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History of Poland
Poland
The Piast monarchy
The early state
The termsPoland and Poles appear for the first time inmedieval chronicles of the late 10th century. The land that the Poles, aWest Slavic people, came to inhabit was covered by forests with small areas under cultivation where clans grouped themselves into numerous tribes. The dukes (dux) were originally the commanders of an armed retinue (drużyna) with which they broke the authority of the chieftains of the clans, thus transforming the original tribal organization into a territorial unit. Two tribes, thePolanie—based around the fortified settlement (castrum) ofGniezno—and theWiślanie—who lived nearKraków—expanded to bring other tribes under their control.
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Exposed to some missionary activities linked withSt. Methodius, the state of Wiślanie fell under the rule ofGreat Moravia—which was destroyed by theMagyar invasion of the early 10th century—and came eventually under the rule ofMieszko I, the first ruler of the Polanie to be mentioned in written records. He is regarded as the founder of thePiast dynasty, the beginnings of which are clouded inlegend, though the names of three of his predecessors are known. Creating what a contemporary Spanish-Jewish traveler, Ibrāhīm ibn Yaʾḳūb, described as the most powerful of the existingSlav states, Mieszko acceptedRoman Catholicism viaBohemia in 966. A missionary bishopric directly dependent on the papacy was established inPoznań. This was the true beginning of Polish history, forChristianity was a carrier of Western civilization with which Poland was henceforth associated.
Facing the crucial problem of Poland’s relationship to the two pillars of medieval Christendom, theGermanicHoly Roman Empire and the papacy, Mieszko battled the expansive tendencies of the former—a record that dates from 963 refers to a struggle with the German dukes—while he sought reliance on Rome, to which he subordinated his state in a curious document, theDagome iudex (c. 991). Poland alternately competed and cooperated with neighbouring Bohemia andHungary as well as with the principality ofKievan Rus. At Mieszko’s death the Polish state stretched from theBaltic Sea to theCarpathian Mountains, resembling in shape post-World War II Poland.
Because the principle ofprimogeniture was unknown in thecountry, every succession led to internal strife. Mieszko’s successor wasBolesław I (the Brave). Commanding a huge military force, he soughthegemony in east-centralEurope. In 1000 he received the Holy Roman EmperorOtto III, who dreamed of restoring a universal Roman empire and who recognized thesovereign status of the Polish duke. Moreover, Otto agreed to an independent Polishecclesiastical organization that added an archbishopric in Gniezno and bishoprics inKraków,Wrocław, andKołobrzeg to the alreadyextant bishopric in Poznań. Given the role of the church in medieval statehood, this was a great achievement. Paying their respects toSt. Adalbert (Vojtěch)—the former bishop of Prague slain by the pagan Prussians and later elevated to sainthood—the two rulers sought to coordinate their missionary activities in the pagan Slav lands between the Elbe and Oder rivers. This area, home of the so-called Polabian Slavs, formed a kind of buffer between the two states and was the object of their respective expansion.
The successors of Otto pursued German objectives rather than imperial mirages and struggled with Bolesław, who briefly occupied Bohemia and intervened in Kievan Rus. Polish-Germanstrife continued intermittently until 1018. In 1025 Bolesław assumed the royal crown, which made him the equal of the other monarchs of Europe.
Collapse and restoration
The virtual collapse of the state under Bolesław’s sonMieszko II, who was even obliged to renounce his kingly status, showed how much the political fortunes of a state were bound to the personality of its ruler. Mieszko’s successor,Casimir I, had to flee the country, which was torn by internal strife. A pagan reaction against Christianity combined with revolt against fiscal and administrative burdens to bring about a popular uprising. Casimir had to be restored by the emperor,Conrad II, who wished to preserve abalance of power in the region. Known later as “the Restorer,” Casimir eventually succeeded in bringing under hissway most of the Polish lands, reviving the ecclesiastical organization, and making Kraków his capital instead of Gniezno or Poznań, which had been devastated by the Czechs.
Casimir’s son and successor,Bolesław II (the Bold), sought to revive thegreat power designs of the first Bolesław. Skillfully exploiting the greatInvestiture Controversy between the empire and the papacy that affected most of Europe, Bolesław II sided with Rome and gained the royal crown in 1076. Bolesław was later drawn into a conflict withStanislaus (Stanisław), the bishop of Kraków, whom the king ordered killed in 1079 under circumstances still debated by historians. Bolesław then fled to Hungary, where he died. The cult ofSt. Stanislaus, who was canonized in 1253, became widespread in Poland and wasinvoked to defend the freedom of religion against the state andethics against power.
