Jarosław

Jarosław stands on the San, where roads from Silesia, Ruthenia and Hungary converged. Its river port and great fairs made it one of the foremost trading towns of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Merchants came from as far away as England, Armenia and Persia to attend the annual fair held around the feast of the Assumption.

First securely recorded in 1152, Jarosław received Magdeburg rights in 1375. The private town prospered under successive noble families, especially in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. A Jesuit college founded in 1575 acquired a celebrated library and theatre, and a printing house followed in 1621. Tatar raids, plague and the Swedish invasion weakened the town's commerce. In 1656 Polish forces under Stefan Czarniecki fought the Swedes at Jarosław. Repeated pillaging during the Great Northern War deepened the decline, and the town passed to Austria in the first partition of Poland in 1772.