Download PDF | (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450 9) Przemysław Wiszewski - Domus Bolezlai_ Values and Social Identity in Dynastic Traditions of Medieval Poland (c.966-1138) Brill , 2010.
637 Pages
INTRODUCTION
In 1124, Bishop Otto of Bamberg, the Apostle of the Pomeranians, arrived in Gniezno, the main seat of the Polish ruler Boleslaw III Wrymouth. Ebo, the author of the “Life” of the holy bishop describes the meeting between the churchman and ruler at the gates of the city in some detail. We are told that, at the news of the approach of the bishop, Bolestaw: “advanced with the whole of the clergy and the people, running towards the beloved father barefoot, and he so honoured him that he even ordered that his sons who were not yet weaned be brought to the bishop so they could kiss his footsteps. With tears in his eyes he waited for his holy blessing through the placing of hands [on the head of the blessed P.W.]”.!
Approaching his guest barefooted, sending his sons to kiss his footsteps and humbly waiting for a blessing were signs of especial humility, humbling himself before the religious authority of the bishop and even acknowledging his holiness.” Lest it should be suspected that this was merely an ostentatious gesture of royal piety, we may note that Wrymouth behaved in a less deferential manner towards other members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.’
The description of the greeting Otto of Bamberg received at the gates of Gniezno recalls that recounted in the brief description of the greeting of the German emperor Otto III by Bolestaw I the Brave in the year 1000 which is contained in the chronicle written in Bolestaw Wrymouth’s reign by the writer known to historiographers as Gallus Anonymous. He writes that Bolestaw: “had prepared for the Emperor’s arrival most marvellous wonders, first ranks of various kinds of troops, then the nobles set out, like choirs, across the wide plain, and each of the groups standing apart and clearly discernable by the different colour of their costumes”.* We are led to ask whether in the form of greeting which Otto of Bamberg received, Bolestaw II] Wrymouth was following a pattern of behaviour preserved in the Piast family tradition from the times of his great grandfather Bolestaw I the Brave when he welcomed Emperor Otto III during his pilgrimage to Gniezno 124 years earlier.°
The coincidences between these two greetings in Gniezno include the names of the two participants in both cases, the location of the event and its type. Both involved the high respect with which the guest was treated before the gate of the city, in the company of the elite of society over which the ruler reigned. This is not much, but we do not know of any other case of Bolestaw Wrymouth mounting such an exalted ceremonial greeting as the one he staged for Otto of Bamberg. Also later meetings between Wrymouth and the missionary which took place away from Gniezno did not take on such an ostentatious form.
Are we therefore suggesting that in Otto of Bamberg Bolestaw III saw somebody who could have fulfilled the same sort of function for him as Emperor Otto III fulfilled for his great grandfather in 1000 AD? No, we are not. Let us observe what happened next in the description of the visit of the bishop of Bamberg to Gniezno. The Polish ruler did not wish to allow him to continue on his journey until he had heard his teachings. Gallus Anonymous writes in the same way of the arrival of Wojciech Slavnik the future apostle of the Prussians and Saint. “when Saint Wojciech came to him [...] he [Bolestaw the Brave—P.W.] treated him with great respect and faithfully followed his admonitions and commands”,® which were to give the Polish church an appropriate form. Wrymouth’s behaviour could be connected with two aspects of the situation in which both he and his guest found themselves. The coincidence of the place and the names of the people involved would have recalled a specific time, the central political event at the dawn of the state and the Polish church. But the functions of the two parties meeting would involve Bolestaw III fulfilling the role of being a protector of the Church, thirsty above all for its teachings.
This one event and group of gestures creating parallels to local occurrences which contemporaries would have seen as located in the heroic past of Poland would allow the Polish ruler to reveal his own irreplaceable position in the order of things, or at least the world of his subjects. The presence of a descendant of Bolestaw the Brave on the throne guaranteed the permanence and repetition of not only gestures, but the meanings lying behind them. It seems that at the moment of the arrival of Otto of Bamberg to Gniezno, Boleslaw III deliberately and innovatively made reference to the behaviour of his ancestor known to contemporaries through stories, repeated from generation to generation and only recently committed to writing.’ In other words he made reference to tradition.
