Bolesław IV of Legnica

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Bolesław IV of Legnica (Polish: Bolesław IV legnicki) was a Polish noble from the Silesian Piasts. He was born around 1349 and died on 3 or 4 March 1394. He served as Duke of Legnica from 1364, but he ruled together with his brothers and without much independent power.

He was the third son of Wenceslaus I of Legnica and Anna of Cieszyn. After their father’s death in 1364, Bolesław and his three brothers—Rupert I, Wenceslaus II, and Henry VIII—along with their sister Hedwig, were placed under the guardianship of their uncle Louis I the Fair. To keep Legnica from being divided again, the brothers agreed on 2 December 1372 that the duchy would remain undivided for ten years, a deal that was later extended. Real power stayed with the elder brother Rupert I, and Bolesław and his brothers ruled Legnica only in name.

In 1365, at the request of Pope Urban V and with the backing of Emperor Charles IV, Bolesław IV was granted the rich Prebendary of the Kraków and Wrocław dioceses. By 1373 he left his clerical path and stepped back from active governance, taking a greater interest in politics. On 6 July 1376 he participated in the coronation of King Wenceslaus IV in Aachen.

The formal and complete resignation of Bolesław IV and his brothers from governing Legnica was confirmed on 6 January 1383, during the renewal of homage to Wenceslaus IV. He died without children, from a fatal wound sustained at a tournament, sometime between 3 and 4 March 1394.