OELS  , a

town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, formerly the capital of a mediatized principality of its own name . It lies in a sandy plain on the Oelsbach, 20 m . N.E. of Breslau by rail . Pop . (1905) 10,940 . The princely chateau, now the property of the crown prince of Prussia, dating from 1558 and beautifully restored in 1891–1894, contains a good library and a collection of pictures . Of its three Evangelical churches, the Schlosskirche dates from the 13th century and the Propstkirche from the 14th . The inhabitants are chiefly engaged in making shoes and growing vegetables for the Breslau market . Oels was founded about 940, and became a town in 1255 . It appears as the capital of an independent principality at the beginning of the 14th century . The principality, with an area of 700 sq. m. and about 130,000 inhabitants, passed through various hands and was inherited by the ducal family of Bruns-wick in 1792 . Then on the extinction of this family in 1884 it lapsed to the crown of Prussia .

See W . Hausler, Geschichte

des Furstentums Ols bis zum Aussterben der piastischen Herzogslinie (Breslau, 1883) ; and Schulze, Die Succession im Furstentum Ols (Breslau, 1884) .