OF WHAT ‘TRADITION ARE WE SPEAKING?
The aim of this work is to seek traces of, and if at all possible define the form of, the traditions of the Piast ruling house. Tradition understood as communication, the aim of which is to preserve and transmit values defining the manner of perceiving the world by those people accepting this tradition as their own. The realization of this aim would be assured by: 1) referring to the past as a factor authenticating the communication, and 2) its repetition.* Tradition defined in this way has a social and historical dimension, and not therefore a fictional or mythical one,’ thus the studies presented here are studies of social history and not the “history of man”."°
DEFINITION OF TRADITION
The definition of tradition presented above, of fundamental importance for this work results from an observation of the character of the relationship between tradition and the form of narrative about the past—“social memory”—which is characteristic for a given community. Tradition has the function of giving sense to the pictures of the past which are a component of the “social memory”.'! We may consider the reasons for tradition having such a significance, especially since it must influence two different types of phenomena which comprise the common social memory. The first is “communicative/everyday” or in other words living memory, not having a fixed form, and concerning events taking place up to about 80 years ago, and the second is “cultural memory”, which is ceremonially presented by specialists, making use of particular means of communication and based on the use of specific events presented as turning points in history.”
No clear mechanisms that would regulate the shape of these two forms of memory have been presented. With regard to the second (cultural) type of memory, the historical conditions have been accented in discussions, above all the fundamental necessity for the functioning of law, which must be based on the self-identification of a community, a representation of history in the form of a representation of a series of disobedience and punishments." This is fundamentally a pragmatic approach: only that which in a given moment is important for society" is remembered. But this invokes questions about the factor defining the aim in relation to which these memories were/are useful. There may be a tendency either towards the preservation of the social status quo, or alternatively causing significant social changes. Both of these, as well as other phenomena defining the aim of social activity, are on a single plane. They create the common values for all members of the group, without accepting which one cannot become one of its members, and which there should be continual efforts to embody in specific historical realities.
Very close to this seems to be the category of the “senses” (Sinne), which are regarded as transmitting “cultural memory” by their manifestations.'° Such an approach places emphasis above all on the explanatory role of “cultural memory” for communities. In order to accept this, we would have to determine that all human societies wish to »understand” the world surrounding them on the basis of the authority of the past and base their identity on the foundation of such an understanding.'® It seems that the attitude which places emphasis on understanding the world through participation in culture and absorbing the “senses” transmitted by it is only one of several possible ones. Its significance depends on regarding it at a given moment as a value on the embodiment of which the existence of the community is dependent. But seeking the sense of the world can be placed alongside—if not resulting from—other values decisive for the definition of the form of life of individuals or groups, such as biological survival, and later increasing personal or group welfare. In this situation it is precisely this category of “values” which seems to be the more primary and more universal in the description of the functioning of society than “understanding”.” It is that which we also regard as a factor regulating the shape of “social memory” as well as its occasional representation comprising part of the culture of a given group.
More than 80 years ago, it was written that from the social point of view, the essence of culture is a group of values accepted by members of a given group.'* Today we are inclined to see culture as “life according to certain values”.’” If the quintessence of culture is the learning of values, the role of tradition as part of it is passing them on. Tradition as a carrier persuading its recipient to accept values (whether aware of them or not) is passed on as an element which determines the identity, and therefore the persistence of the group. It is through replication that the latter is linked with the world (created by the tradition which defines its shape) of the ancestors, that part of the society which belongs to the past. Values as the essence of tradition are a factor deciding which of the events and patterns of behaviour will be retained or forgotten by a society and determining their mutual arrangements and significances within the group of narratives, picture and gestures carrying that tradition.” Even within a group which feels strongly related to its ancestors, seeking an example of one tradition which has lasted over the space of many centuries is therefore only an uncertain test of the hypothesis. Even when within a narrative the same event remains recalled, any change in the structure, the isolation of details which differ from those of previous versions can serve to transmit other values. Tradition, the same as individual memory and communal memory, has many colours, changes together with the society that is both defined by it, but also creates it for itself and posterity.”
