History of Poland during the Piast dynasty

Mieszko I and the adoption of Christianity in Poland (c. 960–992) . Remnants of the original palatium–chapel complex of Poland's first Christian ruling couple have been found beneath the church in the foreground. The Poznań Cathedral is located on the right. The Polish state developed from these tribal roots in the second half of the century. According to the 12th-century chronicler Gallus Anonymus, the Polans were ruled at this time by the Piast dynasty. In existing sources from the 10th century, Piast ruler Mieszko I was first mentioned by Widukind of Corvey in his Res gestae saxonicae, a chronicle of events in Germany. Widukind reported that Mieszko's forces were twice defeated in 963 by the Veleti tribes acting in cooperation with the Saxon exile Wichmann the Younger. The viability of the Mieszko's emerging state was assured by the persistent territorial expansion of the early Piast rulers. Beginning with a very small area around Gniezno (before the town itself existed), the Piast expansion lasted throughout most of the 10th century and resulted in a territory approximating that of present-day Poland. The Polanie tribe conquered and merged with other Slavic tribes and first formed a tribal federation, then later a centralized state. After the addition of Lesser Poland, the country of the Vistulans, and of Silesia (both taken by Mieszko from the Czech state during the later part of the 10th century), Mieszko's state reached its mature form, including the main regions regarded as ethnically Polish. with an approximate population of under one million. territory under the Piast dynasty in the 10th century Initially a pagan, Mieszko I was the first ruler of the Polans tribal union known from contemporary written sources. A detailed account of aspects of Mieszko's early reign was given by Ibrâhîm ibn Ya`qûb, a Jewish traveler, according to whom Mieszko was one of four Slavic "kings" established in central and southern Europe in the 960s. In 965, Mieszko, who was allied with Boleslaus I, Duke of Bohemia at the time, married the duke's daughter Doubravka, a Christian princess. Mieszko's conversion to Latin Christianity followed on 14 April 966, an event known as the Baptism of Poland that is considered to be the founding event of the Polish state. In the aftermath of Mieszko's victory over a force of the Velunzani in 967, which was led by Wichmann, the first missionary bishop was appointed: Jordan, bishop of Poland. The action counteracted the intended eastern expansion of the Magdeburg Archdiocese, which was established at about the same time. Bolesław retained Moravia. Mieszko II and the collapse of the Piast kingdom (1025–1039) shown allegorically with Duchess Matilda of Swabia King Mieszko II Lambert (r. 1025–1034) tried to continue the expansionist politics of his father. His actions reinforced old resentment and hostility on the part of Poland's neighbors, and his two dispossessed brothers took advantage of it by arranging for invasions from Germany and Kievan Rus' in 1031. Mieszko was defeated and forced to leave Poland. Mieszko's brother Bezprym was murdered in 1032, whereas his brother Otto died in unclear circumstances in 1033, events that permitted Mieszko to recover his authority partially. The first Piast monarchy then collapsed with Mieszko's death in 1034. Deprived of a government, Poland was ravaged by an anti-feudal and pagan rebellion, and in 1039, there was an invasion by the forces of Bretislaus I of Bohemia. The country suffered territorial losses, and the functioning of the Gniezno archdiocese was disrupted. Reunification of Poland under Casimir I (1039–1058) in Kraków (built in the 11th century) Poland made a recovery under Mieszko's son, Duke Casimir I (r. 1039–1058), known to history as the Restorer. After returning from exile in 1039, Casimir rebuilt the Polish monarchy and the country's territorial integrity through several military campaigns: in 1047, Masovia was taken back from Miecław, a Polish noble who tried to detach the region from the rule of the Polish monarch, and in 1054 Silesia was recovered from the Czechs. Casimir was aided by recent adversaries of Poland, the Holy Roman Empire and Kievan Rus', both of whom disliked the chaos in Poland left after the dismemberment of the country beginning in the reign of Mieszko II. Casimir introduced a more mature form of feudalism and relieved the burden of financing large army units from the duke's treasury by settling his warriors on feudal estates. Faced with the widespread destruction of Greater Poland after the Czech incursion, Casimir moved his court to Kraków and replaced the old Piast capitals of Poznań and Gniezno; Kraków would function as the capital of the realm for several centuries. to be ruled locally by Wartislaw I, the first duke of the Griffin dynasty. Culture (late 1240–1241) culminated in the Battle of Legnica From the time of the conversion of Poland's ruling elite to Christianity in the 10th century, foreign churchmen had been arriving and the culture of early Medieval Poland was developing as a part of European Christendom. However, it would be a few generations from the time of Mieszko's conversion until significant numbers of native clergymen appeared. After the establishment of