Widawa was founded in the Middle Ages. In 1388 King Władysław II Jagiełło vested Widawa with town rights. Administratively it was located in the Sieradz Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Polish Crown. In 1638 the local Wężyk Widawski noble family founded a Bernardine monastery. During the Deluge (Swedish invasion of Poland), a battle between Poland and Sweden was fought nearby in 1656, and the town was devastated. The Walewski family rebuilt the monastery in the following decades and erected the Baroque church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which remains the greatest historic landmark of Widawa. Nowadays, a museum is located in the monastery. In the 18th century, one of two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town and Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland often traveled that route.