Such an understanding of tradition is inspired to a significant degree by modern reflections on culture. In formulating it however an attempt has been made to relate it to the specific character of the Medieval approach to “memory”. Mary Carruthers describes the significance of memory for the people of the Early and High Middle Ages in the following terms: “The matters memory represents are used to persuade and motivate, to create emotions and stir the will. And the ‘accuracy or ‘authenticity’ of these memories—their honest simulation of the past—is of far less importance (indeed it is hardly an issue at all), than their use to motivate the present and to affect the future”.” For tradition it is not facts that were the most important, but their significance, their effect on the recipient, especially those directed towards the maintenance of the communal links of the group which cultivated the tradition.” Such statements have at first sight a controversial character, if we contrast them with the basic form of expression of family tradition in the period under discussion—genealogical memory.
A component of it of fundamental significance comprises facts, names and relationships. In this period, however, genealogy (or more precisely the shape and content of a broader genealogical tradition) fulfilled not only the function of a universal pattern of the order of the world, but had equally (or perhaps above all) a pragmatic significance. It transmitted a specific perception of the surrounding reality, appropriate to a specific social group situated in a specific time, strengthened both the feeling of differentiation from other contemporaries, as well as aspirations to attain or permanently maintain a certain social position.” Bernd Schneidmiiller writing his monograph on the Welf family (the House of Welf) emphasized that the accepted picture of the form of a given clan, about its past, was never stable, but underwent fundamental changes according to current aims and needs.”* Genealogical facts fulfilled an auxiliary role as elements signifying certain contents, while it was the “senses” and values that were components of that content which were the defining and commemorating elements. If they undergo change, the shape of the transmitted information concerning genealogical links also changes.”°
WHOSE TRADITION?
Whose tradition are we intending to discover—that of the whole Piast family, the family of the ruler reigning at a given moment, or that of the whole community of his subjects? Let us try to define whose world view may be accessible to our searches. Karl Schmid referring to the reflections of Gerd Tellenbach showed that for the maintenance of the community of a clan or dynasty in the Middle Ages a key role was played not so much by real genealogical connections, as an awareness of a community of kinship.” In the case of a “clan” this took the form of historical traditions the contents of which transcended a single generation of the community.” This train of thought was developed and applied to the investigation of specific families both in the context of the history of Germany as well as in other societies, including in Poland.” Its acceptance would give us the possibility of investigating the “traditions of the Piasts”, their “self-identification of the family”.
With the passing of the years however this theory has met with serious criticism.*° These critics have pointed to an overemphasis of genealogical awareness as the ideological motor linking members of aristocratic communities,*! but also they have drawn attention to problems with precisely defining the authorship of the stories of the past of the analysed family groups. Gerd Althoff notes that it was most frequently assumed that what clerics and monks wrote about the families of the aristocracy was an expression of their own self-awareness, but this was not the case. The creators of the written records themselves in many different ways altered and created that which scholars treat as an expression of the “self-awareness” of the people about whom or in whose name the historiographic communications were written.”
We accept these reservations. In order to be able to more precisely define the theme of our work, let us refer to the results of the deliberations of Paul Ricoeur. Concerning memory, the philosopher, starting from sociological thought on the polarization of memory into “individual” and “collective”, emphasised the importance of attribution: to oneself or outsiders, and between these two poles: to those close, to “these close relations, these people, who count for us and for whom we count”.* It is this latter aspect of tradition as memory directed to the close milieu and participating in the links with them that define the boundaries of the topic of our deliberations. Accepting the existence of memory directed towards “those nearest” makes it possible to perceive the links creating the community. Without the functioning of this link, in turn, tradition as a carrier of values could not exist. We do not observe such a mutual relationship in the case of “collective memory”. This could function without the need for the participant to deliberately turn to members of the group with whom they share memories. The existence of tradition requires its direction to people sharing its content.
