Nowa Sól

History

The territory became part of the emerging Polish state in the 10th century, and following the country's fragmentation it formed part of the Duchy of Głogów since 1251, ruled by the Piast and Jagiellonian dynasties, including future Polish Kings John I Albert and Sigismund I the Old. The first mention of the settlement in the region of modern Nowa Sól dates back to the 14th century. The Latin book Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis (Polish: Księga uposażeń biskupstwa wrocławskiego) records two Slavic Polish settlements of Stare Żabno mentioned as Sczhabna antiqua and Nowe Żabno as Sczhabna nova. The former is currently a suburb of Nowa Sól and the latter still exists as a village. In 1506, the territory was incorporated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Holy Roman Empire. In order to break Silesia's dependency on salt from Poland, Emperor Ferdinand I founded the demesne land Zum Neuen Saltze in 1563. The sea salt, originally from La Rochelle and the Iberian coast, was transported from Hamburg and Stettin (Szczecin) along the navigable Oder. A flood in 1573 led to the relocation of the salt refinery to the nearby village of Modritz (Modrzyca); the office of the administrator is now the town hall. The settlement was documented as Neusalzburg ("New Salzburg") in 1585 and later as Neusalz ("New Salt"). A trading harbor was built on the Oder in 1592. The Protestant Church of St. Michael, built from 1591 to 1597, was converted to Roman Catholicism in 1654. The entrance of Dutch and English merchants in the Baltic Sea at the end of the 16th century led to difficulties in the supply of unrefined salt. After the Battle of Kunersdorf, Neusalz was plundered on 24 September 1759. During the final stages of the war, in January 1945, remaining prisoners were sent…