The emergence and politics of Poland 10 13 c. The development of Polish statehood in the 9th - 15th centuries
At the beginning of Polish history, just before the adoption of Christianity, we encounter a number of myths that we cannot ignore. These myths reflect, on the one hand, the external struggle, on the other, the internal one. The external struggle is the struggle of the Poles against the Germans, who are pushing the Western Slavs, trying to subjugate them, destroy their nationality, Germanize them. The Poles put up resistance to dangerous neighbors, the mythical Polish princess Wanda refuses the hand of the German. But along with the external struggle, myths indicate an internal struggle: they exhibit two princes - Popel I and Popel II - as persons hostile to the people, hostile to the principles of his life; the agricultural people live under the forms of tribal life; as among all Slavs, so among the Poles, the members of the genus are not divided, but constitute one; the unity of the clan is maintained by the fact that power passes to the eldest in the whole clan, the uncle has an advantage over the nephew. Popel I goes against the prevailing opinion among the people, wants to introduce a foreign German custom; he subordinates to his son, Popel II, his uncle, his younger brothers.
Popel II follows in his father's footsteps: he has no popular virtue, is not distinguished by hospitality, drives away two wanderers from himself, who find hospitality with the villager Piast and prophesy the throne for his son Zemovit. Popel wants to get rid of his uncles with villainy: he calls them to him and poisons them; he does this on the advice of his wife, Nemui. But villainy is punished in a terrible way: from the corpses of uncles, a huge number of mice are born, which devour Popel with the whole family, and the people elect Piast as king. This myth clearly indicates the resistance of the masses, the rural population, to novelties that were introduced according to the foreign German model by the princes, the leaders of the conquering squads, for the father, Popel I, is exposed as the conqueror. This myth has significance in our eyes also because the phenomena indicated by it are repeated later, in historical times.
Reliable Polish history begins with the adoption of Christianity by Prince Mieczysław. Mechislav married a Christian, the Czech princess Dombrovka, who persuaded her husband to be baptized. The example of the prince worked, Christianity spread everywhere in Poland, but superficially, did not take deep roots, especially in the lower strata of the population. Next to this phenomenon, we see something else: Mechislav is a vassal of the German emperor, and the Germans call him only a count. With the accession to the throne of the son of Mechislav, Boleslav I the Brave, Poland begins to rise strongly: Boleslav, having driven out his brothers, seeks to subjugate Bohemia and Russia; neither one nor the other succeeds, but Boleslav leaves the struggle with rich conquests, acquires Moravia and Silesia from the Czechs, and also conquers Pomerania. The Germans cannot look indifferently that the son of their vassal is striving to become a powerful and dangerous sovereign for them, to establish a Slavic empire near them, and therefore they are working hard against Boleslav, hindering him. designs in Bohemia; Emperor Henry II directly wages war with the King of Poland, but unsuccessfully.
The reign of Bolesław, his brilliant and extensive military activities, conquests had a powerful influence on the internal life of Poland: from the numerous associates, from the vast retinue of the warlike king, a strong upper class was formed, which owns the land, occupies government positions, sits in cities built by the king, controls the regions . The agricultural state, industry and trade are extremely poorly developed; there is no wealthy industrial class to counterbalance the importance of the military or landowning class. Under Boleslav, royal power was strong and held back the nobles thanks to the personal merits of the king; but if kings not like the Brave go, what will hold them back?
And so it happened. The successor of Bolesław the Brave was Mechisław II, who did not at all resemble his father. With a decrease in royal importance, the importance of nobles rises, and then there are new favorable circumstances for them. Mechislav soon dies, leaving his infant son Casimir under the care of his mother, a German Ricksa. Riksa surrounds herself with Germans and despises the Poles; Polish nobles are strong and do not want to endure this contempt, do not want to share with the Germans in the management of their native country. Riksa was expelled with her son to Germany. The nobles seized the supreme power, but, having quarreled, they could not keep it in their hands; there was anarchy and a terrible turmoil: the common people rose up against the gentry, paganism, covered up, but not disappeared, rose up against Christianity, or, rather, against the clergy, which is heavy for the people with their requisitions; the villager sought to get rid of two oppressors who wanted to live on his labor, from the pan and the priest; external enemies took advantage of the turmoil in Poland and rose up against it, began to cut it off. Then the only means of salvation was recognized as the restoration of royal power.
Casimir was called from abroad to the throne of his father and grandfather. Under Casimir the Restorer (Restorer), the unrest subsided, the Czechs were restrained in their hostile plans, Christianity was strengthened. Casimir's successor, Bolesław II the Bold, was similar to Bolesław the Brave and by his military exploits managed to raise the importance of Poland among its neighbors, but could not raise the values of royal power within: the circumstances were not the same as under Bolesław I, the aristocracy was strong, and Bolesław II had more imprudence to face another powerful estate, the clergy, which joined the nobles and further strengthened the latter. Bishop Stanislav of Krakow publicly condemned the behavior of the king, the Bold could not resist in anger and killed the bishop. The result was the expulsion of Boleslav, whose place was taken by his brother, Vladislav-German.