As a result, we may set aside deliberations on the reception of the deeds of the Piasts and their image in traditions which treat them as “outsiders”. This is why in our research presented here, we have taken into account above all sources which arose in the milieu of the elite closely associated with the ruler’s authority, treating just this milieu of the political and social elite of the state as a group for whom the past of the ruling family was the past of people “close” to them. We took into account additional sources only when, while looking at the Piasts “from the outside”, they could contain traces of tradition which was alive in the milieu of interest to us. We are interested in traditions which in the narrative or symbolic layers were concentrated directly and exclusively on the members of the Polish ruling family. Without such a restriction, every story about the history of Poland and the Poles would have to be analysed here, without producing a broader or more coherent picture of the presence of the dynasty of interest in the past.
In the final analysis, however, the results of the investigations presented here do not allow us to gain a full picture of the dynastic tradition which would have belonged to the Piasts and the whole ruling elite, not to mention the other inhabitants of Poland. Our search concerns the “dynastic tradition” which was alive among those groups associated with the ruling family, the members of which may be identified as the co-creators of the written sources we have at our disposal.*4 It is of course impossible to define precise and permanent boundaries of such a group. We can only indicate that it would include people from the lay and sacral spheres, people of the elite, members of the world of power and authority.
At the same time we cannot ignore the fact that the differentiation in the tenth century of the Piasts as the ruling dynasty from the rest of the Poles in general as the starting point of our deliberations has its counterpoint in the writing of the “Chronicle” of Gallus Anonymous in the reign of Bolestaw III Wrymouth with its presentation of “their history” as “our history”—and thus the history of the Poles or rather Poland. It was no accident that in writing of the “national historiography” of the Middle Ages, Norbert Kersken refers to precisely the “Chronicles” of Gallus Anonymous as its first expression in Poland.* Janusz Bieniak in turn links the creation of the most important monuments of Polish historiography with the persons of specific members of the aristocracy and the traditions of the families to which they belonged.** The tradition of the ruling dynasty became in this way overshadowed by the influence of other stories circulating among the aristocracy. Although we do not share this extreme view, it indicates that scholars accept a circle of people linked by the tradition of interest to us which is similar to that which is the subject of this study.
We will be feeling our way towards tracking down a certain cultural construct through an analysis of the communications which are its expression. They are linked to the ruling dynasty through their subject matter, and focus on it, but only to a certain degree (though to what degree is a question of further analysis) reflect the notions of the Piasts of their past. Or rather, their view of what people, including other members of the family, should think about them. This, it seems, reflects not only the state of the sources, but also social reality. The dynasty could, after all, create a certain vision of the past, including the recent past, but that vision was upheld by the milieu around it—and shaped by the values it embodied.*’ Certainly, however, we do not intend to accept the assumption of the existence of a “dynastic self-awareness” of the Piasts, or of the “sacral solemnity of family ties”,** or the permanent maintenance of a Piast tradition in the ruler’s court.*? We wish to allow the written sources to speak for themselves, or rather the people who influenced their creation, each time modelling the shape of an interesting tradition.”
Presenting a synthetic overview of the relations between the family (clan) of the ruler and the creation and functioning of a Medieval society at the time of the construction of the structures of a state, Henryk Samsonowicz emphasises: “the next area of questions concerning this factor, without the existence of which no community had (or has) permanence was memory of its past. If we look at the oldest records, ‘Memoria’ was based on the names of rulers and predecessors of the ruler”.*! This remark is especially important in the case of the histori- ography of the Polish Middle Ages where (until the beginning of the thirteenth century and the “Chronicle of the Poles” of Master Wincenty Kadtubek) we do not know of any examples of a narrative which is deliberately directed towards creating a description of the common past of the Poles. Theoretically however, such a narrative concerning this topic should have existed, if the subjects of the Piasts were to have formed a community.”
