Rawicz

Rawicz was founded by the nobleman Adam Olbracht Przyjemski as a refuge for Silesian Protestants fleeing the Thirty Years' War. Granted town rights by Władysław IV in 1638, it was laid out to a regular plan on the road between Poznań and Wrocław. A clothmakers' guild followed in 1640, and weaving became the foundation of the town's prosperity.

Swedish forces destroyed Rawicz in 1655, but its inhabitants rebuilt it with new townhouses, a Baroque church and a Catholic monastery. Fire and passing armies brought further hardship in the early eighteenth century. The town subsequently recovered, acquiring a new Baroque town hall, breweries and a distillery. By the end of the century its many local skilled weavers led the cloth trade throughout Greater Poland.