The expulsion of the Bold was the most favorable circumstance for strengthening the power of the nobles, because Vladislav-German was an incapable sovereign; after his death, there are strife between his sons: the legitimate, Boleslav III Krivousty, and the illegal, Zbigniew; finally, Zbigniew was killed, but Bolesław Wrymouth divided Poland between his four sons in 1139, as a result of which the same tribal relations and strife begin between the princes in Poland, which were in Russia since the death of Yaroslav I (1054). But the difference is that in Russia these relations and strife began very early, when the nobles had not yet had time to strengthen themselves as regional chiefs, and the princes, having greatly multiplied, occupied all significant cities and volosts and thereby put an obstacle to the strengthening of the nobles, his independence; while in Poland, since the time of Bolesław the Brave, we see favorable circumstances for the strengthening of the importance of the nobles, and autocracy continues, and the nobles govern the regions. And now, already in 1139, when the power of the nobles has increased tremendously, autocracy ceases, strife between princes begins, and strong nobles use these strife to further strengthen their power.
The importance of the nobles was revealed immediately. The eldest son of Crooked Mouth, Vladislav II, under the influence of his German wife Agnes, wants to restore autocracy, drive out the brothers, and strengthen his power; but the nobles and prelates do not want this strengthening, they take the side of the younger brothers and expel Vladislav II himself; then they expel the energetic and therefore dangerous for them Mieczysław III. Thus, after Bolesław the Brave, we see the expulsion of four sovereigns in Poland. The Senate completely limits the power of the sovereign, who can neither issue a new law, nor start wars, nor give a charter for anything, nor finally decide a court case. Meanwhile, external enemies take advantage of the sad situation of Poland, the strife of its princes, their disputes with nobles and prelates, Poland had dangerous neighbors in the Prussians, a wild Lithuanian tribe; driven to despair by the devastating raids of the Prussians, the Polish princes of Mazovia call for help from the Germans, namely the knights of the German, or Teutonic, order, giving them a place to settle. The German knights really stop the Prussian raids, moreover, they conquer Prussia, they exterminate some of the inhabitants, some are forced to flee to the forests inhabited by the same tribe of Lithuania, the rest are forcibly baptized and unmarked. But, having established itself in Prussia, the German order, in turn, becomes a dangerous enemy of Poland.
The danger from the Germans for Poland was not limited to one German order. The Polish princes, in their strife and disputes with nobles and prelates, having a need for money, borrow it from the Germans, pledge land to them, which then remain with the lenders, because the debtors are not able to redeem them; thus, many Polish lands passed to the Margraves of Brandenburg. The abbots of the Polish monasteries, born Germans, populate the monastic lands with their Germans; with the underdevelopment of industry and trade between the Poles, German industrialists and merchants fill the Polish cities and introduce their German administration there (Magdeburg Law); the Polish princes surround themselves with Germans, they speak nothing but German, the nobles imitate them in order to distinguish themselves from the crowd; the use of the German language throughout Silesia and in large cities: Krakow, Poznań.
After long internal unrest and struggle with external enemies, one of the Polish princes, Vladislav Loketok (Korotky), managed to unite most of the Polish regions into one kingdom. In order to balance the power of the senate, in 1331 Loketek convened the first Sejm in Chentsiny, but he could oppose the nobility only to the mass of the armed class, the gentry, which gave the Sejm the character of a veche, a Cossack circle, began to strive for military Cossack democracy, did not give the king any support. The urban class, which absorbed many foreign elements, turned out to be weak, unable to balance the power of the nobles and the gentry and give support to the royal power; the settlers were slaves to their landowners, and thus the further fate of Poland was in the hands of the gentry.
Vladislav Loketek left the throne to his son Casimir, nicknamed the Great; but the publication of a code or statute (Wislicki) and the founding of the University of Cracow cannot justify this name. Casimir tried to alleviate the plight of the rural population, for which he earned the nickname from the gentry male king, but he could not do anything important in this respect, and in general one cannot find so many bright sides in Casimir's activity that they could outweigh the unfavorable impression that he makes with his immorality and promiscuity in satisfying his passions. Under Casimir, Poland yields to its neighbors in the north and west, renounces Danzig Pomerania in favor of the Germans, Silesia in favor of the Czechs; but on the other hand, Casimir takes advantage of the turmoil in the Galician kingdom and takes possession of this Russian land (1340). Childless Casimir passes the throne to his nephew from his sister, Louis, King of Hungary; the powerful nobility agrees to this transfer, because Louis promised not to impose taxes without the consent of the people.
Since Louis throughout his reign paid little attention to Poland, this, of course, led to an even greater strengthening of the gentry. The latter did what she wanted, and after the death of Louis, who gave the Polish throne to one of his daughters, Jadwiga; Jadwiga did not come to her kingdom for a long time, and without her there was unrest, a strong struggle between the powerful families of Nalencha and Grzhimala. Finally the young queen arrived; it was necessary to marry her, and the Poles wanted to arrange this marriage as profitable as possible for themselves. Their attention had long been turned to the East, to a strong country, an alliance with which alone could give them the means to successfully fight the Germans. They offered the hand of their queen and their kingdom to the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jagail, not in order to give Poland as a dowry for Jadwiga, but to take Lithuania as a dowry for Jagail. Seduced by the honor of being a Polish king, a semi-barbarian and a very narrow-minded man, Jagiello agreed to all the demands of the Polish nobles and clergy, he himself converted to Catholicism, promised to convert pagan Lithuania to Christianity according to the Roman rite, promised to spread Catholicism among his Christian subjects of the Eastern confession, Russians and Lithuanians , promised to annex all his possessions to Poland.
The fatal marriage was concluded, but immediately there were phenomena that usually occur when two different nationalities are forcibly united, or when one nationality is given as a dowry. Willy-nilly, the pagan part of Lithuania was baptized and joined to the Western Church; but Christians of the Eastern confession, Russians and Lithuanians, did not want to accept Latinism, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania did not want to submit to the Polish crown. As a result, a strong struggle was going on with a visible connection. The details of this struggle do not belong here, regarding the actual Polish history in the reign of Jogaila, the war with the German order is remarkable.