Meanwhile, what the sources written in the country they ruled have to impart to us mainly concerns the history of its rulers within a specific timeframe.* This means that defining the manner in which the past of the rulers was remembered gives the only possibility of an insight into the ideological foundations of the perpetuation of Polish society at the moment when it emerges.“
CHRONOLOGICAL SCOPE OF THIS WORK
This work attempts to trace the dynastic traditions of the Piasts until c. 1138, the year of the death of Bolestaw III Wrymouth. This is no accident. This ruler had a considerable impact on the writing by Gallus Anonymous of the first complete version of the dynastic tradition of the Piasts set in the wider context of the history of the Polish people. The chronological framework of our discussions is not defined however by rather random events from the history of historiography. Medieval historiography does not here rule history, does not impose its shape on us.* The writing down of just one of a number of (we may hypothesise) many stories about the past of Poland and its rulers that were circulating in society could have significant consequences for the functioning of the whole culture.
Society was presented with a fait accompli; its own story, previously only the domain of the spoken word, now had taken on a single coherent form. Aleida and Jan Assmann write of groups becoming aware of a tradition which had previously been part of everyday life, which then leads to the eternal replication of elements comprising that “tradition” (ancient Egypt) or building an identity around a permanent criticism of “tradition” and the search for novelty (Greek philosophy).* In the case of Polish culture, the changes do not seem particularly great. Nevertheless the times of Boleslaw III Wrymouth see a somewhat radical, which does not mean sudden and unexpected, change in the manner of perception of both the history of the ruler, and as a consequence the country and people subject to him.
The chronological caesurae are not defined only by two unrelated facts, but socio-cultural changes of wider significance. On the one hand they relate to the change in the relationship between the spoken and written word, which in the west is observable in both monastic and lay communities. The twelfth century is the period of the recording in writing of tales which are either normative nature (in the case of monastic movements), or a literate one (and this would include historiographic works, the world beyond the monastic walls). This is the time when the ruler “lives” by the text, directed by the norms which it contains.” On the other hand, the changes within the field of notions of the past of the Piast dynasty runs parallel to the changes occurring in aristocratic societies both in France and—which is more important for us—in the German Reich (Holy Roman Empire). In France the period from the tenth to twelfth centuries is the dawn of the period of the consolidation of the aristocratic elite referring to Carolingian patterns as a model (including ideologically) as a source of its power.
Later we see the growth of importance of the middle nobility and the homogenisation of its structure, increasing emphasis on the patrilineal character of the family, together with the increase in the density of these links resulting from the increase in the number of people regarded as members of the family. All this contributed to the phenomenon of the “vulgarisation of cultural models” among the elite. This also concerns the royal family. In about the tenth century in the Reich occurred the formation of the great clans, the “houses”, including that of the rulers, within which in the middle of the twelfth century independent minor lines were to develop.” The period of interest to us here was one of extreme importance with reference to changes in the way family ties and links with the ancestors were being seen in the societies of the elite in the West, including in Poland.*° We may suggest then that the chronological caesurae accompanying this work do not have an artificial (historiographic) and entirely regional character.
Why Stupy DYNASTIC TRADITION?
The dynastic tradition is only one of the components of the changes taking place in Poland between the tenth and mid-twelfth centuries.
We may consider why in such a situation it should be the focus of the researcher’s attention. The attempt to define the form and genesis of the dynastic tradition is at the same time a question about the manner in which the group who were the culture-creating and political elite of their society saw the contemporary and past world. This is because of the theoretical function which tradition fulfils within the framework of culture (see above) as well as from the point of view of the uniting of the vision of the dynastic tradition with the picture of the past of Poland, and also due to the specific nature of the recipients, the owners of the tradition. Although therefore within these reflections the broader political and cultural issues will appear only marginally, it is after all the problem of the tradition of the ruling family which is crucial to the understanding of the world of the earlier and full Middle Ages. Especially, as Henryk Samsonowicz noted, as it concerned the construction of a group identity for our distant forebears.*!