Under Bolesław’s brother and successor,Władysław I Herman, claims to the royal crown and a more ambitiousforeign policy were abandoned. Efforts by the palatine, Sieciech, to maintain centralized power clashed with the ambitions of the rising magnate class. Following a period of internal conflict,Bolesław III (the Wry-Mouthed) emerged as the sole ruler (reigned 1102–38). Promoting Christianity, he expanded his influence over WesternPomerania, whose towns and harbours, such asWolin, Kołobrzeg, andSzczecin, were already important centres of trade and crafts. Eastern, orGdańsk, Pomerania came under direct Polish administration. After an invasion by EmperorHenry V was repelled, peaceprevailed with the empire, and Bohemia renounced its claims toSilesia.
The period of divisions
Collapse of Bolesław’s governing system
The awareness of centrifugal trends and external dangers led Bolesław III to establish in his testament of 1138 asystem meant to ensure greater stability. He divided the state among his sons; the oldest became the senior duke, whose domain included the capital in Kraków and who had general powers over military, foreign, and ecclesiastical matters. By the early 13th century, however, the efforts of thegrand duke to exert real controls had come to naught. The entire system was characterized by disputes, subdivisions, and fratricidal strife into which the neighbouring powers were frequently drawn.
During the period of divisions, lasting almost 200 years (until the rule of Casimir III), Poland underwent transformation in almost every sphere of life. The centrally controlled early Piast monarchy had been based on a system of fortified settlements from which an official called the castellan tended to the ruler’s domain and acted as administrator, military commander, judge, and tax collector. Around some settlements there arose so-called service villages, in which artisans produced objects needed by the dukes and their retinues. The emerging social pyramid positioned the duke and his officials and leading warriors on top, with various categories of freemen, part-freemen, and slaves at the bottom. Between the 10th and the 12th century, this system slowly began to break down. Improved cultivation methods (notably the three-field system)enhanced the value of the land with which the ruler endowed the church and compensated his nobles, warriors, and officials. Estatescultivated by a semiserf population grew significantly. The olddrużyna changed into a smaller personal guard, thearmed force being composed of nobles performing military service as landholders.
Cultural developments, 11th–13th century
The church was the principal proponent of learning and art.Romanesque and thenGothic architecture made their way into Poland. Religious orders such as theBenedictines arrived in the 11th century, theCistercians in the 12th century, and theDominicans and the first nuns in the 13th century. Cathedral and, later, parish schools appeared. During this time the earliest historicalchronicles appeared. The first wascompiled in the early 12th century by a Benedictine monk known as Gallus Anonymous. The second was completed by Wincenty Kadłubek at the beginning of the 13th century.
Social and economic developments
The 13th century marked a turning point in the history of medieval Poland. The agricultural boom was accompanied by the development of salt mining inLittle Poland and of silver and gold mining in Silesia. The Polish lands were brought more fully into the European economy, participating in the west-east trade as well as in that of the Baltic region in the north and that along theDanube River in the south. The growth of large landed estates was partly the cause and partly the consequence of surplus production that could be sold on themarket. It became profitable to have free tenant farmers, rather than serfs,cultivate the land, which attracted large groups of settlers from as far away as the Rhineland and theLow Countries.Demographic trends in western Europefacilitated this “colonization.” The settlers—assured of personal freedom, fixed rents, and some measure of self-administration and operating under the so-called German Law—founded new villages and towns or reorganized old ones. Towns received formal charters (Wrocław in 1242, Poznań in 1253, Kraków in 1257) that provided forautonomy and self-government modeled on that of the German city of Magdeburg—hence the termMagdeburg Law.
Although the burgher population became largelyGerman or German-speaking, the extent of settlement by Germans was restricted except inSilesia and Pomerania. Otherwise, most of the countryside remained Polish. Another alien group, however, began to play an important role in the country’s economy—namely, theJews escaping persecution in the west. Bolesław V (the Chaste) ofGreat Poland granted to the Jews theKalisz Privilege (1264), which provided personal freedom, some legal autonomy, and safeguards against forcible baptism.
Feudalism
Economic and social transformation led to some forms offeudalism and organization of estates. A system in which the entire state structure was based on contractual personal arrangements between superiors and inferiors (lords and vassals)—with land (fiefs) being the traditional means of reward for services—did not really prevail in Poland. Nor did a typical feudal pyramid exist. Nevertheless, vassalage of sorts and customs ofchivalry and knighthood developed. In view of the weakening of the rulers, the landowners, both ecclesiastical (the church in the 12th century) and lay (the nobility in the 13th century), succeeded in obtaining so-called immunities—i.e., exemptions for their estates from taxes, services, and the legal jurisdiction of the state.
During that period the church functioned as the only structure thattranscended the divisions. Although the Silesian duchies gravitated towardGermany, the archbishopric of Gniezno continued to include thediocese of Wrocław. Several archbishops were active proponents of reunification of Poland, notably Jakób Świnka. The concepts of Corona Regni Poloniae, as divorced from the actual ruler, and ofgens polonica—an early form ofnationalism that identified the state with the Polish people and implied its indivisibility—began to make their appearance.