At the end of the 9th century, an unknown historian, later called the Bavarian geographer, reported on the tribal Slavic groups living on the banks of the Warta and the Oder, and occupying the vast flat lands of Central Europe. Initially, scattered in Western sources, they were called Lekhites, but later they began to be called glades, after the name of one of the strongest tribes; It was from the meadows that the founder of the Polish state, Mieszko I, came out.
Ancestors
Separate scattered tribes of Lekhites were ruled by princes, whose names history has not preserved. Modern historians know only one message, which concerns the genealogy of the rulers of the Glade tribe. This is explained by the fact that the glade, having carried out a number of successful military operations and subjugated the neighboring tribes, preferred to oust the names of their rulers from the memory of the vanquished, and preserve their traditions in history. In the 12th century, the chronicler Gallus Anonymus wrote down oral legends about the rulers of the meadows, and this is how they ended up in medieval chronicles. According to Anonymous, Prince Popiel, who was expelled, ruled in the city of Gniezno. His place was taken by Semovit, who did not occupy a high social position, but was the son of a simple plowman Piast. Semovit and laid the foundation for the Piastovich dynasty, who ruled in the fortification of Gniezno. It was this prince and his heirs, Lestko and Semomysl, who became the ancestors of Meshko I.
Prerequisites
Most likely, Mieszko I formed his state not from scratch. One can be sure that the history of the Polish state began long before the birth of this prince, and the former princely dynasty had already taken serious steps towards the centralization of power. The ancestors of Meshko I added the lands of neighboring tribes to the possessions of the glades: Kuvyan, Mazovshan, Lendzyan. On the occupied lands, defensive structures were built - cities. In some lands, the towns were located at a distance of 20-25 km from each other, that is, during the daytime march of a combat detachment. A strong army became decisive factors in expanding and strengthening the power of the meadows. But vast territories, wetlands and impenetrable jungles of forests allowed the conquered tribes to maintain significant independence. The invaders did not change the way of life of the captured tribes, but imposed taxes on the peasant communities, which were collected by the servants of the prince. Thus, the founder of the Polish state owed much to his predecessors, who had created a system of government over the previous two centuries.
Beginning of the reign
Meshko was the son of Semomysl, the name of his mother remained unknown. The beginning of the reign dates back to 960, when the future founder of the Polish state began to rule in the principality of Great Poland with the center in Gniezno. Ten years later, he almost doubled the area under his control, annexing the territories of Mazovia, Kuyavia and the Gdansk Pomerania. The year 982 became the date of the conquest of Silesia, and in 990 the meadow was annexed by the Vistula lands. The conquests of the Poles began to take on a threatening character. In Western European and Arabic sources, information appeared about a powerful man with strong power and a well-trained army. Therefore, it is generally accepted that the Polish state was formed in the 10th century, when the Polish possessions were significantly expanded and strengthened, and the prince and his squad converted to Christianity.
Adoption of Christianity
Without the adoption of Christianity by Mieszko I in 966, the formation of the Polish state would have been impossible. The expansive foreign policy of the prince led to an aggravation of relations with neighboring states. Emperor Otto I repulsed the attempts of the Polyans to conquer the lands of the Lubushans, and Mieszko I agreed to pay tribute to this ruler. At the same time, the prince develops Polish-Czech relations. To secure relations with the Czech kingdom, Mieszko marries the daughter of the Czech king, Princess Dubravka. Two powerful neighbors - Sacred and Bohemia, led the prince to the decision to accept Christianity. Prince Mieszko was baptized according to the Latin rite in 966. The adoption of Christianity gave impetus to the fact that the first Polish state began to be recognized by contemporaries at the European level.
The structure of the Polish state
At the initial stage of formation, the Polish-Lithuanian state occupied an area of approximately 250 thousand square meters. km. It is impossible to say more precisely, since the borders of the newly formed country were constantly changing. Most of the population was engaged in agriculture. The most numerous stratum of the population were the Kmets, free peasants. The Kmets lived in large families and after the unification of the tribes, the differences between the communities were preserved, which gave rise to the administrative division of the Polish lands, and later the adoption of Christianity, the same principle formed the division of the territory into dioceses.
Administrative division
The smallest step of the administrative division was the urban district. It was under the control of the representatives of the prince, who had full administrative, military and judicial power. There are references to four such centers in the cities of Gniezno, Poznań, Geche and Wloclawek. It was here that the shield-bearers and men-at-arms, who formed the backbone of the Polish army, took place. If necessary, detachments were assembled from all the free peasants. In terms of their armament and military training, such detachments were inferior to the soldiers of the princely squad, but they were successfully used in reconnaissance and in partisan attacks. According to historians, at the beginning of the 11th century, the total number of troops of Mieszko I was over 20 thousand people.
Economy of ancient Poland
The maintenance of a large and combat-ready army required a constant influx of funds. To ensure the country's defense capability and hold the occupied lands, Prince Meshko I created an established fiscal apparatus, which was engaged in the collection and distribution of taxes. The tax was paid by the entire rural population of the country, in the form of livestock products and agriculture. Another financial lever was the distribution of "regalia" - various rights to conduct especially profitable branches of economic activity. Regalia were: coinage, extraction of precious metals, the organization of markets and inns, some types of hunting. The main exports were furs, amber and slaves. But by the end of the 11th century, the development of agriculture began to require a constant influx of labor, and the growing influence of the church prohibited human trafficking. Therefore, the slave trade after XI ceased to be an element of export, and later it ceased altogether.
