Wołów

Wołów grew near a castle recorded in 1157, when the surrounding land belonged to the Piast rulers of Poland. Its name derives from the Polish word for an ox, an animal that appears on its old seals. Granted Magdeburg rights around 1285, the town later became a centre of clothmaking and belonged in turn to several Silesian duchies.

Duke Frederick II introduced the Reformation in 1522, shortly before Wołów returned to Piast rule under the dukes of Legnica. The Thirty Years' War reduced its population by half. After the last local Piast died in 1675, the Habsburg authorities closed the parish church to Protestants and gave it to Catholics in 1682. It was returned to the Protestant community in 1707. Prussia annexed the town in 1742, and a serious fire followed in 1781.