Szadek

Szadek lies on the Pichna in the historic land of Sieradz. First mentioned in a grant of land by Duke Władysław the Elbow-high in 1295, it became a royal town and the seat of a county. From the sixteenth century the local assemblies of Sieradz Voivodeship met here, while its land courts also served the surrounding countryside.

The town flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when cloth was made here and its craftsmen prospered. Sons of Szadek's townsmen went to study at Kraków, some becoming respected scholars and university teachers. Fires, epidemics and economic decline later diminished the town. In 1833 a detachment of Polish insurgents was defeated in a nearby forest, and two captured men were executed in the marketplace.