater Poland crossed the river at Mstów, where a toll bridge and fair served travellers and merchants on their long journeys. Bolesław the Chaste granted the settlement town rights in 1279.

The monastery later served as a gathering place for royal armies, including that of Casimir IV before his Silesian campaign in 1474. Its buildings suffered fire in 1566 and were repeatedly rebuilt. As the old trade route lost importance in the seventeenth century, Mstów declined; Swedish troops devastated the town and monastery in 1655. In 1795 the partitioning powers divided the town along the Warta.