Point 15 - Town History

Town History

In contrast to the land around Bautzen, which was already inhabited by the Sorbs, the Schirgiswalde area was only developed by Frankish settlers in the 12th century. The forest was cleared and the village of Schirgiswalde developed on both sides of a small stream flowing from the Hohberg into the Spree.

A Waldhufendorf is a type of rural settlement with a uniform layout consisting of strips of farmland and forest facing each other in a row along the road, with the farm buildings located along the road.

Over time, two manors were established whose owners were subject to the Bohemian castle of Tollenstein, which is why the nearby town of Budissin (later Bautzen) was not the administrative seat of Schirgiswalde.

Schirgiswalde was later freed from this feudal dependency by the Bohemian crown and remained a Bohemian enclave when Upper Lusatia was transferred to Saxony in 1635.

After the Thirty Years' War, Schirgiswalde was proclaimed a town by Emperor Leopold I on February 19, 1665. This was followed by an economic boom. The district of Neuschirgiswalde was founded and settled by linen weaving families from Bohemia.

When the Counter-Reformation set in from Bohemia, Schirgiswalde, as a Catholic town, also separated itself from the surrounding Saxon areas in terms of denomination.