The name of the town is probably derived from Slavic (Old Polish) "Boleslaw", meaning "great glory", a favoured dynastic name in the Polish royal House of Piast. According to legend, The Silesian duke Bolesław I the Tall (1127–1201) had a hunting lodge erected near the later town, later called "Bolkewice" or, adjusted to the German pronunciation, "Polkovicz" (1333). In the "Statuta synodalia episcoporum Wratislaviensium" from 1475 the town is named "Polkewicze" and "Polkowice". As a result of the fragmentation of Poland into smaller duchies, it became part of the Duchy of Silesia, and later on the Duchy of Głogów. Polkowice was mentioned as a town ("civitas") in a 1276 deed. It remained part of the Duchy of Głogów, ruled by the Polish houses of Piast and Jagiellon, including future Polish kings John I Albert and Sigismund I the Old, until the duchy's dissolution in 1506, when it was incorporated into the Bohemian (Czech) Kingdom.