numerous monasteries in the 12th and 13th centuries, Christianization of the populace was accomplished on a larger scale. Intellectual and artistic activity was concentrated around the institutions of the Church, the courts of the kings and dukes, and emerged around the households of the rising hereditary elite. Written annals began to be generated in the late 10th century; leaders such as Mieszko II and Casimir the Restorer were considered literate and educated. Along with the Dagome iudex act, the most important written document and source of the period is the Gesta principum Polonorum, a chronicle by Gallus Anonymus, a foreign cleric from the court of Bolesław Wrymouth. Bruno of Querfurt was one of the pioneering Western clergymen spreading Church literacy; some of his prominent writings had been produced in eremitic monasteries in Poland. Among the preeminent early monastic religious orders were the Benedictines (the abbey in Tyniec founded in 1044) == 13th century ==

State and society; German settlement or German settlement in the east, miniature from Sachsenspiegel The 13th century brought fundamental changes to the structure of Polish society and its political system. Because of constant internal conflicts, the Piast dukes were unable to stabilize Poland's external borders. Western Farther Pomerania broke its political ties with Poland in the second half of the 12th century and from 1231 became a fief of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which in 1307 extended its Pomeranian possessions even further east, taking over the Sławno and Słupsk areas. Pomerelia or Gdańsk Pomerania became independent of the Polish dukes from 1227. In mid-13th century, Bolesław II the Bald granted Lubusz Land to the Margraviate, which made possible the creation of the Neumark and had far reaching negative consequences for the integrity of the western border. In the south-east, Leszek the White was unable to preserve Poland's supremacy over the Halych area of Rus', a territory that had changed hands on a number of occasions. The German, Polish and other new rural settlements represented a form of feudal tenancy with legal immunity and German town laws were often utilized as its legal bases. German immigrants were also important in the rise of the cities and the establishment of the Polish burgher (city dwelling merchants) class; they brought with them West European laws (Magdeburg rights) and customs that the Poles adopted. From that time, the Germans, who created early strong establishments (led by patriciates) especially in the urban centers of Silesia and other regions of western Poland, were an increasingly influential minority in Poland. In 1228, the Acts of Cienia were passed and signed into law by Władysław III Laskonogi. The titular Duke of Poland promised to provide a "just and noble law according to the council of bishops and barons." Such legal guarantees and privileges included the lower level land owners and knights, who were evolving into the lower and middle nobility class known later as szlachta. The period of fragmentation weakened the rulers and established a permanent trend in Polish history, whereby the rights and role of the nobility were expanded at the monarch's expense. Reunification attempts and the reigns of Przemysł II and Václav II (1232–1305) As the disadvantages of political division were becoming increasingly apparent in various segments of the society, some of the Piast dukes began to make serious efforts aimed at the reunification of the Polish state. Important among the earlier attempts were the activities of the Silesian dukes Henry I the Bearded, his son Henry II the Pious, who was killed in 1241 while fighting the Mongols at the Battle of Legnica, and Henry IV Probus. In 1295, Przemysł II of Greater Poland became the first Piast duke crowned as King of Poland since Bolesław II, but he ruled over only a part of the territory of Poland (including Gdańsk Pomerania from 1294) and was assassinated soon after his coronation. A more extensive unification of Polish lands was accomplished by a foreign ruler, Václav II of Bohemia of the Přemyslid dynasty, who married Przemysł's daughter Richeza and became King of Poland in 1300. Václav's heavy-handed policies soon caused him to lose whatever support he had earlier in his reign; he died in 1305. Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Wrocław An important factor in the unification process was the Polish Church, which remained a single ecclesiastical province throughout the fragmentation period. Archbishop Jakub Świnka of Gniezno was an ardent proponent of Poland's reunification; he performed the crowning ceremonies for both Przemysł II and Wenceslaus II. Świnka supported Władysław I Łokietek at various stages of the duke's career. Culture Culturally, the social impact of the Church was considerably broader in the 13th century, as networks of parishes were established and cathedral-type schools became more common. The Dominicans and the Franciscans were the leading monastic orders at this time, and they interacted closely with the general population. A proliferation of narrative annals characterized the period, as well as other written records, laws and documents. More of the clergy were of local origin; others were expected to know the Polish language. Wincenty Kadłubek, the author of an influential chronicle, was the most recognized representative in the intellectual sphere. Perspectiva, a treatise on optics by Witelo, a Silesian monk, was one of the finest achievements of medieval science. The construction of churches and castles in the Gothic architecture style predominated in the 13th century; native elements in art forms were increasingly important, with significant advances taking place in agriculture, manufacturing and crafts. == 14th century ==

