Several thousand years ago, West Slavic tribes settled down in today’s Wiślica (name deriving from Vistula river). Wiślica was for a long time an important center of the Vistulan tribal state. The legend of “Life of St. Methodius” states that around 880, Vistulans’ Prince was baptized by the missionaries of St. Cyril and Methodius. This fact is confirmed by a circular trough with a diameter of 4.5 m called the baptismal bowl.
The prosperity and development of Wiślica was ensured by the rule of the Polish king Bolesław Krzywousty’s sons – thanks to them, in the second half of the 12th century, the first Romanesque church was built in Wiślica. The unique “Plate of Chasubles” comes from that church and has been preserved to this day. In the 13th century another church was erected, called the Basilica of St. Church of the Holy Trinity. The current collegiate church of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built on the foundations of two earlier Romanesque churches in the years 1350-70, on the initiative of the Polish King Casimir III the Great.
The Wiślica basilica is a well-preserved example of Gothic architecture. The building was built of stone. The gable rebuilt after the war is made of brick. The church has a lower presbytery, polygonally closed, stellar and rib vaults with headstones with coats of arms of the Kingdom of Poland. The walls of the presbytery are decorated with frescoes in the Byzantine-Ruthenian style. The Gothic tabernacle and Renaissance epitaphs of the Wiślica priests have been preserved.
There is a worshipped stone figure of the Smiling Mother of God called “Łokietkowa” from around 1300. The Polish princes fought with each other for Wiślica during the district breakup. Legend has it that one of the them (the later king of Poland) Władysław Łokietek prayed in front of the statue during ongoing fights for unification of the country. The prince took Wiślica in 1304.
The temple was renovated in the 17th century. It was plundered during the invasion of the Swedes, then ruined during the First World War. After a 9-years’ reconstruction, it was consecrated again on September 7, 1926.
On September 8, 2005, the Wiślica Collegiate Church received the title of minor basilica.