 First mentioned in an ecclesiastical document in 1398, the village was administratively part of the Roman Catholic parish of St. Matthew in Pabianice from the late Middle Ages until 1910, and together with Pabianice it belonged to the Cathedral Chapter of Kraków until the Prussian invasion of 1793.After negotiations between the Chapter and the Prussian government following the second partition of Poland, the Chapter was compensated for the loss of lands, which became a property of the Prussian state, later to be incorporated into the Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1815) during the Napoleonic wars.After the Congress of Vienna, Retkinia, alongside Łódź and Pabianice, became part of the newly created Congress Poland, a client state of the Russian Empire.