Download PDF | Andrzej Pleszczyński - The Birth of a Stereotype_ Polish Rulers and their Country in German Writings c. 1000 A.D.-BRILL (2011)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not have been written without the support of a number of people. The most important for the present shape it acquired were conversations and discussions with Jacek Banaszkiewicz and my colleagues from the Department of Mediaeval History in the Institute of History at Maria CurieSktodowska University. I am very grateful for this invaluable help.
Iam also greatly indebted to the institutions which sponsored my research in scientific libraries, both in Poland and in German academic centres. First of all, thanks to the Foundation for Polish Science (Fundacja na rzecz Nauki Polskiej), which founded a scholarship for me, I could conduct my scientific investigation in Tiibingen. The Max-Planck-Institut fiir Geschichte and the Polish Historical Mission financed my stay in Gottingen. I would like to express my thanks to consecutive directors of my home institution—the Institute of History at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin for their contribution to financing my study during scientific expeditions.
I would like also to thank Przemystaw Wiszewski, who encouraged me, and Piotr Gérecki, who recommended my book to be included in Brill’s series East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. In addition, I am grateful to Richard Geoffrey Eales of Kent University at Canterbury in the UK for his precious comments and suggestions regarding the English translation of this book.
And last by no means least I want to thank my family—my wife Malgorzata and my children Michal, Irmina and Katarzyna. I thank them for many things but first of all for tolerating my whim to practice humanities.
INTRODUCTION
The Poles,’ just like the Slavs in general, used to be perceived by western Europeans as in a way inferior. They were ascribed vulgarity, ridiculed for their allegedly peculiar customs, and they even happened to be seen as barbarians.’ This phenomenon—well noticeable in the modern period—was seemingly justifiable in reality. Accounts of travellers and other texts devoted to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe confirm that the impression of their authors was gloomy and depressing.
They saw a poor organization of local communities, roads in a terrible condition, extreme poverty of villages and deprivation of towns, which contrasted with the opulence of manor houses belonging to magnates, whose owners were not likeable because of their attitude, often inhumane, towards their serfs. Every historian who deals with these problems will find such foreign observations largely sensible, looking for the reasons of this state of affairs in a specific historical process which implied individual parameters of a society and its wealth.
Paradoxically, however, the origins and nature of the stereotype of a Pole— Slav—barbarian have nothing in common with any realities of the modern world. We can find some traces of the above mentioned attitude towards Central Europeans in the texts which were written on the territory of the Frankish empire and its succession states as early as from the 7th century onwards, before any real knowledge of the regions of Europe to the east of the Elbe, which were inhabited by the Slavs.
Many years ago I found this problem interesting enough to deal with, so I decided to investigate it more thoroughly. Soon after that I realized that this matter, which pertains to so many centuries in history, is very complex. For this reason I had to set some subject restrictions to my study in order to maintain its in-depth character. Thus I decided to analyze this phenomenon with reference to the origins and first formative years in the history of the oldest Piast state, namely between 963 and 1034.
In geographical terms, the problem of perceiving this fresh political organism on the map of the Europe of the day actually limits itself to the immediate neighbours of Poland from within the circle of the already established and literate Christian civilization, thus to the observers living in Germany.
They were the only ones among all Western European nationals at that time who took interest (certainly, to a much smaller degree than in the areas of the post-Carolingian civilization) in the lands situated to the east of the Elbe and ventured some opinions about them.
This work could not be limited to the collection and simple examination of sources devoted to the inhabitants of Poland in the period under discussion, which is typical of traditional historical studies.’ Our references are few and far between and in principle very laconic, so not much information can be retrieved from them without an in-depth analysis. The written sources can only tell us more while put in the right cultural and historical context. It also helps when we investigate the role that selected excerpts of texts played in the structure of whole narratives. This approach enables us to recover the nuances in information inflow which are included in these reports.
This study, as regards the methodology and its workshop, is based on two pillars: the one is a broad analysis of sources, the other—an investigation of the political and cultural background of the references chosen for examination.
The task of selecting the right scientific methods within the former of these two spheres has been recently facilitated by some studies which are very instructive in their modern critical approaches, both theoretical and practical, towards mediaeval sources.
Especially valuable in this respect were those studies which deepen our knowledge of the structure of a source and the convention of plots, which shaped the character of mediaeval accounts.* Important and inspiring from my point of view are the works that show how the circumstances in which mediaeval texts were written influenced their content.> Equally significant were deliberations on the characteristic features of the historical narration of the day.°
All the works of this kind make us realize that it is impossible to assess the informative value of an account unless an in-depth analysis of its structure is carried out, considering its origin and function. Of course, this sort of scholarly commitment to examine specific texts is extremely hampered by synthesizing thinking, the most appreciated by amateurs. A researcher always faces the problem of finding a middle ground and a compromise. Scholars also have to resolve a dilemma how far they have to go in creating a certain general narration of the past and simultaneously distance themselves from the realities of the source.
Another sphere of a scientific approach, even more complex, which needed to be comprehended and organized for our study was the historical and cultural context standing behind the sources that formed a departure point for our considerations.
The first task that had to be performed was the tackling with the paradigm of traditional historical studies, which had a practice of considering political organizations of the earlier Middle Ages to be direct predecessors of contemporary states. In addition, this sort of ‘period of the origin’ was usually mythologized, and it was also identified with the dawn in the history of a nation.’ Such a scientific approach usually had its consequences. Among other things, this distant past was, and sometimes is, interpreted in the whole of Europe, and it is not only about linguistic terms, by using categories typical of the descriptions of modern states and nations.
