Local history
Information about the town – Polska / podkarpackie
Colonization on the area of today’s Rzeszów dates back to the Neolithic period. In the medieval times, a stronghold existed in the region of today’s old town. In the 12th - 13th century, between the Wisłok River and the Przywra River, a large trade and craft settlement developed. In the 13th century, the Ruthenians took over the settlement, ousting the previous inhabitants further to the west, towards Krakow. Rzeszów, and the whole Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, was re-incorporated into the Polish state around 1340.
The oldest record about the city comes from 1354. On 19 January, King Casimir III the Great granted the Rzeszów volost to a knight called Jan Pakosławicow of Półkozic coat of arms from Strożyska, merited in the wars with the Tatars. By the power of a royal privilege, on a loessic hill, on the area of today’s Old Market Square, near the two or three strongholds which existed there at that time, the new owner, who took on the name of Rzeszowski, incorporated the town under the Magdeburg Law. Once the settlement’s borders were marked up, a church, a market, and a cemetery were built on a small area of 1.5 sq km. Owing to the foundation of Jan Rzeszowski, already in 1363 a parish church worked in the town, and in 1406 – a parish school. The stronghold in the Old Town was where the seat of the new owners was located. Rzeszów remained in private hands until the end of the 18th century. After the Rzeszowscy family, the subsequent owners were: Mikołaj Spytka Ligęza, Władysław Ostrogski-Zasławski, and the Lubomirscy family[1.1].
In 1427, a fire ravaged the town, yet it was quickly rebuilt. It was then that Rzeszów was again granted the incorporation privilege under the Polish law and the right to store some goods. The Rzeszów people were also granted the privilege to sell beer, wine, and salt, as well as the permission to run crafts stalls and collect duties and tolls.
With the granted privileges, and due to establishment of transport routes that ran through the town from Krakow to the Rus and from Lublin to today’s Slovakia and Hungary, the town strengthened its position as a trade center in the second half of the 15th century. The Rzeszów merchants became rich quickly and craftsmanship developed, e.g. weaving, drapery, tailoring, metalwork, shoemaking, furriery, brewing, widely-known gold smithery, jewelry making; also craftsmen guilds were formed.
In 1458, Rzeszów was destroyed by the Vlachs and Tatars, and then – in 1502 – by the Tatars once again. Despite recurring fires and invasions the town kept developing. It is likely that already since the end of the 15th century, and definitely since the mid-16th century, the Jews settled outside the town, to the east of the center. They made their living from leasing mills, craftsmanship, as well as trading in wine, cloth, and linen. In the 16th century, there was a court operating in Rzeszów and a city council whose members were also successively taking the position of city mayor.
In 1571, the then owner of the estate, Mikołaj Rzeszowski, confirmed the town’s privileges and granted new ones. He also launched the construction of the castle, which was interrupted by a fire that ravaged almost the whole town. In 1578, Stephen Báthory granted Rzeszów a privilege approving all previous fairs and establishing a weekly fair.
From the end of the 16th century until c. the mid-17th century was the town’s golden time – mainly during the times when Mikołaj Spytek Ligęza, married to Mikołaj’s daughter, Zofia Rzeszowska, was the new owner. Ligęza funded new municipal buildings, among others the town hall (1591), and in 1600, he launched the construction of a new defensive castle. In 1605, he funded a hospital and an orphanage, whereas in 1627, he had the town surrounded with ramparts. In 1624 - 1629, he sponsored the erection of a cloister of Bernadine monks. Due to his efforts the town was granted other privileges and tax exemptions, which sparked its economic growth so that in the first half of the 17th century it became one of the most important administrative and economic centers in Poland at that time, with a relatively wide autonomy[1.2].
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[1.1] As in: Kehilat Raysha sefer zikaron (Rzeszow Community Memorial Book, transl. by J. Landau), ed. by M. Yari-Wold, Tel Aviv 1967, as in http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/rzeszow/rzeszow.html, s. 17; [as of 9 February 2009]; see: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rzeszów [as of 9 February 2009].
[1.2] Kehilat Raysha sefer …, p. 17 et seq.
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