Duchy of Legnica

The Duchy of Legnica was a Silesian principality ruled by a branch of the Piast dynasty from 1248 until 1675. It emerged when Boleslaw II the Bald, duke of Lower Silesia, was forced to cede central territories to his brother Henry III and withdrew to Legnica. The town had been a ducal residence since 1163 and became the seat of an independent duchy in its own right for more than four centuries. Legnica shared the fate of other Silesian duchies, passing under Bohemian overlordship in the fourteenth century and later under Habsburg rule; after the First Silesian War the region fell to Prussia. The line of the Legnica Piasts died out in 1675 with Duke George William, and the duchy was absorbed by the Habsburg monarchy. The nearby battle of Legnica in 1241, where a Mongol army defeated a Christian coalition, gave the town a lasting place in the memory of the Mongol invasion of Europe.