Attraction

Little Market Square in Krakow: houses and St Barbara's

A square behind St Mary's Basilica that served from the Middle Ages as a secondary market for the Main Market Square. Its houses include No. 6, where Merkuriusz Polski was printed in 1661.

From the Middle Ages, the Little Market Square (Mały Rynek) in Krakow, just behind St Mary's Basilica, served as a secondary market for the Main Market Square. Today it is an open public square and a quieter counterpart to the main square, used for fairs and food festivals. St Barbara's Church, run by the Jesuits, stands by the square.

Address: Mały Rynek, 31-041 Krakow.
Tickets: none; you can walk onto the square at any time.
Mass times: St Barbara's Church has a Mass in German on Sundays at 14:30.

What to see on the Little Market Square

The east side: the houses on this side are Gothic in their structure. Later rebuildings changed their façades.
No. 1: the house of the merchant Herman Fritsch was rebuilt in the Baroque style. A figure of a knight stands in its corner niche.
No. 6: the Szoberowska House has a late Gothic façade. In 1661 the newspaper Merkuriusz Polski was printed in this house; the City of Krakow calls it the oldest Polish newspaper.
No. 7: the house of the penitentiary priests of St Mary's has a courtyard with late Renaissance wooden galleries, probably modelled on the courtyard at Wawel.
The Lamelli House: it closes the north side, on the corner of Szpitalna Street. It was formed from several Gothic houses in the second half of the 18th century.

Mały Rynek is part of a culinary trail, the Historyczny Krakowski Szlak Kulinarny (Historic Krakow Culinary Trail). The trail links the square with three butchers' products: kiełbasa krakowska sucha, kiełbasa piaszczańska and kiszka krakowska.

St Barbara's Church and its Gethsemane chapel

To the left of the main entrance of St Barbara's Church is the Ogrójec. This chapel stands against the church wall and dates from the end of the 15th century, with stone figures of Christ in Gethsemane and three sleeping apostles. The Jesuits describe it as the only monument of its kind in Poland. In 1488 the burgher Adam Szwarc endowed its altar, and services for the dead of the nearby St Mary's cemetery were held in the chapel.

The church has a single nave. It was first built in the Gothic style, and Gothic walls are still visible on the west and north sides, facing Plac Mariacki. The interior now has a clearly Baroque character.

The high altar holds a wooden crucifix from 1410-1420. Around it are Baroque figures made around 1721 by Brother Dawid Heel SJ, who came from Swabia. Two large bronze candlesticks cast in Nuremberg were placed in front of the altar at the end of 1598, and they still stand there. Of the windows in the vault, only three are real; the other seven are imitations made of mirrors.

A Gothic Pietà, a figure of the Sorrowful Mother of God from about 1420, stands in the niche of a former side entrance, opposite the pulpit. It is attributed to an artist known only as the Master of the Beautiful Madonnas (Mistrz Pięknych Madonn). In 1942 the Germans took the Pietà to Wawel for an exhibition. It returned to the church on 4 June 1945.

On the outer walls facing Plac Mariacki are epitaphs, which are memorial tombstones. One of them belongs to the pharmacist Jerzy Pipan of Ljubljana. On the north side of the church, a plaque honours Father Jakub Wujek SJ. It was set into the wall for the 350th anniversary of the publication of his translation of the Bible.

The oldest document about the church dates from 5 September 1338. It is a letter from the City Council to the pope about indulgences for a cemetery chapel, which the burgher Mikołaj Wierzynek had built in the St Mary's cemetery. During the Sejm, the Polish parliament, held in Krakow in 1536-1537, King Zygmunt I ordered the Polish sermons to be moved to St Mary's and the German sermons to St Barbara's.

With the support of King Stefan Batory, the Jesuits received the church at a ceremony on 7 February 1583. In 1583-1612 they bought three nearby Gothic houses, and in 1615 they rebuilt them as their religious house, now Mały Rynek 8. In 1687 they added an apse on the east side and a new vault, two metres higher than the Gothic vault.

In 1773 the pope dissolved the Jesuit order worldwide. The Jesuits lived in the house again from 8 October 1909, and they received ownership of the church in 1910.

History of Mały Rynek, the former Butcher's Market

In the Middle Ages the square was connected to Plac Mariacki. Only a few wooden houses of the sacristans and some stalls separated the two. The building of the vicars' house in 1631 closed the square on the Plac Mariacki side.

Later, the trade on the square was mainly in meat and fish. From the 18th century the square was called the Butcher's Market, because the town's meat stalls stood here and the life of the butchers' guild was centred around them. A market for used goods and a kitchen for the poor also operated by the square.

Old documents name the square Forum antiquum, Tandeta and Rynek Stary, among other names. The name forum antiquum came from the trade in second-hand goods. Around 1820 the square still had no name of its own and was described as the square in front of St Barbara's Church. The historian Adam Chmiel wrote that the name Mały Rynek appeared only in the middle of the 19th century.

At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, the wooden stalls disappeared. The meat trade moved to other parts of the city, and the square became a fruit and vegetable market. The square received its present shape in the first years of the 19th century, after the demolition of St Mary's school at the corner of Stolarska and Sienna Streets.

Tram lines destroyed the square's character as a market. One line ran along Sienna Street from 1902, and another crossed the middle of the square towards Plac Mariacki from 1935. The tram was removed in 1953, but the stalls did not return. A rebuilding of the square in 2006 removed a car park.

Access to the square and Mass at St Barbara's

The Little Market Square is public space. You can walk onto it from the street at any time, and there is no ticket. St Barbara's Church is a working church with its entrance on Plac Mariacki. On Sundays at 14:30 there is a Mass in German (times as listed in October 2026).

The church's patronal feast, called odpust in Polish, falls on 4 December, the feast day of St Barbara. Service times can change, so check the current details on the Jesuits' website for St Barbara's Church before your visit.

Near the Little Market Square: St Mary's and Mickiewicz

All distances below are in a straight line. St Mary's Basilica is about 100 m from the square, and the Adam Mickiewicz Monument is about 150 m away. St Adalbert's Church stands about 200 m away, and the obwarzanek street carts are about 50 m away.

Little Market Square: questions visitors ask

Where is the Little Market Square in Krakow?

Just behind St Mary's Basilica. Its address is Mały Rynek, 31-041 Krakow.

Why was Mały Rynek called the Butcher's Market?

Because the town's meat stalls stood there. The name was used from the 18th century, when the butchers' guild had its centre around those stalls.

What was printed on the Little Market Square in 1661?

Merkuriusz Polski, a newspaper printed in the Szoberowska House at No. 6. It appeared for a little over half a year, and part of that time it was published in Warsaw.