22. Auxiliary Sciences of History in Research on the History of Poland from the 10th to the 13th Century: Past – Present – Future
The focus of this section will be the presence and usefulness of the auxiliary sciences of history, particularly diplomatics, genealogy, heraldry, historical iconography, numismatics, palaeography, and sigillography, in the study of the earliest history of Piast rule. We aim to explore not only the possibilities that arise from their skillful application in understanding various aspects of the functioning of Piast power—from political and social history, to the history of the Church, cultural history (both political and intellectual), and the ideology of power—both in the past and in the present, but also to outline perspectives for their future use.//Topic proposed by the Section of Auxiliary Sciences of History and Source Studies at the Committee of Historical Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN)
In the planned presentation, the Author intends to discuss the contribution of auxiliary historical sciences to the study of the iconography of Piast rulers in the 10th-13th centuries, with particular emphasis on analytical methods used in heraldry, sigillography, numismatics, and codicology. The discussion will cover not only the images themselves but also their functions, contexts of creation, and ideological content aimed at legitimizing power, shaping dynastic identity, and conveying specific political and religious messages. The Author will also highlight the challenges associated with interpreting the surviving sources and present possible perspectives for further research in this field, including the use of modern technologies for the analysis and reconstruction of the iconographic heritage of the Piast dynasty.
2025-09-19 13:00-13:30, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 2.06
Previous research on the figure of the Wawel Whole-Eater is confined to several scientific disciplines: history, literary studies, and archaeology. Literature is leading us to the provenance of the creature appearing in the works of Wincenty Kadłubek. He was supposed to use the then-popular so-called "Romance of Alexander" - a story about Alexander the Great, which circulated in various content and language versions for centuries (from the 3rd/4th century AD to the modern period). Interestingly, not all versions contain the motif of the creature (and therefore identical to the Wawel beast), or at least not the Latin versions from which Kadłubek could draw. The Coptic "Romance" is supposed to be one of those versions that contain the so-called "dragon episode" (the other is the Syriac version). My presentation - as a classical philologist and coptologist - intends to examine the Coptic text of the "Romance" to verify the validity of the thesis about the presence of the "dragon question"
2025-09-19 09:00-09:30, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 2.06
Using the example of the analysis of the electronic version of Regesta Imperii, the author intends to demonstrate that it is possible to date Otto II's expedition against Mieszko I very precisely, and then precisely determine the time and circumstances of Mieszko I's marriage to Oda, daughter of Dytryk.
2025-09-19 09:30-10:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 2.06
The presentation will deal with the history of Polish research on hagiography in the context of the development of the auxiliary sciences of history. The revolutionary endeavor of the Bollandists, the great publishing projects initiated in the 19th century, subsequent developments within historiography and, above all, in the methods of external criticism of historical sources - to what extent - and in what configuration - did these factors influence the Polish study of the lives of saints? Special emphasis will be placed on Polish editions of Latin vitae - after all, the content developed and methods used by publishers have determined our knowledge of the quantitative (and, to a lesser extent, qualitative) aspects of the writing and reception of hagiographic texts in the Polish Middle Ages. The last part of the talk will try to highlight some promising ways out of the relative impasse in which the research on Polish hagiography has found itself.
2025-09-19 13:30-14:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 2.06
Research on medieval narrative sources in Poland has already resulted in many important studies. Scholars have analysed various types of texts, reaching also for various methods of narrative analysis. The variety of techniques used, although beneficial in itself, has, however, hindered mutual communication and evaluation of the results obtained. The main problems were the adaptation of the tools of analysis to the texts studied. The consideration of genre differences (insofar as we are dealing with text genres) and the verification of research techniques then is an urgent demand. Two further issues that I would like to at least hint at are the usefulness of this kind of research for historical science, and its relation to other textual studies concerning historical sources e.g. linguistic or manuscript studies. It also concerns the relationship of the narrative to the source as a whole. The purpose of flagging this issue is to encourage discussion on the subject and to propose one's own solutions.
2025-09-19 11:30-12:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 2.06
Numismatic sources play an important role in research on the ideology of power in early medieval Poland. The specific function of coins, which were primarily a means of exchange, but also a medium for transmitting specific content (in the first period of Polish coinage, this second function even came to the fore), makes them a very important iconographic and epigraphic source. Other types of sources from this early era have survived only fragmentarily. The subject of the paper will be an analysis of the dies of some Polish coins, starting from Bolesław the Brave and ending with Bolesław the Curly (the so-called denarius period), along with an attempt to sum up the state of research.
2025-09-19 10:30-11:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 2.06
In the planned presentation, the Author intends to explore the significance of the increasingly popular field of fragmentology (the study of manuscript fragments), which has emerged from codicological and palaeographical research. This will be examined in the context of existing knowledge about the presence and familiarity with manuscript books in the state of the first Piasts (10th–13th centuries). To this end, the Author will make use of a collection of manuscript fragments preserved at the Research Laboratory for Auxiliary Sciences of History and Source Studies at Jagiellonian University.
2025-09-19 12:30-13:00, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 2.06
Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla Polskiej Akademii Nauk
The question of the existence or non-existence of documents in the state of the first Piasts (10th-11th centuries) has long been troubling historians. We do not know of such diplomas, but it is sometimes assumed that they could have existed but were lost. To solve the matter, we must reach for analogies, and above all, try to reconstruct the system of social communication in the early Piast state - which will allow us to determine whether there was a need and possibility of using documents. Finally, an intriguing clue is provided by the finds of ducal lead bulls discovered in recent decades.
2025-09-19 12:00-12:30, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM, 2.06