The reunited kingdom of the last Piast rulers; Jewish settlement depicting Władysław I the Elbow-high in Wawel Cathedral, Kraków Władysław I the Elbow-high and his son Casimir III, "the Great" were the last two rulers of the Piast dynasty, who ruled over a reunified kingdom of Poland in the 14th century. Their rule was not a return to the Polish state as it existed before the period of fragmentation, because of the loss of internal cohesion and territorial integrity. The regional Piast princes remained strong, and for economic and cultural reasons, some of them gravitated toward Poland's neighbors. The kingdom lost Pomerania and Silesia, the most highly developed and economically important regions of the original ethnically Polish lands, which left half of the Polish population outside the kingdom's borders. The western losses had to do with the failure of the unification efforts undertaken by the Silesian Piast dukes and the German expansion processes. These included the Piast principalities developing (or falling into) dependencies in respect to the German political structures, settler colonization and gradual Germanization of the Polish ruling circles. The lower Vistula was controlled by the Teutonic Order. Masovia was not to be fully incorporated into the Polish state in the near future. Casimir stabilized the western and northern borders, tried to regain some of the lost territories, and partially compensated the losses by new eastern expansion that placed within his kingdom regions that were East Slavic, thus ethnically non-Polish. Following a series of expulsions of Jews from Western Europe, Jewish communities were established in Kraków, Kalisz and elsewhere in western and southern Poland in the 13th century. Another series of communities were established at Lviv, Brest-Litovsk and Grodno further east in the 14th century. King Casimir received Jewish refugees from Germany in 1349. The reign of Władysław I the Elbow-high (1305–1333) at Wawel Cathedral Władysław I the Elbow-high (r. 1305–1333), who began as an obscure Piast duke from Kuyavia, pursued a lifelong, persistently challenging struggle with powerful adversaries with persistence and determination. When he died as the king of a partially reunited Poland, he left the kingdom in a precarious situation. Although the area under King Władysław's control was limited and many unresolved issues remained, he may have saved Poland's existence as a state. In 1313–1314, Władysław conquered Greater Poland. In 1320, he became the first king of Poland crowned in Kraków's Wawel Cathedral instead of Gniezno. The coronation was hesitantly agreed to by Pope John XXII in spite of the opposition of King John of Bohemia, who had also claimed the Polish crown. John undertook an expedition aimed at Kraków in 1327, which he was compelled to abort; in 1328, he waged a crusade against Lithuania, during which he formalized an alliance with the Teutonic Order. The Order was in a state of war with Poland from 1327 to 1332 (see Battle of Płowce). As a result, the Knights captured Dobrzyń Land and Kujawy. Władysław was helped by his alliances with Hungary (his daughter Elizabeth was married to King Charles I in 1320) and Lithuania (in a pact of 1325 against the Teutonic State and the marriage of Władysław's son Casimir to Aldona, daughter of the Lithuanian ruler Gediminas). The reign of Casimir III the Great (1333–1370) (1333–1370) is shown within the red line; Silesia (yellow) and Pomerania (purple) were lost, while the kingdom had expanded to the southeast. After the death of Władysław I, the old monarch's 23-year-old son became King Casimir III, later known as Casimir the Great (r. 1333–1370). Unlike his father, the new king demonstrated no attraction for the hardships of military life. Casimir's contemporaries did not give him much of a chance of overcoming the country's mounting difficulties or succeeding as a ruler. But from the beginning, Casimir acted prudently, and in 1335, he purchased the claims of King John of Bohemia to the Polish throne. In 1343, Casimir settled several high-level arbitration disputes with the Teutonic Order by a territorial compromise that culminated in the Treaty of Kalisz of 1343. Dobrzyń Land and Kuyavia were recovered by Casimir. At that time, Poland started to expand to the east and through a series of military campaigns between 1340 and 1366, Casimir annexed the Halych–Volodymyr area of Rus'. The town of Lviv there attracted newcomers of several nationalities, was granted municipal rights in 1356, and had thus begun its career as Lwów, the main Polish centre in the midst of a Rus' Orthodox population. Supported by Hungary, the Polish king in 1338 promised the Hungarian ruling house the Polish throne in the event he dies without male