20. 1025-1320 (1370) - The Piast Royal Crown: Myths and Reality
The thousandth anniversary of the coronation of Bolesław the Brave is an excellent opportunity to sum up the struggles of Polish historiography with the Piast royal crown. From the beginning of modern historical research in Polish lands, it has been one of the key research problems. The short duration of the rule of the first kings, the dramatic crisis immediately after the coronation of Bolesław the Generous, the political fragmentation of the 12th and 13th centuries and the simultaneous birth of the royal idea, and finally the permanent establishment of the Kingdom of Poland in the 14th century are in fact the main axis of the political history of Piast Poland. For almost two hundred years of studies and research, it was the royal dignity that constantly returned as a point of reference for very numerous and sometimes very different analyses and studies. The issue of the Piast crown has also been the subject of significant syntheses, with the monumental work of Oswald Balzer at the forefront. An attempt to take a new look at this rich baggage of Polish historiography, and above all, a discussion, can yield very interesting results.
The paper is devoted to reading the chronicle of Gallus Anonymus in the light of human-animal relations. My presentation will look at the animal metaphor of power and predatory rulership of Prince Boleslaw III the Wrymouth from the perspective of posthumanist anthropology. The research questions concern what type of zoon politikon Boleslaw III was (and Piast rulers in general), how he acquired such traits, and what this “animalization” of the Wrymouth tells us about political culture in 12th-century Poland. And what the animal nature of Boleslaw III tells us about his conflict with Prince Zbigniew and the dynastic crisis of the 1110s.
2025-09-19 11:30-12:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
The period from the 960s to the 1060s marks an era in history when Polish and Scandinavian developments was closely related in the formation of new Christian kingdoms within the Roman church. In this presentation I discuss the links that connected the lines of conflict within the Polish and Scandinavian kingdoms as evidenced from dynastic and ecclesiastical perspectives. There might be resons to distinguish two major centers of contact in Poland, for two very different political and ecclesiastical spheres in Scandinavia during these years.
2025-09-19 09:30-10:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
In the initial part of the Annals of Traska, its author manifested significant historiographical ambitions. Having at his disposal a stock of sources which, together with the Annals of Traska, were transcribed into the Zamoyski codex, the author created three characteristics of Bolesław Chrobry. The first is placed under the year of his birth (967) and concerns the conquests of Chrobry and the hosting of St Adalbert in Gniezno. The second entry, under 1002, concerns the royal coronation of Bolesław by Emperor Otto III and the Kyiv expedition. It is a counterpoint to an earlier entry (1001), reporting on Mieszko I's unsuccessful efforts to obtain a royal crown in the Holy See. The third entry, placed under the year 1081, reporting on the death of King Bolesław Chrobry and summarising his conquests, poses the greatest interpretative challenge. Did the author of the Annals of Traska replace Bolesław II, with Bolesław I Chrobry deliberately or by mistake?
2025-09-19 15:30-16:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
The idea of the royal crown of the rulers of Poland in thirteenth-century political thought, historiography and historiosophy was a phenomenon in many respects exceptional. It drew from many sources. It brought with it a response to the current needs of the Piast princes who had supra-regional ambitions. It was above all an expression of the intellectual maturity of the Kraków, Greater Poland and Silesian church elites. At the same time, it testified to the political maturity of people from the circle of power and the broadly understood powerful knighthood from various parts of Poland. It responded to the political and historiosophical ideas of a similar nature that appeared in Europe at that time. It brought with it a new stage in the history of Polish medieval historiography, the direct consequence of which was the historiography of the reborn Kingdom of of Poland in the fourteenth century.