The end of the reign of Mieszko I
As in other European states, the rights to the princely throne were inherited. However, the right of birthright was not yet fixed on the Polish lands, therefore there were frequent civil strife between possible contenders for the throne. The founder of the Polish state had two brothers, one of whom died in battle, and the second, Chtibor, held a high-ranking post. Dying, Mieszko I left part of the state in the hands of his firstborn son Boleslav. This son went down in history as Boleslav the Brave. He inherited from his father a developed, rich, vast country with great international influence. And after a long series of victories and defeats, Bolesław the Brave became the first king of the Polish state.
In previous decades, domestic science considered any state as a machine for suppressing one class by another. This is not to say that this is completely false. However, it is also true that the nature of the state is not limited to a single repressive function. The state also acts as a powerful creative force in history. From the point of view of the self-organization of society, the state is the most important step in curbing the elemental forces of social development, the most essential achievement of progress. Therefore, there is every reason to count the actual historical existence of this or that people from the moment of the formation of statehood.
The genesis of Polish statehood
In the Polish past, the state enters the historical arena in the 9th-10th centuries, but the first decades of its existence are not covered by sources that would allow describing the genesis of Polish statehood. In the second half of the 10th century, the state of the first dynasty of Polish rulers - the Piasts - appears as an already established and sufficiently developed military-administrative machine. The main source for the reconstruction of the Polish history of this time - the Chronicle of Gall Anonymus, written only at the beginning of the 12th century - conveys some echoes of the events and processes of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries. It can be seen from it that already in the 9th century there was a consolidation of the Wielkopolska "big tribe" of the Polans, who began to conquer neighboring tribes. Simultaneously with the conquests, the construction of towns was going on, a permanent and rather numerous squad was formed, together with the squad, the tribal aristocracy was separated into a special social group, whose source of livelihood was the tribute collected from the subject population.
The chronicle of Gall Anonymus brings us legends, from which we learn about the legendary ancestor of the Polish rulers, the simple peasant Piast, who was elevated to the throne by God's providence, and about his three semi-legendary successors - Zemovit, Leshke and Zemomysl. They managed to subjugate to their power not only Greater Poland, but also Mazovia, Kuyavia, part of Pomerania, the land of Lendzyan. Their residence was the city of Gniezno, which grew in proportion to the military successes of the glades.
Organization of the Polish state in the X-XI centuries.
The first monarch about whom more reliable data have been preserved was Mieszko I (circa 960-992). Western European and Arabic sources of the 10th century describe his state as a strong and ramified organism, based on a network of towns, which ceased to be the center of tribes or opol, becoming the mainstay of the power of the Polish prince, centers for collecting tribute and residences of small retinue garrisons led by princely governors. Over time, these towns turned into feudal castles. Under the heir of Sack I, Boleslav the Brave (992-1025), according to Gall Anonymus, in a number of the largest centers (Gniezno, Poznan, Wloclawek, Gdech), numerous squad detachments were concentrated (a total of more than 10 thousand knights and defenders) . Such an army could exist only thanks to the system of centralized state exploitation of the dependent population, which consisted in the regular collection of tribute-tax. The entire territory subordinated to the prince was considered, respectively, as his own possession (patronimium), a single economic domain controlled by representatives of the princely administration and divided into a number of administrative districts (Greater Poland, Silesia, Krakow, Sandomierz, Mazovia, Lenchitsko-Sieradz, Kuyavia and Pomeranian lands). At the grand prince's court, a system of state positions was formed (chancellor, voivode, treasurer, chashniki, stolniks, stablemen, etc.), which in its main elements was reproduced at the level of local administration in the largest cities. The head of the district, the future castellan, with the help of his subordinates, collected taxes, organized a squad, and ruled the court on behalf of the prince. Like all early medieval rulers, the Polish monarch spends almost his entire life in the saddle, moving with his retinue from one land to another and thereby asserting his power and authority on the ground. After the adoption of Christianity in Poland in 966, along with the secular administration, the church began to take shape.
A characteristic feature of such a system of state organization is that it is the state, represented by the prince and his warriors, that acts as a feudal corporation that centrally exploits the country subject to the prince. Only gradually, as the local representatives of the prince are given immunity privileges, does the combatant turn from a representative of the state into a feudal lord, who receives certain populated territories into a private conditional possession, for which he must serve the prince. The state organization thus precedes the feudal one, and the entire social system can also be defined as a system of state feudalism.
Milestones of political development
The main organizing principle of the political life of any early medieval society is war. Domestic political changes and events are most often the result of military-political conflicts. Poland is no exception in the 10th and early 12th centuries.
The reign of Mieszko I (until 992) was marked by the territorial expansion of the Wielkopolska state, which subjugated Silesia, Pomerania, and part of Lesser Poland. Another important event of this time was the adoption of Christianity as the state religion in 966, dictated largely by political considerations, and the symbolic transfer of Polish lands under the care of the Roman throne. Another milestone in the reign of Mieszko I was the formation of a system of military-state institutions of the Polish monarchy, the establishment of a system of centralized state exploitation of the population.
