The area was a contact zone between the Finnic Livonians and the Balts, and many prehistoric artifacts have been uncovered there. A Baltic hill-fort named Lenne warden being taken in fief by Albert of Buxhoeveden in 1201 is mentioned in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia. This site is called Dievukalns (Hill of the Gods) in Latvian. A stone castle was constructed by the Riga diocese in 1229; its ruins are still accessible today.
A parochial school was established when the area was part of Swedish Livonia, but ca. 70% of the population perished in the Great Plague of 1710. The opening of the Riga-Daugavpils railroad in 1861 led to the expansion of the town around the railway station Rembate. The town was entirely destroyed inWorld War I but was swiftly rebuilt after Latvia achieved independence.
After the occupation of Latvia and its incorporation into the Soviet Union as the Latvian SSR, Edgars Kauli?� (1903�1979), the local Communist Party secretary, was able to save all of the farmers in the district from deportation during the period of forced collectivization, declaring that there were no kulaksin the area and he would rather be deported himself. In 1948 Kauli?� became the founding chairman of the kolkhoz L??pl?sis ("The Bear Slayer"), now part of Lielv?rde. The kolkhoz became famous for its beer, still brewed in Lielv?rde by AS L??pl?�a alus, part of the Scandinavian Royal Unibrew brewing group since 2005. Lielv?rde air base was built by the Soviets in 1970; the largest in the Baltic States, it was taken over by the Latvian Air Force in 1994
