Brdów

Brdów is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Babiak, within Koło County in the Greater Poland Voivodeship, in central Poland. The first written mention of the place dates from 1136, and a Catholic parish is recorded there from 1325. In 1436 King Ladislaus of Varna brought the Pauline Fathers from Jasna Góra to Brdów and placed the parish church in their care, and in the same year the settlement gained town privileges. It became a royal property in 1476, had its civic rights renewed in 1562 under Sigismund II Augustus, was destroyed by the Swedes in 1655 and lost its civic rights in 1870. The Church of St Adalbert of Prague, kept by the Pauline Fathers, makes Brdów a local centre of Catholic religious life, and in 1983 the Image of Our Lady of Victories of Brdów was crowned by Pope John Paul II. Recorded population rose from 331 in 1777 to 1,894 in 1902 and stood at 950 in 2014.