The reign of Boleslaw the Brave (992 - 1025) was marked by the annexation of Krakow to his state in 999, the conclusion of a close military-political alliance with the Emperor of the Holy German Empire Otto III during the so-called Gniezno Congress of 1000. This union was accompanied by the creation of an independent Gniezno archdiocese, which guaranteed Poland ecclesiastical and political independence from the German Church. Rapprochement with Germany gave way to a period of long wars with the successors of Otto III in 1002-1018. After the conclusion of the Bulishinsky peace with the Empire in 1018, Boleslav undertook a victorious campaign against Kievan Rus and annexed a number of cities in Galician Rus to Poland (1018). The apogee of Bolesław's political activity was his coronation in 1025.
During the reign of Mieszko II (1025 - 1034) there were a number of defeats: the crown and part of the acquired lands were lost, internal strife broke out in the country, forcing Mieszko II to flee from Poland, the monarchy plunged into a political and social crisis.
The apogee of this crisis falls on the reign of Casimir I the Restorer (1034 - 1058): almost the entire territory of Poland in 1037 was engulfed by a popular uprising, directed both against the feudalization that was in full swing and against the church that had taken root in the country. In Polish historiography it is sometimes called the social-pagan revolution. The consequences of this social explosion were catastrophic: the existing state-administrative and church systems were almost destroyed, which the Czech prince Bretislav took advantage of by undertaking a devastating campaign against Poland in 1038. Nevertheless, Casimir managed to defend the independence of the Polish principality, calm the country and restore the shaken social, state and church order.
The reign of Bolesław II the Bold or the Generous (1058-1081) was marked by the participation of Poland in the conflict between Pope Gregory VII and the German Emperor Henry IV, who brought Bolesław the royal crown in 1076. However, in 1079 he faced a feudal conspiracy led by his brother Władysław and, possibly by the Krakow Bishop Stanislav. Although Boleslav even decided to execute Stanislav, his strength was not enough to keep power in the country, and he was forced to flee in the same 1079 to Hungary.
The transfer of power to his brother Vladislav I German (1081-1102) meant the victory of the centrifugal forces of the feudal opposition over the central government. In fact, on behalf of Vladislav, the country was ruled by his governor Seciech, which meant that Poland entered a period of new political strife and feudal fragmentation.
The reign of Bolesław III Wrymouth (1102-1138) led to a temporary victory over the opposition forces in the course of the struggle against Sieciech and Bolesław's brother Zbigniew. This was largely the result of successful wars for the reunification and Christianization of Pomerania. In his will in 1138, Boleslav tried to prevent the disintegration of the country into separate principalities and destinies, introducing the rule of the principate into the succession to the grand prince's throne, that is, transferring supreme power to the eldest of four sons. However, this state act could no longer stop the inevitable processes of decentralization, and after the death of Bolesław, Poland finally enters a period of feudal-political fragmentation.
Poland in the 10th - early 12th centuries: economic and social development
Population and internal colonizationThe main Polish territory at that time covered about 250 thousand square meters. km. It lived by the turn of the X - XI centuries. from 750 thousand to 1 million people. The population density was naturally uneven. Central Silesia, the center of Greater Poland, the west of Lesser Poland, Kuyavia and Pomerania were more densely populated than others. At that time, forests covered vast expanses, and uninhabited areas were especially extensive on the borders between regions.
Grody, becoming the military-administrative centers of the Polish state, gradually overgrown with handicraft settlements and gave shelter to markets, the villages remained small, but still larger than before, uniting up to 10-15 households. Their location was still not stable, as the population developed more and more new lands. Instead of a large family, the basic production and social cell became a small one, cultivating 8-9 hectares of land in two fields.
This internal colonization, as historians have recently established, began relatively early - already in the 11th-12th centuries, that is, even before the so-called "German colonization" unfolded. On the one hand, the pioneers who burned and uprooted the forest were people or entire families who, for one reason or another, found themselves outside the community. In the course of such spontaneous peasant colonization, an entire village could move to a new place. On the other hand, the monasteries used the dependent population for the organized development of new lands. When there were not enough workers to clear new plowing, secular feudal lords and the church invited settlers, granting them, unlike the rest of the dependent peasants, the status of "free guests", hospitals. They carried certain duties in favor of the owner of the land, but could leave it at any time, without, however, having any rights to the cultivated plot. The development of legal norms for "free guests" led to the fixing of the legal status of other peasants. We emphasize, however, that in the XI - XII centuries. all these processes were just unfolding, acquiring a real scope only in the 13th-14th centuries.
Agriculture
Agriculture and cattle breeding developed from the 10th century not only on peasant farms, but also in feudal estates. It is the latter that constitutes an innovation not familiar to previous eras. Its purpose was to provide everything necessary for the squad of the Grand Duke and to ensure the collection of state rent-tax from the peasantry. Grod and the princely patrimony were closely connected with each other. Estates X - XI centuries. were exclusively princely, in the XII century they began to pass into the hands of individual families of the emerging feudal estate.
At the same time, the main place in the princely, and later privately feudal patrimonial economy was occupied not by agriculture, but by animal husbandry, which was carried out by some of the peasants living in the patrimony. Along with this, special people were responsible for organizing hunting, which was not only a sport and entertainment, but also an important help in supplying the squad with meat, especially corned beef on the eve of big campaigns. Another group of workers in the patrimony were artisans, who most often had their own allotment of land. The private estates that arose after the princely estates were organized in a similar way, although on a smaller scale.