heirs. by Casimir III the Great Casimir, who formally gave up his rights to several Silesian principalities in 1339, unsuccessfully tried to recover the region by conducting military activities against the House of Luxembourg (the rulers of Bohemia) between 1343 and 1348, but then blocked the attempted separation of Silesia from the Gniezno Archdiocese by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Later, until his death, he pursued the Polish claim to Silesia legally by petitioning the pope; his successors did not continue his efforts. Allied with Denmark and Western Pomerania (Gdańsk Pomerania was granted to the Order as an "eternal charity"), Casimir was able to impose some corrections on the western border. In 1365, Drezdenko and Santok became Poland's fiefs, while the Wałcz district was taken outright in 1368. The latter action severed the land connection between Brandenburg and the Teutonic state and connected Poland with Farther Pomerania. Casimir the Great considerably solidified the country's position in both foreign and domestic affairs. Domestically, he integrated and centralized the reunited Polish state and helped develop what was considered the "Crown of the Polish Kingdom": the state within its actual boundaries, as well as past or potential boundaries. Casimir established or strengthened kingdom-wide institutions (such as the powerful state treasury) independent of the regional, class, or royal court-related interests. Internationally, the Polish king was very active diplomatically; he cultivated close contacts with other European rulers and was a staunch defender of the interests of the Polish state. In 1364, he sponsored the Congress of Kraków, in which a number of monarchs participated, which was concerned with the promotion of peaceful cooperation and political balance in Central Europe. The reign of Louis I and Jadwiga (1370–1399) was the great-granddaughter of Władysław I the Elbow-high. Immediately after Casimir's death in 1370, the heirless king's nephew Louis of Hungary of the Capetian House of Anjou assumed the Polish throne. As Casimir's actual commitment to the Anjou succession seemed problematic from the beginning (in 1368 the Polish king adopted his grandson, Casimir of Słupsk), Louis engaged in succession negotiations with Polish knights and nobility starting in 1351. They supported him, exacting in return further guarantees and privileges for themselves; the formal act was negotiated in Buda in 1355. After his coronation, Louis returned to Hungary; he left his mother and Casimir's sister Elizabeth in Poland as regents. With the death of Casimir the Great, the period of hereditary (Piast) monarchy in Poland came to an end. The land owners and nobles did not want a strong monarchy; a constitutional monarchy was established between 1370 and 1493 that included the beginning of the general sejm, the dominant bicameral parliament of the future. During the reign of Louis I, Poland formed a Polish-Hungarian union. In the pact of 1374 (the Privilege of Koszyce), the Polish nobility was granted extensive concessions and agreed to extend the Anjou succession to Louis's daughters, as Louis had no sons. Louis's neglect of Polish affairs resulted in the loss of Casimir's territorial gains, including Halych Rus', which was recovered by Queen Jadwiga in 1387. In 1396, Jadwiga and her husband Jagiełło (Jogaila) forcefully annexed the central Polish lands separating Lesser Poland from Greater Poland, previously granted by King Louis to his Silesian Piast ally Duke Władysław of Opole. in Kraków The Hungarian-Polish union lasted for twelve years and ended in war. After Louis's death in 1382 and a power struggle that resulted in the Greater Poland Civil War, the Polish nobility decided that Jadwiga, Louis's youngest daughter, should become the next "King of Poland"; Jadwiga arrived in 1384 and was crowned at the age of eleven. The failure of the union of Poland and Hungary paved the way for the union of Lithuania and Poland. Culture In the 14th century, many large scale brick building projects were undertaken during Casimir's reign, including the construction of Gothic churches, castles, urban fortifications and homes of wealthy city residents. The most notable examples of architecture from the medieval period in Poland are the many churches representing the Polish Gothic style; medieval sculpture, painting and ornamental smithery are best revealed in the furnishings of churches and liturgical items. Polish law was first codified in the Statutes of Casimir the Great (the Piotrków–Wiślica Statutes) from 1346 to 1362. Accordingly, conflict resolution relied on legal proceedings domestically, while bilateral or multilateral negotiations and treaties were increasingly important in international relations. By this time, the network of cathedral and parish schools had become well developed. In 1364, Casimir the Great established the University of Kraków, the second oldest university in Central Europe. While many still traveled to Southern and Western Europe for university studies, the Polish language, along with the predominant Latin, became increasingly more common in written documents. The Holy Cross Sermons (c. early 14th century) constitute possibly the oldest extant Polish prose manuscript. == See also ==