Participation in a tradition which is alive within a certain group was and is still treated as the bonds between the individual across chronological borders with the “imagined community”,” which includes the nation. Including the tradition of the Piasts in the framework of the “national tradition” of the Poles means that investigating the dynastic traditions of the ruling family has its roots in, as well as consequences for, the identity of Poles today. In a situation where awareness of identity tends to be treated as a luxury decoration or a tool of the demagogy of elites (sadly not just political ones), besides language and political frontiers, the Poles are linked by just a few symbols. Among them images from the history of the first ruling dynasty, and the whole family occupy significant places as symbols. When many years ago Pierre Nora coordinated the monumental French project Les lieux de mémoire, [Places of Memory], a description of the national mythology of France in the second half of the twentieth century he was directed not by the desire to demask it but presenting the mechanisms of its continuity and effects based on symbols embodying and strengthening memory and cementing the bonds of group identity of the community which feels associated with it.°? We would like in this work to refer to this great exemplar in a manner appropriate to our situation.”
In an awareness of the modest and traditional dimensions of the work undertaken here, also in terms of methodology,® we are guided by a feeling of responsibility both towards the communicators of the messages analysed here, whose lives in an unavoidable manner we make use of, but also the receivers of the message today. The latter also lies heavily on us. Undertaking a problem which lies at the roots of the whole national mythology of the Poles and thus which moulds with great strength the cultural space of Poland, we would not like to subject it to trivialisation by the mere application of current scientific fashions, or our own methodological, or worse—ideological, convictions. Our task is only to attempt to make available to contemporary readers such meanings of the surviving fragments of the rich cultural past of the Poles as they may have had for the people of the times when they were created. The role of the historian is a responsible one, but also a modest one—it is similar to the work of a translator who does society a service, but is never sure of the exactness of their translation.**
By these means we aim to contribute to the broad current of the history of culture,” without any aspiration to enrich social or political history by means of our deliberations.** We consider the historical research presented here in terms of an attempt to access the information about fragments of the past which are accessible to our research due to the survival to our times of communicative entities preserving the structure given them in the period of time and historical context of interest to us. These communications can contain a whole range of older layers of information. Of importance for us will only be those which, after being taken from the later carrier still form a coherent narrative and the genesis of which we can still define precisely enough to relate them to a specific moment in history.
While striving to maintain the primacy of the sources in our investigations attempting to answer questions on the form of the traditions we are seeking, we would like to address first the internal logic of the written source treated as a communication set in as specific a social universe as possible. As a result of this, we do not assume the existence in each period of a narrative defining the past of the ruler and his clan,® nor the continuance of a single dynastic tradition of the Piasts.
It is possible that the elements available to us, fragments of tradition, comprise part make a single coherent whole.® We also however have to accept the possibility that it may turn out that the multiplicity of narratives and deeds cannot be correlated with each other in a narrative form nor even by constructing a theoretical series of transmission of values.
This imposes on us the need precisely to define the context of the functioning of the communications analysed here both from the chronological point of view as well as the milieu in which they were created and received, in order not only to be able to place their meaning is as close a historical framework as possible but also indicate the character of the description in relation to reality (direct relation of an eyewitness, recollection, repetition of somebody else’s statement etc.). Such a procedure seems to guarantee the possibility of verification of the results obtained and realisation of the postulate of respecting the integrity of the historical source. We assume that a communication gained a meaning at the moment of its creation in a specific social milieu and not at the moment of its reading by a modern researcher. As a result, we would like to concentrate on the relationship between on the one hand the creator(s) of the communication and on the other the intended recipients, and see this as the point of reference for the determination of the senses of the analysed statements and behaviour.