In the traditional peasant economy, the slash-and-burn system gradually developed in the 10th-12th centuries. gave way to stable arable farming, although on the periphery colonization was accompanied by the burning of forests. The dominant system of land use was two-field, only in the XII century it began to be replaced by three-field (allocation along with spring arable land and winter field fallow). The only fertilization system was the burning of stubble, which remained very high after harvest, since only spikelets were cut with a sickle during the harvest. Manure was used only in vegetable gardens.
The plow with an iron tip remained the main tool of labor, sickles were iron, flails were wooden, millstones until the 12th century, when the first mills began to appear, were hand-made. Oxen was used as a draft force, and from the 12th century horses were also used.
Millet remained the main grain crop, but rye also began to grow in importance next to it. Wheat was sown less frequently, mainly on the good lands of southern Poland. From other cultures, barley was widespread, which was intended for making porridge and beer, already in the 11th century. displacing honey as the main intoxicating drink. They also sowed peas, beans, lentils, from garden crops - turnips, carrots, cucumbers, from industrial crops - flax and hemp. The acculturation of fruit trees was just beginning, so fruit has hardly been indulged in yet. Separate princely and church estates had vineyards, but the wine produced was of poor quality and served mainly for liturgical purposes. According to G. Lovmyansky, 60% of the food needs of a peasant family were covered by bread, cereals and other grain products, about 25% by meat, 10% by dairy products, and the rest by honey, beer and vegetables.
Animal husbandry in the peasant economy was represented by oxen, pigs (which were grazed in the forest), sheep, and cows. They also raised poultry. In the patrimonies, primarily princely, specialized animal husbandry played an important role, in which horse breeding occupied a special place. Cattle were bred to provide meat for the table of the lord and his squad. For a long time, the power and wealth of the feudal lord was measured not so much by the amount of land or dependent peasants, but by the large number of herds and herds.
Along with agriculture and cattle breeding, the proportion of gathering in the rural economy was still large. Apiaries and mead production acquired great importance, since honey replaced both alcoholic beverages and sugar, and after the adoption of Christianity, the production of wax candles became an urgent need. For the use of the boards and apiaries, a special tribute was paid to the landowner, the beekeepers constituted a privileged professional group. Beavers enjoyed no less respect, because breeding and catching beavers also required special skills. Honey, wax and furs were a significant export trade item. Of course, fishery also retained its importance. As feudal relations developed, landowners sought to limit the rights of peasants to use forests, rivers, and water bodies.
Craft and trade
During the X - XII centuries. in the Polish lands, along with the traditional home craft, a professional, specialized craft develops, gradually concentrating in the cities and large feudal estates that develop around the towns. In the 12th century, in Polish sources, we already find references to coal miners, carpenters, shipbuilders, coopers, tailors, etc. Villages specializing in one or another craft production developed in the estates - villages where blacksmiths or salt cookers, carpenters or leather workers, coopers lived or weavers. Traces of such settlements remained in the toponyms that have come down to us: Solniki, Bovary, Kolodzheye, Shchitniki, Sanniki, etc. From the 12th century, mining began to develop: for the extraction of lead, silver, gold, primitive mines were created, where, apparently, princely slaves worked; iron ore was mined in shallow pits. In the north of Poland, the simplest salt pans arose; in the Lesser Poland villages of Bochnia and Wieliczka, they began to extract rock salt from underground.
Gradually, cities became centers of crafts and trade, but until the 12th century they still very little resembled the cities of the mature Middle Ages: legally they were completely dependent on the prince, in whose favor trade duties and craft taxes were collected. Citizens were also required to carry out labor (underwater) duty. Although in the 12th century its own coin supplanted foreign coins from circulation, the role of the city in domestic and local trade was still very small, and foreign trade was monopolized by the feudal militias. The Western Pomeranian cities (Wolin, Szczecin, Kolobrzeg) developed faster than others, the importance of Wroclaw and Krakow as intermediaries between Central Europe and the ancient Russian lands grew; Poznan and Gniezno - as a link between Pomerania and southern Poland.
In general, until the 13th century, the Polish economy retained a deeply natural character, with the absolute predominance of the agricultural sector.
Social structure and social relations
In the X - XII centuries. in Poland there was a process of feudalization, that is, the emergence of a system of patrimonial land tenure and the formation of two main social groups of medieval society: the dependent peasantry and the feudal lords. Contrary to the opinion prevailing in the domestic scientific literature for a long time, until the 12th century, Polish feudalism was based not on a large private feudal estate, which until that time simply did not exist as any significant phenomenon, but on a centralized system of state exploitation of the dependent population. Accordingly, the combatant was a feudal lord only insofar as he remained a member of this military-political corporation. The feudal lord in the proper sense of the word was the state itself, represented by the Grand Duke. The peasants, in turn, retained personal freedom and the unquestioned right to use the land as subjects of the sovereign. They were connected with the state by a centrally collected rent, which at the same time turned out to be a tax.
This early medieval system of social relations, typical of most "barbarian" "societies growing into feudalism, in the 11th - 12th centuries gave way to classical, "normal" feudalism. The essence of this process was that the state transferred the right to use part of the centralized rent to individual representatives of the military elite, distributing in conditional holding state lands with peasants sitting on them.Over time, these lands - through giving them tax, judicial and administrative immunity - turned from, so to speak, service residences into private feudal estates. The process of feudalization was underway, thus, not from below (through the social differentiation of the community and the emergence of private ownership of land, on the basis of which the state later grew), but from above - through the distribution of state lands into first conditional, and then unconditional ownership of members of the military-feudal retinue corporation.