In consequence a number of studies have been written in which mediaeval secular and ecclesiastical leaders are perceived as modern statesmen, patriots and ideologists concerned about their state, raison d’état, and the nation.®
This is obviously a multifaceted problem and I mention it not only to separate myself from this kind of practice of ‘nationalizing’ history, which is not beneficial to learning, but also to defend the terminology used in this work.
More precisely, I perfectly realize that some terms, for example: the Poles, Germans, or Poland, Germany, as well as the adjectives which were formed on the basis of these words, are inadequate with regard to the Middle Ages, especially the earlier Middle Ages.’ Even the term ‘state’ and the like raise doubts. All these words have modern associations, more or less alien to the epoch under consideration. With this respect, however, one cannot sharpen the language and make it more precise, and therefore I have to apply all these appellations out of necessity, because of lack of other communicative signs.
The problem of the precision of the narration used in this work is, of course, of secondary importance. More significant is the accuracy of the interpretation of a certain language of culture whose fragments are included in the sources selected for the analysis. Past generations of historians tended not to notice subtle, yet sometimes quite obvious differences between contemporary and mediaeval codes and social norms. At present it is impossible to ignore this kind of factors.
It turned out to be crucial for this subject to use the studies referring to the problem of feeling closeness and perceiving alienation in the Middle Ages,’ and also the works regarding the specificity of consciousness and collective memory." I also explored the references, hardly used in old historical studies, where all forms of human behaviour are discussed: rituals, gestures, and means of non-verbal communication in general.”
The new methods applied in the study of the Middle Ages, in terms of methodology and tools, are of great significance, primarily for the research on the history of Poland of the first Piasts and the country’s contacts with the medieval German Empire. They allow us to come up with new interpretations of the accounts that have been already described and analyzed a number of times. As a consequence, many of older findings turn out not to be able to defend themselves—even though a significant part of old studies are still valuable.
As far as older historical studies are concerned, one has to admit that the 10th and the early 11th centuries were popular among historians, both in Poland and in Germany. The epoch of the early Piasts, just like the relations between the Poland and Germany of the day,’ were discussed in a huge number of studies, whose authors tried to deal with all possible, even less significant aspects of life of the Polish society in the early Middle Ages, the political organization of the state, and its political contacts with its neighbours."
These studies, however, lack any serious consideration of the sphere of cultural, not only political circumstances created for the perception and cultural classification of the first Polish rulers and their state.'°
The aim of this work is to fill this gap in our knowledge—provided the author manages to show enough expertise and skill to deliver. Every time, when the sources permit, I always make attempts to go beyond the opinions recorded in texts and get to the information layer which registers actions, gestures, and public behaviour of the Piasts. There is no doubt that the Polish rulers wanted to influence the quality of their image which was created among the elites of the Ottonian and Salian state, their important political and cultural partner.'* This is confirmed by the sources which read that the Polish rulers—quite young in the Christian circle—attempted to convey the ‘public opinion’ of the German empire of the day their call to be treated as ‘civilized’ representatives of their dynasty, valuable both politically and culturally, and predestined to hold their due high-ranking position in the hierarchy of power in Central Europe.”
This outlined message they spread was probably in principal subliminal, sometimes even spontaneous, variable in time, and full of nuances adjusted to current realities. Yet it still possessed some general, characteristic traits, at least during the period under consideration, namely in the period of what was known as the First Piast Monarchy.
Our analysis begins when the Polish rulers were noticed by chroniclers (963) and ends with the final days in the rule of Mieszko II (1034). The first date can be easily justified: there is no earlier information provided by written sources which concern the Polish state. As far as this other dividing line is concerned, it has to be emphasized that a lot changed in Poland after Mieszko IIs death. The time of anarchy started, which led to the collapse of the state. Later on, after its restoration, the status of the Piasts among the regional powers was completely different from previously, and also the relations with the empire were based on different foundations.
The principle which was applied for the selection of the material, the starting point for our consideration, was the origin of the account. The aim was to register opinions and impressions which were made in Germany exactly in the period of the First Piast Monarchy. This task was not always easy to perform. A large number of the accounts under discussion have only been preserved in later texts, being what could be named their integral part.
After all, it was a common practice among mediaeval authors to incorporate to the works they compiled all older notes they possessed, as long as they matched more or less the character of such texts. They could not be ignored in this dissertation, so I used some of the relevant information from later sources, written till around the mid—11th century. In every case, however, I followed the guidelines of source studies and tried to select the original content. All other materials—even if they are used—are of secondary importance.
In general the material analyzed in this work has been organized according to the simplest possible schemes. Each chapter concerns the rule of one monarch of the First Piast Monarchy, according to the chronological order: Mieszko I (d. 992), Boleslav Chrobry/the Brave (d. 1025), and Mieszko II (d. 1034). This division is partly symbolic, because not all the problems discussed here suited the framework so arranged. In such cases I placed the presented issue where it was the most appropriate due to the logic of the narration and the relevance of the problem.
Each chapter of this dissertation is divided into a few parts, which undergo further divisions into smaller units. This arrangement has been made to fully concentrate on the problems under discussion. The basis for each heading of such units were certain, the most significant in a specific period, names, titles, or simply expressions applied to the Polish rulers by the authors of texts, as their opinions or reactions to the actions, gestures, and behaviour of the Piasts.
These, in a way, ‘labels’ render in their condensed form the views not only of the authors, but also—as it seems—their milieux. They also concern the status of the Polish rulers and their country in a broad context in relation to the German state of the day.
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