Siewierz

Siewierz is an old town on the borders of Lesser Poland and Silesia. First mentioned in 1125, it became the seat of a castellany and received town rights in 1276. Its castle later sheltered a remarkable ecclesiastical principality: for centuries the bishops of Kraków ruled here as dukes of Siewierz. Before their acquisition, the town had passed between the dukes of Bytom and Cieszyn under Bohemian overlordship.

In 1443 Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki bought the duchy from the indebted Duke Wenceslaus of Cieszyn. The bishops retained their lordship until 1790, when Siewierz was incorporated directly into the Polish Crown. Prussia annexed it in the Third Partition of 1795. Napoleon revived the title in 1807 and granted the principality to Marshal Jean Lannes; after Napoleon's defeat, the town passed to Congress Poland under Russian rule.