Koszyce is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Proszowice County __NOTOC__ Proszowice County ( pl, powiat proszowicki) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local govern ...

, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Koszyce. It lies approximately east of Proszowice and east of the regional capital

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

. The village has a population of 830. The history of Koszyce dates back to the year 1328, when the village was for the first time mentioned in documents. On June 26, 1374, Elizabeth of Poland granted

Magdeburg rights Magdeburg rights (german: Magdeburger Recht; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within ...

to Koszyce. There are undocumented speculations that Koszyce had received town charter before that date, and Queen Elizabeth only confirmed this fact. The town became a royal property, and was granted the right to organize weekly fairs on Mondays. On April 4, 1421, Koszyce's privileges were confirmed by King Wladyslaw Jagiello, probably because the 1374 document had been lost. The town prospered in the 15th century, due to a location along an important merchant trail from Krakow to

Sandomierz Sandomierz (pronounced: ; la, Sandomiria) is a historic town in south-eastern Poland with 23,863 inhabitants (as of 2017), situated on the Vistula River in the Sandomierz Basin. It has been part of Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship (Holy Cross Prov ...

. Furthermore, at the nearby village of Morsko was a busy

Vistula The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

river port. At that time, Koszyce had its coat of arms, a rectangular market square and a town hall. It also had a suburb called Jawiczowice. First mention of Koszyce's parish church comes from mid-15th century. The town was governed by a wojt, together with a council. In the mid-17th century, there were app. 70 artisans at Koszyce. The town had a Holy Cross hospital and a parish school, and among its most famous residents was a physician named Jakub Grzywna, who moved to Koszyce from Krakow in 1520, and died here in 1531. The decline of Koszyce was marked by the catastrophic Swedish invasion of Poland, when it was ransacked and burned by the Swedish and Transilvanian invaders. After the Partitions of Poland, Koszyce was first annexed by the

Habsburg Empire The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...

, and in 1815 – 1915, it belonged to the Russian-controlled Congress Poland. During the January Uprising, Koszyce was one of the most important centers of the rebellion, and as a reprisal, the town was stripped of its charter on June 1, 1869.

References

External links

*
Jewish Community in Koszyce
on Virtual Shtetl {{Authority control Koszyce Kraków Voivodeship (14th century – 1795) Kielce Governorate Kielce Voivodeship (1919–1939)