Prudnik

Prudnik grew beside a castle founded in 1255 at a bend of the Prudnik River, controlling a route between Nysa and Opava. It received Magdeburg town rights in 1279. In 1337 the town passed from Moravia to the Duchy of Opole, whose Piast rulers held it until 1532, when the duchy entered the Habsburg-ruled Bohemian Crown.

Linen makers exported their goods to the Netherlands, and tanning was also practised in the town. The Thirty Years' War brought plague and destruction: Swedish troops captured and burned Prudnik in 1642. The town was rebuilt after the war, but its borderland position exposed it to later conflicts; an Austrian artillery attack burned much of it in 1779.