Lębork (; ; ) is a town of 37,000 people on the Łeba and Okalica rivers in the Gdańsk Pomerania region in northern Poland. It is the capital of Lębork County in Pomeranian Voivodeship.
History
Middle Ages
The region formed part of Poland since the establishment of the country in the 10th century. The town was founded on the site of a previous Slavic settlement, dating back to the 10th century. Its name was Germanised to Lewin and then Lewinburg by the Teutonic Knights, after annexation from Poland in 1310. In 1341 Dietrich von Altenburg, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, granted 100 Hufen (similar to hides) to Rutcher von Emmerich for the foundation of a town named Lewinburg (Lauenburg) with Kulm rights, presumably to secure the territory around Stolp (Słupsk). East of the original city the Teutonic Order completed the Ordensburg castle in 1363. The castle was partly razed after the 1410 Battle of Grunwald and remained under Polish control until 1411. In 1440 the town joined the Prussian Confederation, which opposed the Teutonic Knights, and at the request of which King Casimir IV Jagiellon signed the act of re-incorporation of the town and region to the Kingdom of Poland in 1454. The population of Lauenburg was composed in large part of Kashubians, later Slovincians.
In 1454 after the outbreak of the Thirteen Years' War, troops from Danzig (Gdańsk) occupied Lauenburg and Bütow (Bytów); the following year they were turned over to Eric II, Duke of Pomerania, to form an alliance. Because Lauenburg remained loyal to the Prussian Confederation and not the Teutonic Order, King Casimir IV Jagiellon of Poland granted the town three nearby villages. Troops from the Polish-allied city of Gdańsk (Danzig) reoccupied Lauenburg in 1459 when the mayor, Lorenz Senftopf, entered into negotiations with the Teutonic Knights. Eric replaced the Danzigers with Teutonic Knights the following year, however, when he switched sides during the war. After the Teutonic Knights were ultimately defeated in the Thirteen Years' War, Lębork passed to Poland, according to the 1466 Second Peace of Thorn, and was granted by Casimir IV Jagiellon to Eric and his Pomeranian successors as part of the Lauenburg and Bütow Land, a Polish fief.
Modern era
The Protestant Reformation was introduced in the town soon after 1519. The territory came back to Polish King Władysław IV Vasa as a reverted fief and was integrated with the Polish Pomeranian Voivodeship after the 1637 death of Bogislaw XIV, Duke of Pomerania. As Lębork was the leading city of the territory, it became the seat of the eldership (starostwo). The starosts were Stanisław Koniecpolski and Jakub Wejher. The Counter-Reformation was largely ineffective in the Lutheran town. Lębork was occupied by Swedes in the Northern Wars. To gain an ally against Sweden during the Deluge, King John II Casimir of Poland gave the Lauenburg and Bütow Land to Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia as a hereditary fiefdom in the 1657 Treaty of Bromberg. The Swedish troops burnt Lauenburg before their retreat in 1658, destroying seventy houses and the town hall. Frederick William released the town from tax duties for five years to aid in its rebuilding. Lauenburg suffered a second fire in 1682. King John III Sobieski made peaceful attempts to reintegrate the town directly to Poland, but to no avail.
In 1701, Lauenburg/Lębork became a Prussian-administered territory under the sovereignty of the Polish Crown. The 1773 Treaty of Warsaw granted full sovereignty over the territory to Prussia after the First Partition of Poland. The Lauenburg and Bütow Land, transformed into a district (Lauenburg-Bütowscher Kreis), was first included in the newly established province of West Prussia, but was transferred to the province of Pomerania in 1777.