The name of the town is probably derived from
Slavic (
Old Polish)
Boleslaw, meaning "great glory", a favoured dynastic name in the Polish royal
House of Piast. According to legend, The
Silesian duke
Bolesław I the Tall (1127–1201) had a hunting lodge erected near the later town, later called
Bolkewice or, adjusted to the German pronunciation,
Polkovicz (1333). In the
Statuta synodalia episcoporum Wratislaviensium from 1475 the town is named
Polkewicze and
Polkowice. As a result of the
fragmentation of Poland into smaller duchies, it became part of the
Duchy of Silesia, and later on the
Duchy of Głogów. Polkowice was mentioned as a town (
civitas) in a 1276 deed. It remained part of the Duchy of Głogów, ruled by the Polish houses of Piast and
Jagiellon, including future Polish kings
John I Albert and
Sigismund I the Old, until the duchy's dissolution in 1506, when it was incorporated into the
Bohemian (Czech) Kingdom under the
Holy Roman Empire. Parts of the medieval town were destroyed by a blaze in 1457, it suffered further damages during the
Thirty Years' War and by a plague epidemic in 1680. After the
First Silesian War in 1742, it was annexed by
Prussia and later incorporated into the
Province of Silesia. During the
Napoleonic Wars, the town was visited by
Napoleon twice, in 1807 and 1812. The town was renamed
Heerwegen in 1937 by
German Nazi authorities during a campaign of erasing placenames of Polish origin. During
World War II, a German
forced labour subcamp of the prison in
Jawor was operated in the present-day district of
Polkowice Dolne. On January 11, 1945, the German administration evacuated the population, leaving only the army in the town. On February 9, 1945, the town was captured by the
Red Army. Afterwards the abandoned town became part of Poland, in accordance with the preliminary border regulations of the
Potsdam Agreement. The town was repopulated by
Poles, many displaced from
former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. In 2005 the neighbouring village of
Polkowice Dolne was included within the town limits. ==Education==