THE HISTORY OF WROCLAW
The origins of Wroclaw are unknown. There may well have been community here in Roman times, bit the earliest documentary evidence is a ninth-century record of a Slav market town called Wratislavia situated on a large island at the point where the sand-banked shallows of the River Odra were easily crossed. Subsequently, this became Ostrow Tumski (Cathedral Island) in honour of the bishopric founded here in 1000 by Boleslaw the Brave. Wroclaw continued to grow in the next two centuries mainly due to its thriving trade economy and craftsmanship; however in 1241, along with most of southern Poland, the city fell foul of the marauding Tartar army and was razed to the ground. The town leaders used this misfortune as an opportunity to rebuild the city around a massive Market Square on the south side of the River Odra, the same Market Square that you can still see today. This ambitious building program was a success and soon Wroclaw was enjoying a healthy revival; however in 1336, the last of the Piast Princes died and the duchy of Silesia was annexed to Bohemia - despite the efforts of King Kazimierz the Great to hold onto it. His failure to do so meant that it was six hundred years until Wroclaw was returned to Polish hands. By this time the inhabitants, although often of Polish ancestry, had become mainly German in speech. The overwhelming majority became Lutheran Protestants during the Reformation, but they were forcibly suppressed during the Catholic Reformation by the Jesuits, who were working with the support of the Habsburg rulers. The early 17th century saw a marked downturn in fortunes for Wroclaw, as both the Thirty Years War (1618-48) and the plague took their toll on the city, what saw the population reduced by half. However when the warring factions of Europe eventually signed the Treaty of Westphalia and bring an end to the fighting, it was business as usual for Wroclaw and an economic and cultural revival began.

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