(Cambridge Concise Histories) Jerzy Lukowski, Hubert Zawadzki - A Concise History of Poland-Cambridge University Press (2006)

Wodzislaw’s elevation highlights a key weakness of the Piast state (though hardly one peculiar to it) - the absence of a secure means of succession. It is widely accepted (though the evidence is limited) that shortly before his death in 992, Mieszko I placed Poland under direct papal jurisdiction. It may well be that he nourished the hope that ecclesiastical influence might preserve the rights of his sons by his second marriage to the German princess Oda. Boleslaw I settled the matter in his own way: he either exiled his rivals or had them blinded. Bishop Vincent's chronicle suggests a society in which any form of hereditary claim had to be reinforced with a more general acceptance of the individual ruler: Mieszko’s lineal descendants may not have been wholly assured of their position until the full consolidation of Christianity, in the late twelfth century. The presence of a younger brother provided a figurehead for a revolt against Boleslaw II; the availability of Wodzislaw’s sons, Zbigniew and Boleslaw, facilitated revolts against their father and his over-mightv palatine, Sieciech, in 1097 and 1100. When the emperor Henry V invaded in i J09, it was in support of Zbigniew (who also had the backing of the Church hierarchy) against his ruthless younger half-brother. Despite a formal reconciliation, Boleslaw III had Zbigniew blinded and killed in 11 11. Boleslaw’s nickname, ‘Wrymouth’, may well refer to the ease with which he broke his oaths rather than to any physical deformity. He, too, tried to solve the problem of the succession, this time in more civilized fashion, in his testament of 1138, by a borrowing from Kievan practice: overall political authority would be vested in the princeps, the eldest of his five sons. The fertile and populous southern provinces of Krakow and Sandomierz would form the territorial basis of the princeps' power, but he would also retain the right to make appointments to all the leading lay and ecclesiastical offices of the Piast patrimony. The younger brothers would be his viceroys in different provinces; the position of princeps would always be held by the eldest survivor.

The expedient proved no more successful than in the Kievan state. In 1202, there were five Piast duchies; by 1250, nine; and by 1288, seventeen, at least ten of them in Silesia. Almost immediately after his death, the sons of Wrymouth’s second wife, Salomea of Berg, egged on by their mother and by an understandable sense of self-preservation, banded together against the designated senior ruler - the only son of Wrymouth’s first marriage, Wtadyslaw. The lay and ecclesiastical notables by and large supported the younger children - they could sell their services in return for concessions and favours from them. The expulsion of Wtadyslaw ‘the Exile’, in r 146, from Poland and his hereditary duchy of Silesia not only created a huge chasm of mistrust between the elder and the younger Piast lines, but it encouraged fresh outside interference in Poland’s affairs. For Wtadyslaw was married to the half-sister of the German king, Conrad III; and although that connection did not secure his reinstatement, Conrad’s successor, the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, was able in 1163 to impose Wladyslaw’s son, Boleslaw the Tall, on Silesia; and, in the process, to secure acknowledgement of imperial suzerainty from all the Piast princes.

Nor was unity preserved among Wrymouth’s younger sons. In the first generation, the efforts of the most energetic of this brood, Mieszko III (ruling periodically during the sixty-four years between 1138 and 1202 - hence his sobriquet, ‘the Old’) to impose authoritarian rule provoked chronic revolts. In 1 1 77, his siblings, nephews and his own son joined forces to assign the position of princeps to the youngest of Boleslaw Wrymouth’s sons, Casimir ‘the Just’. He could still exercise real authority outside his own Krakow-Sandomierz lands, through his patronage of the Church and his power to appoint bishops. As canonical elections increasingly took hold, his successors were less well placed. Krakow retained a prestigious and symbolic role - no one could credibly lay claim to the title of princeps without control over it. Casimir the Just and his successors in the principate were, in effect, elected rulers. The idea that the princeps should always be the eldest Piast did not long survive. The position was filled by unanimous or majority agreement among the different Piast dukes. But, ever

Lands ruled by Mieszko I, c. 966 Lands ruled by Bolestaw I, c. 1000

Baltic Sea

more, the consent of the Krakow-Sandomierz notables was sought. Ecclesiastical support was critical. So too, by the second half of the thirteenth century, was that of the wealthy, largely Germanspeaking Krakow urban elite.