Dębowiec, Cieszyn County
Dębowiec is a village and the seat of Gmina Dębowiec, Cieszyn County in Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. It has an area of and a population of 1,772 (2007). It lies in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia. Etymology Both Polish and German names are of topographic origins, but with a slightly different meanings. The Polish name is derived from oaks (Polish: dąb, plural dęby) and denotes an oaken part of wood. German name: Baumgarten is a conjunction of two words: Baum (tree) and Garten (garden). History The village was first mentioned in a Latin document of Diocese of Wrocław called Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis from around 1305 as item in Dambonczal. It meant that the village was in the process of location (the size of land to pay a tithe from was not yet precise). The creation of the village was a part of a larger settlement campaign taking place in the late 13th century on the territory of what would later be known as Upper Silesia. The village became a seat of a Catholic parish, first mentioned in an incomplete register of Peter's Pence payment from 1335 as Bemgard and as such being one of the oldest in the region. It was again mentioned in the register of Peter's Pence payment from 1447 among the 50 parishes of Teschen deanery as Bomgarte. The name from 1335 is of Germanic roots and indicates that among long ethnically Polish (Slavic, as the name from Liber fundationis.. is of Slavic origins) citizens an unknown number of German settlers arrived and gave the common village a German name which eventually evolved into Baumgarten. Politically the village belonged initially to the Duchy of Teschen, formed in 1290 in the process of feudal fragmentation of Poland and was ruled by a local branch of Piast dynasty. In 1327 the duchy became a fee of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which after 1526 became part of the Habsburg monarchy. After the 1540s Protestant Reformation prevailed in the Duchy of Teschen and a local Catholic church was taken over by Lutherans. It was taken from them, as one from around fifty buildings in the region, by a special commission and given back to the Roman Catholic Church on 18 April 1654. On 15 March 1793 the village was bought from Marklowski noble family by Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen and included in Teschener Kammer. In 1807 the first school in Dębowiec was opened, before that the local children attended to school in Simoradz. In 1854-1856 new bricked church was built, which replaced old wooden church. Lutherans built a cemetery chapel in 1912. The new school building was opened in 1908, to celebrate 60 years of reign of Franz Joseph I of Austria. After the Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire a modern municipal division was introduced in the re-established Austrian Silesia. The village as a municipality was subscribed to the political district of Bielsko and the legal district of Skoczów. According to the censuses conducted