Opoczno

Opoczno was an important royal town of northwestern Lesser Poland, situated at the crossing of routes from Kyiv to Wrocław and from Toruń to Sandomierz. In 1347 Casimir the Great established a new town southwest of the older settlement, leaving the old Church of Mary Magdalene outside its walls and enclosing the new site and building a royal castle and church. It gained Magdeburg rights in 1365 and became the seat of a county.

Trade and crafts prospered in Opoczno until the Swedish invasion of the seventeenth century. The invaders burned the town and castle, leaving only fifteen houses standing in 1660. Recovery was slow. After the Third Partition of Poland the town passed to Austria, then to the Duchy of Warsaw and, in 1815, to Congress Poland.