Police nad Metují

History

Several hermits settled in the local forest at the beginning of the 13th century. The first written record of the community is a charter dated 1213 (suspected of being a counterfeit but the date seems to hold), by which King Přemysl Otakar I donated the area to Břevnov Monastery (Prague). In a document dated 1229, by which King Václav I confirmed the donation, he described the area as "a large dreadful wasteland".

Police was granted town charter on September 6, 1253, when King Přemysl Otakar II endowed it with the right to hold markets. Police is thus the oldest settlement in the Broumov bulge. the Benedictines settled here to colonize the wider area. All the other towns of the District of Náchod were settled later.

1253 was also the year in which the building of the imposing early-Gothic church was initiated (completed in 1294). The development of the monastery, initiated earlier in the 13th century, was accomplished in 1306.

At the onset of the Hussite wars, the town was sacked and burnt by the Catholic Silesians on May 27, 1421. Men were slaughtered, women raped, 40 boys had their right feet and left hands severed and their noses cut off. Some burgesses sought refuge in the rock labyrinth on the nearby Ostaš mountain but the Silesians went even there to murder. The monastery was not renewed until after the Hussite wars.

The town was almost completely destroyed in the great fire of 1535. It was close the hotbed of a large peasant rebellion in 1775. The monastery and the church were renovated in the Baroque style in the 18th century. The monastery was abolished by edict of Emperor Joseph II in 1786.

Police was growing in importance as a hub of business and culture in the first half of the 19th century. The promising development was slowed after the opening of the railway from Choceň to Meziměstí, which bypassed the town.

A library and tourist information office was opened on September 9, 2007.

Twin towns — Sister cities

Police nad Metují is twinned with: