Boleslaus I

Background

Boleslaus was born in 967 in Poznan, Poland; the son of Mieszko, first Christian prince of Poland, and the Bohemian princess Dobrawa, or Bona, whose chaplain, Jordan, converted the court from paganism to Catholicism.

Career

Boleslaus succeeded his father in 992. A born warrior, he speedily raised the little struggling Polish principality on the Vistula to the rank of a great power. In 996 he gained a seaboard by seizing Pomerania, and subsequently took advantage of the troubles in Bohemia to occupy Cracow, previously a Czech city.

Thus despite an inordinate love of adventure, which makes him appear rather a wandering chieftain than an established ruler, he was essentially a man of insight and progress. He showed great sagacity in receiving the fugitive Adalbert, bishop of Prague, and when the saint suffered martyrdom at the hands of the pagan Slavs (April 23, 997), Boleslaus purchased his relics and solemnly laid them in the church of Gnesen, founded by his father, which now became the metropolitan see of Poland. It was at Gnesen that Boleslaus in the year 1000 entertained Otto III so magnificently that the emperor, declaring such a man too worthy to be merely princeps, conferred upon him the royal crown, though twenty-five years later, in the last year of his life, Boleslaus thought it necessary to crown himself king a second time. On the death of Otto, Boleslaus invaded Germany, penetrated to the Elbe, occupying Stralsund and Meissen on his way, and extended his dominions to the Elster and the Saale. He also occupied Bohemia, till driven out by the emperor Henry IV in 1004. The German war was terminated in 1018 by the peace of Bautzen, greatly to the advantage of Boleslaus, who retained Lusatia. He then turned his arms against Jaroslav, grand duke of Kiev, whom he routed on the banks of the Bug, then the boundary between Russia and Poland. For ten months Boleslaus remained at Kiev, whence he addressed triumphant letters to the emperors of the East and West.

Achievements

• During his rule Poland became one of the mightiest states of Europe, extending from the Bug to the Elbe, and from the Baltic to the Danube, and possessing besides the overlordship of Russia. But his greatest achievement was the establishment in Poland of a native church, the first step towards political independence.

Religion

Like his contemporaries, Stephen of Hungary and Canute of Denmark, Boleslaus recognized from the first the essential superiority of Christianity over every other form of religion, and he deserves with them the name of "Great" because he deliberately associated himself with the new faith.

Connections

Boleslaus first was married to an unnamed daughter of Rikdag, Margrave of Meissen. He then took a Hungarian woman as his second wife. His third wife, Emnilda, was "a daughter of the venerable lord, Dobromir". Their second daughter Regelinda, who was born in 989, was given in marriage to Herman I, Margrave of Meissen in 1002 or 1003. Mieszko II Lambert who was born in 990 was Boleslaus's favorite son and successor. Boleslaus's youngest son, Otto, was born in 1000. His fourth wife was Oda (b. c. 995 – d. aft. 1025), daughter of Eckard I, Margrave of Meissen.

Father:

Mieszko I of Poland

Mother:

Dobrawa of Bohemia

4th wife:

Oda of Meissen

Daughter:

Regelinda

Son:

Mieszko II Lambert

Son:

Otto Boleslawowic

3rd wife:

Emnilda of Lusatia

References

• The Early Slavs : Culture and Society in Early Medieval Eastern Europe
• Gesta Principum Polonorum: The Deeds of the Princes of the Poles (Central European Medieval Texts)
• Ottonian Germany: The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg (Manchester Medieval Sources MUP)
• Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c.900-c.1300 (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks)