The question of the beginnings of the monastery town of Wąchock has been pre-sent in Polish historiography since the 1930s. All the doubts concerning the location of the town have not been settled yet, especially those connected with the relation monastery/feudal master and the settlement processes in its direct vicinity, which led to town location and the development of the urban organism. The text presents the existing interpretations of the written sources connected with the location of villages and towns in Cistercian domains on the background of their general economic devel-opment and points out the facts which could have stimulated or inhibited settlement and land use. It also poses a hypothesis, well grounded in sources, that the actual beginnings of Wąchock cannot be dated earlier than the first half of the 15th century. The text constitutes a contribution to a long lasting discussion about a widespread phenomenon in this part of Europe of small and average sized towns in the economic landscape of the Middle Ages and the early modern period.