Strzegom

Strzegom 'stszegom (Striegau) is a town in Świdnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the Gmina Strzegom administrative district (gmina). It lies approximately north-west of Świdnica, and west of the regional capital Wrocław. As of 2019, the town had a population of 16,106. Traces of settlement on the site during the Roman Empire period have been found. In the Middle Ages it was a fortified settlement under the rule of a castellan, founded in the 10th century, as part of Piast Poland, first mentioned in a deed issued by Pope Hadrian IV in 1155, confirming the boundaries of the Wrocław diocese. Its name is of Polish origin and comes either from the words strzec ("guard"), strzyc głowy ("cut hair") or trzy góry ("three mountains"). As a result of the fragmentation of Poland into smaller duchies, Strzegom became part of the Duchy of Silesia in the 12th century. The Piast Castle was built at that time. At the same time the building of the St. Peter and Paul parish church began, from 1203 under the patronage of the Order of Saint John. To help rebuild the devastated region after the first Mongol invasion of Poland (1241), Strzegom town granted town privileges by Anne of Bohemia, widow of the Silesian duke Henry II the Pious. In 1248 it passed to the Silesian Duchy of Legnica under Henry's son Bolesław II the Bald, contested by his nephew Henryk IV Probus, who, imprisoned by his uncle at Jelcz, finally had to renounce Strzegom in 1277. Since the 13th century Strzegom was a center of clothmaking. In the 1290s the defensive walls were erected. In 1307 a Benedictine monastery was established. In 1318 a bell was placed in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, it remains the oldest bell still operating in Poland. From the late 13th century the town of Strzegom belonged to the Duchy of Jawor and Świdnica under Bolko I the Strict, and until 1392 was ruled by his descendants of the Silesian Piasts.