The first non-state feudal patrimonies were the patrimonies of the Church. The largest of them was the patrimony of the head of the Polish Catholic Church of the Poznan (Gniezno) Archbishop, which, as can be seen from the papal bull of 1136, consisted of about 150 settlements, 1000 peasant households, more than 6 thousand peasants. Of course, such a complex could not have been formed in a jiffy, so it can be assumed that the first church estates began to appear soon after the adoption of Christianity by Meshka I. This does not mean that the church immediately acquired an independent material base. On the contrary, the clergy remained until the 12th century in the same dependence on the prince as his own warriors. Nevertheless, it is the clergy that acquires the status of an estate before others, that is, it is endowed with a number of rights and privileges that make it largely immune to princely arbitrariness and independent of the secular feudal nobility. 11th-12th centuries became the time of the formation of the clergy as the first class group in the social structure of the Polish medieval society.
The secular feudal patrimony takes shape in Poland later than the ecclesiastical one. This process only unfolds in the second half of the 11th-12th centuries. and expands only with the approval of the regime of feudal fragmentation. Therefore, the main criterion separating the feudal lords from the rest of the population and one group of feudal lords from another is not land wealth. military and political authority, prestige in the squad environment, closeness to the prince himself, the nature of the functions performed at court and in the squad, partly movable property, for example, the amount of cattle and horses belonging to one or another owner. These people appear in the sources as "the best people", optimates. The roots of this group go back to the former tribal elite. In the Poland of the first Piasts, military leaders, commanders of garrisons (Kashtelians), and the closest advisers to the prince can become owners.
Chivalry, nobiles make up the bulk of the military service environment. It is already completely different from the squad of tribal times, since it is not consolidated by either kinship or a single territory. The knight is completely dependent on the prince, who provides him with food, clothing, housing, equipment, and even deals with his marriage affairs. Around the prince himself, the retinue elite is concentrated, and the knights who were sitting under the command of the princely governors in local garrisons differed little in their way of life from peasants or artisans. Next to the knights in the sources of the XII century, we also meet the third category of military service people - vlodyks, that is, peasants who are called up from time to time for military service. This is a marginal group, which indicates the immaturity of estate-class structures and which will later resolve itself between the nobility and the peasantry. Starting from the 11th century, the process of settling warriors on the ground as a result of princely land grants unfolded, which created the prerequisites for feudal fragmentation.
In general, neither power nor chivalry, even in the 12th century, had yet acquired the features and status of the medieval service nobility and feudal aristocracy, had not yet constituted an estate. At the same time, they no longer look like the tribal aristocracy and warriors of tribal times. From this point of view, X - XII centuries. constitute the transitional period between the feudal and pre-feudal systems.
Polish peasantry in the X-XII centuries. remained personally free, united in traditional communities, gminas. As the processes of feudalization unfolded, groups emerged from the homogeneous environment of the peasantry that became dependent on individual landowners. This process was reflected in the diversification of the terminology of sources relating to the peasantry. However, the predominance of forms of state feudalism and the need for internal colonization contributed to the preservation of the traditional status of the personally free subjects of the prince by the Polish peasantry. In the princely and church estates, along with the peasants, one could also meet landless slaves, slaves, whose role in the economy and their share in the social structure were not great.
As for the Polish burghers, in the XI - XII centuries. it is just beginning to take shape as a separate social group, since even a specialized craft remained the occupation of the villagers, and trade remained the monopoly of the squad. However, in the XII century - especially in Silesia and Pomerania - mature forms of urban organization begin to take shape and the burgher class begins to act as a special layer in the social structure of society.
Thus, Poland X - XII centuries. was a society in which the division into social groups characteristic of mature feudalism was only outlined, and the processes of feudalization themselves were still far from completed.
Culture of Poland in the X-XII centuries.
10th-12th centuries - the time of Poland's introduction to the Latin culture of the West, the stage, so to speak, of apprenticeship, when Polish society mastered the achievements of medieval Christian civilization before making its own original contribution to European culture. Naturally, the gradual Christianization of the Polish population became the central process here, since throughout the Middle Ages culture and religion were inextricably linked.
"Baptism" and Christianization of Poland
As in many other cases, for example, during the "baptism" of Russia, political circumstances served as an immediate impetus for the proclamation of Christianity as the state religion. Fighting for Western Pomerania and facing the threat of German political and religious expansion, Mieszko I sought to find an ally in the person of the Czech rulers and stand on an equal footing in political and diplomatic relations with Germany. The alliance with the Czech Republic was reinforced by marriage with the Czech princess Dubrava, which was accompanied by the baptism of Mieszko I and his inner circle. Apparently, the very act of baptism took place not in Poland, but in Bavaria.
Mieszko I and other Polish rulers faced a difficult twofold task: to introduce Christianity into the practice of everyday life and into the consciousness of Polish society; ensure the emerging Polish church independence from the German hierarchy. The latter need was especially urgent, since Poland, as a field of activity for Christian missionaries, would have to fall into ecclesiastical and administrative dependence on the Archdiocese of Magdeburg. However, the first Polish monarchs managed to avoid this: at first, the clergy who arrived in Poland were headed by Bishop Jordan (an Italian by birth), who arrived from the Czech Republic, later, in 1000, the Poznan Archdiocese, directly subordinate to Rome, was created, headed by Gaudent, a representative of the Czech aristocracy and a Czech by birth. blood.
The network of parishes took shape, of course, not immediately. Initially, monasteries became the main strongholds of Christianity, which converted the local population to the new faith and were training centers for the Polish clergy. The Polish bishops, apparently, for a long time remained generals without an army, and the church itself - the actual part of the state apparatus, completely dependent on the prince. Only in the 12th century, after the spread of the reforms of the famous Pope Gregory VII to Poland, did the clergy acquire class privileges and rights that gave the church independence from the state.