2025-09-19 12:30-13:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
The concept of s.c unification tendencies, actively sought by scholars as early as the first half of the 13th century, has become a historiographical paradigm in Polish studies. These tendencies are believed to have intensified over time, culminating in the early 14th century with the monarchy of the last Piast rulers of Kuyavia. This process is presented as unidirectional and driven by objective historical forces. The first stage of this supposed progression is linked to the so-called monarchy of the Silesian dukes and their alleged coronation plans, as well as the development of a mature "ideology of unification" by the Dominican chronicler Vincent. This ideology is thought to have influenced Piast rulers in shaping their political programs. In this framework, unification and the royal crown are treated as synonymous, despite the first Piast coronation in the 13th century clearly contradicting this view. This paper aims to critically reassess these entrenched interpretations.
2025-09-19 12:00-12:30, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
The year 2025 will mark exactly 1,000 years not only since the coronation of Bolesław I, but also since the coronation of Mieszko II. However there is a basic difference between them. Bolesław achieved the crown after more than 30 years of rule, as the culmination of his successful rule of the state. The crown rested on Mieszko's temple at the beginning of his reign, but only a few years later he lost it irretrievably. In the proposed paper, I intend to present once again how the royal reign of Mieszko II was seen by old Polish and foreign historiography, and also - more importantly - how many of these older perceptions are confirmed by the results of the latest research. I will also address the fundamental problem of how many times and when Mieszko made war expeditions to the territories of Saxony and which side (Poland or Germany) is responsible, in the light of the latest research on sources from the Reich, for initiating the inflaming of mutual relations at the end of the 1020s.
2025-09-19 10:00-10:30, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
The stabilization of the royal dignity in 1320 presented Władysław the Elbow-high with a number of challenges. The most famous and spectacular ones were connected with the necessity of defending the acquired crown, maintaining territorial unity and finally overcoming crises which the king himself caused. However, the new kingdom also faced another challenge, which was to build the ideological foundation of its existence. The coronation itself and subordinating part of the Piast lands to itself were not enough to create a stable foundation allowing the monarchy to survive. And it was not only about external threats, although in the case of the Luxembourg claims as well, but above all about the internal cohesion of the rule. It is therefore worth tracing how Władysław the Elbow-high, and above all his son Casimir, built this ideological foundation of their power, what constituted for them the essence of the identity of the new kingdom? What tools and content did they reach for to legitim
2025-09-19 16:00-16:30, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
In the first version of the Piast dynastic tradition, Bolesław's royal power was not clearly embedded in the origins of the history of Poland. In the contents of a chronicle by an anonymous historian written in the first quarter of the 12th century, the celebration of the ruler's elevation was linked to the stay of Emperor Otto III in Gniezno. However, the chronicler himself was undecided whether the ceremony described was a proper coronation. And the royal power of the Piasts played an ambiguous role in his story. Master Vincent took a different approach to it. For him, the law-making king was an indispensable part of the harmony of the whole world. This principle, derived from Christian tradition, but also present outside it, translated into a high appreciation of the function of the king in the history of the Poles. But was the pronunciation of the two versions of the dynastic tradition so different? And if so, what social phenomena and political ideas led to this change?
2025-09-19 10:30-11:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
In the 15th century, there was a widespread belief that the kingdom of Poland was established when Otto III met with Boleslaw the Brave in Gniezno. This opinion functioned not only in Polish historiography and hagiography. In the 15th century it began to be used in Polish political thought, especially during the disputes of the Polish Kingdom with the Teutonic Order. The paper aims to present the role of information about the Piast kingdom in the political thought of the 15th century.
2025-09-19 16:30-17:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
Despite a long research tradition, the question of both the reasons for the coronation of three of the 11th-century Piast rulers as well as the lack of coronation in the case of the others, remains unclear. A broader comparative context, taking into account the peripheral areas of Western Christianity allows us to question the view of coronation as a somewhat natural goal and course of events. The paper attempts to look at the problem anew, considering the circumstances determining the coronations or lack thereof in the case of individual Piast rulers and - more importantly - by placing the issue of Piast coronations in two close, but different comparative contexts, provided by the early coronation traditions of the Přemyslids and the Arpads. The aim of the paper is to provide an answer to the question of what should be regarded as the norm in the 11th-century Piast realm: the coronation or the lack thereof.
2025-09-19 09:00-09:30, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 1.27
