There is a legend enshrouding the beginnings of the Corpus Christi Church standing behind its brick wall. They say it was King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) himself who decided that he would build a church to honour the body of Christ (Latin: Corpus Christi) in the place where a stolen monstrance holding the host was miraculously retrieved: this is how the Polish chronicler Jan Długosz (Johannes Longinus) described the foundation of the church. The truth, however, is that Kazimierz, which was granted a charter in 1335, needed its own church. And it duly received one: situated on a large plot of land, far away from other developments, and surrounded by a cemetery. In 1405, it was entrusted into the care of the Canons Regular of the Lateran, brought here from Lower Silesia, who still carry out the mission.This is where King of Sweden Charles Gustav made his headquarters during the Swedish invasion of 1655 (called the Swedish Deluge), and it is from here that he commanded the siege of Kraków. The monks were rounded up and practically imprisoned in a single cell and the sacristy. At the time the church’s interior and treasury, and the order’s library suffered great losses. This is the reason why the magnificent Gothic church has survived to this day with nearly solely baroque (added later) furnishings. The lavish decor was perfectly designed to match this most sublime manifestation of austere Gothic architecture.