We are aware that the conservatism and eclecticism of the investigative principles presented here might meet the opposition of the advocates of a much more theoretical approach to history as a cognitive discipline. To a considerable degree in the construction of these principles we were led by considerations of the need to avoid a situation where the acceptance of one of the methods proposed by the methodology (philosophy) of history meant that the form and to a certain extent the boundaries of the answers obtained would be defined even before the research had begun.” We have placed higher value on voices from the past, coded in different ways and resistant to the use of a single method, than on abstract methodological standpoints.
SOURCES, LITERATURE
Among all the records in which the Piasts appear in the period of interest to us, we have regarded as the ones fundamental to our purpose those which could contain traces of the tradition concerning the past of the family or clan which arose or were functioning in the circle of the ducal and royal court. The rest have been incorporated only as secondary aids in the course of the analyses of the basic corpus of sources. In the unavoidable process of selection of the literature quoted in the references, we have been guided by the basic principle that the introduction of a mention of a work should be economical, both with regards to the size of this book and usefulness to the reader. This work does not pretend to be a broad comparative study, it concentrates on the local situation. Therefore in our reading of works concerning the situation in other regions we paid most attention to phenomena affecting the Reich and to a certain degree Bohemia. This is because we have attempted to place our considerations of the culture of the Poland of the Piasts in a related cultural context, and at least that to which the Piasts aspired.
THE STRUCTURE OF THIS WORK
Apart from the introductory chapter setting the background and the concluding one which summarizes what has been determined, the internal structure of the rest of this work has been defined by three main aims and principles. Firstly determining the state of, and as far as is possible changes in, the traditions which are the object of our interest at specific moments in history (thus the diachronic layout of the chapters within the two first parts of the book). Secondly emphasis on the primacy of the written sources as the basic evidence available to us about the functioning of the investigated phenomenon (therefore defining the division of the contents in parts 1 and 2 into points corresponding to individual sources or their categories). The third is the necessity of defining the degree to which the individuals who are the main subjects, the members of the Piast dynasty could have internalized the principles according to which both the past and the place of the dynasty within society was communicated to the external milieu (which determines the creation of the third part of this text).
The first part of this book therefore is devoted to the presentation of the problem of the functioning or the absence of the Piast tradition in the period before the writing of the “great narrative’—the “Chronicle” of Gallus Anonymous which cover the whole of the history of the dynasty to the beginning of the twelfth century. The elements of the discussion necessarily have a fragmentary character. It is no exaggeration to say that they cannot confirm the existence of any complex form of communication. The evidential value of the annals deserve especial attention from this point of view.
The second part of the book is above all an analysis of the traditions recorded in the Chronicle of Gallus Anonymous. The accompanying chapter discusses the possible continuation of this tradition contained in the records concerning St Otto of Bamberg and discussing the histories of the Polish rulers Wiadystaw Herman and Bolestaw III Wrymouth.
The third part of the present book is divided into chapters containing discussions on the manifestation of tradition in the behaviour of the Piasts beginning from those closely connected with the family life (naming of children, marriage unions, but also the family cults of saints) through those having connections with power and the manifestation of majesty in the person of the ruler, and finally a separate topic concerned with the commemoration of the memory of the Piasts, all conducted of course from the point of view of their being the manifestation of some form of tradition.
The state of the sources for the earlier part of the Medieval period mean that the results of our studies here can only be regarded as a voice in the discussion, and not a homogeneous series of statements with pretence to exclusiveness in the re-creation of the past. We do not regard that as a weakness, rather an immanent characteristic connected with the functioning within the European cultural circle of such a discipline as history.“ History lives due to the exchange of views which create a community between the readers and not only an author describing their research, but also with all scholars whose investigations have had an influence on this research.
We regard this discursive character of history as its real strength, its rational core and by the same token the interdisciplinary intellectual space of European culture. Without agreeing to this kind of discussion, we do not see any chance on the one hand of understanding different manners of “remembering” those same events by different nations, and on the other for an acquiescence to such a variety of visions of the past set within the social conditions in which history functions and the biological memory of humans.”
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