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Poland The Medieval Era
During the eleventh century and the first half of the
twelfth
century, the building of the Polish state continued under
a
series of successors to Boleslaw I. But by 1150, the state
had
been divided among the sons of Boleslaw III, beginning two
centuries of fragmentation that brought Poland to the
brink of
dissolution.
Fragmentation and Invasion, 1025-1320
The most fabled event of the period was the murder in
1079 of
Stanislaw, the bishop of Kraków. A participant in
uprisings by
the aristocracy against King Boleslaw II, Stanislaw was
killed by
order of the king. This incident, which led to open
rebellion and
ended the reign of Boleslaw, is a Polish counterpart to
the
later, more famous assassination of Thomas ą Becket on
behalf of
King Henry II of England. Although historians still debate
the
circumstances of the death, after his canonization the
martyred
St. Stanislaw entered national lore as a potent symbol of
resistance to illegitimate state authority--an allegorical
weapon
that proved especially effective against the communist
regime.
During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Poland lost
ground
in its complex triangular relationship with the German
Empire to
the west and the kingdom of Bohemia to the south. New
foreign
enemies appeared by the thirteenth century. The Mongol
invasion
cut a swath of destruction through the country in 1241;
for fifty
years after their withdrawal in 1242, Mongol nomads
mounted
devastating raids into Poland from bases in Ruthenia to
the
southeast. Meanwhile, an even more dangerous foe arrived
in 1226
when a Polish duke invited the
Teutonic Knights (see Glossary), a
Germanic crusading order, to help him subdue Baltic pagan
tribes.
Upon completing their mission with characteristic
fierceness and
efficiency, the knights built a stronghold on the Baltic
seacoast, from which they sought to enlarge their holdings
at
Polish expense. By that time, the Piasts had been
parceling out
the realm into ever smaller units for nearly 100 years.
This
policy of division, initiated by Boleslaw II to appease
separatist provinces while maintaining national unity, led
to
regional governance by various branches of the dynasty and
to a
near breakdown of cohesiveness in the face of foreign
aggression.
As the fourteenth century opened, much Polish land lay
under
foreign occupation (two-thirds of it was ruled by Bohemia
in
1300). The continued existence of a united, independent
Poland
seemed unlikely.
Data as of October 1992
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