Sokal

Sokal stands on the Bug in the historic land of Belz. Granted Magdeburg rights by Duke Siemowit IV in 1424, it became part of Belz Voivodeship in 1462. The frontier remained vulnerable: in 1519 Crimean Tatars defeated a Polish-Lithuanian army under Konstanty Ostrogski nearby and razed the town. In the early seventeenth century a Bernardine monastery and church were built here, housing an image of Our Lady of Sokal that drew Catholic pilgrims.