Opole

Opole lies on the Oder in Upper Silesia, where the ducal castle and the Piast dukes' Gothic Franciscan church of the Holy Trinity face the river. The town moved from Pasieka Island to the right bank in the early thirteenth century and received German town law in 1254; in 1327 the duchy of Opole became a fief of the Bohemian crown. Under Bolko II it was a small ducal capital of mostly Polish-speaking townspeople, with German merchants and craftsmen among them.

Bolko's son Władysław Opolczyk ruled from 1356 and rose far beyond the town: he served the king of Hungary as palatine, governed Ruthenia, and was a patron of the Pauline monks at Jasna Góra. After the last Piast duke, Jan II the Good, died in 1532, the Habsburgs held the land, but pawned the duchy to other rulers, among them the Polish Vasa kings. In November 1655 John II Casimir, driven from Kraków by the Swedes, took refuge in Opole with his court and issued the Universal of Opole, calling the Poles to rise against the invaders. Prussia conquered Silesia in 1740–42.