The uprising of 1037 testifies to the difficulty with which Christianity penetrated the popular strata. The Christianization of the bulk of the population, indeed, was the work of more than one decade and, perhaps, not even one century. Even in the retinue-princely environment, Christian norms and beliefs did not take hold immediately. Mieszko I himself, after the death of Dubrava, married a nun, Bolesław the Brave was married many times and had concubines; under Boleslav the Bold, teeth were knocked out for meat-eating during fasting; the churches themselves were originally very small and could accommodate only members of the elite during worship. Even such fundamental rites for Christianity as baptism, weddings and burials were performed very irregularly, if children were baptized, then they did it a few years after their birth; the dead continued to be burned, household items were placed in the graves, etc. The priests themselves were not much different from their parishioners: they were very often illiterate, had wives and children, plowed and hunted along with the peasants. Episcopal power remained nominal, Christianization until the 12th century was the concern of the state. At the same time, the process of transformation of religious customs and norms of behavior was underway, popular pagan culture was being replaced by Christian one, new beliefs were fused with old ones, the annual cycle of Christian holidays and fasts was performed with increasing regularity. In a word, in the X - XII centuries. Polish culture was undergoing a process of deep internal transformation, becoming part of Western Christianity.
Education, enlightenment, art
The spread of education and books was closely connected, as elsewhere in "barbarian" Europe, with the establishment of Christianity. Therefore, the emergence of the first schools and libraries, from which there were no documentary traces in the sources, should be attributed to the second half of the 10th century, although until the end of the 11th century, the Polish clergy received education in most cases outside of Poland. The first proper Polish school for the clergy is known from sources from the end of the 11th century. In the 12th century, schools existed at all cathedrals in Poland. There is no doubt that one of the schools existed before at the princely court. It is known about Mieszko II that he knew not only Greek, but also Latin; his daughter Gertrude was fluent in Latin. In the Krakow Cathedral at the beginning of the XII century. there was a library of almost 50 volumes; one must think that similar libraries existed in Gniezno and in Plock, where at the end of the 11th - beginning of the 12th centuries. housed the residence of the monarch.
The first monuments of Polish literature were, respectively, hagiographies and chronicles created in monasteries and at the princely court. Hagiographic literature is represented by the life of the famous missionary St. Wojciech, created already in the 10th century and a story about the life and martyrdom of 5 other monks who took part in missionary work in Poland. The author of the last work and one of the editions of the life of St. Wojciech was Bruno from Querfurt. From the end of the XII century. the handwritten tradition of the life of St. Stanisław, Bishop of Cracow, who was executed by Bolesław the Bold.
The secular literature of this time is represented by the chronicle of Gallus Anonymus, written at the beginning of the 12th century, by the first rockers and the so-called. "Maur's Song" of the 12th century, which sings the deeds of the governor of the Polish king Vladislav the Exile, the eldest son of Boleslav Krivousty.
Of course, as in any society, in Poland throughout the Middle Ages the richest folklore traditions were preserved, reflected in a number of narrative sources of the 12th and subsequent centuries.
Polish architecture of the 11th - 12th centuries. It is represented mainly by church monuments of the Romanesque style, although traces of the first princely castles dating back to the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries are also known. In the Romanesque style, cathedrals were built or rebuilt in Gniezno, Poznan, Krakow and Plock, monastery churches in Tynce, Krushwitz, the church of St. Andrew in Krakow, a temple in Strzelno. The most notable monument of art of this era is the bronze doors of the Gniezno Cathedral (second half of the 12th century), decorated with 18 sculptural scenes from the life of St. Wojciech. A number of other sculptural monuments of these centuries and many works of small plastic arts and applied art are also known. In the 12th century, the traditions of book miniatures began to take shape in Polish culture.
The history of the country is closely connected with the general history of Europe and with the events that have taken place on the continent for the last millennium.
Ancient history of Poland
In ancient times, Germans, Goths, Slavs lived on these lands. Over time, the Slavic tribes began to unite, which ultimately led to the formation of Poland in the 9th century. The center of the then state was the city of Gniezno. In 966, Christianity of the Catholic rite was adopted. In 1320 the city of Krakow became the political center. In the fourteenth century, Galicia was annexed. In 1385, after the conclusion of the Union of Krevo, a united Letovo-Polish state arose, Catholicism began to spread in Lithuania and the Western Russian lands.
History of the Commonwealth
1569 - the date of the conclusion of the Union of Lublin. As a result of this event, the state of the Commonwealth was formed. The kingdom was a confederation of the Principality of Lithuania and Poland, headed by a king elected by the Sejm. In 1648, an uprising began under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, and later, from 1654 to 1667, a war took place between Russia and the Commonwealth. These events led to the weakening of the Commonwealth and to the loss of Kyiv and the lands that she owned on the left bank of the Dnieper. The further gradual decline of the kingdom led, at the end of the eighteenth century, to the three partitions of Poland. The country was divided between Prussia, Austria and Russia.
Period without independence
After Napoleon defeated Prussia, the Duchy of Warsaw was created on the part of Poland that belonged to Prussia. After the defeat of Napoleon, another division of the country was carried out. Its fate was decided at the Congress of Vienna. It was assumed that the Polish lands will be granted autonomy in Prussia and in Austria and in Russia. As a result, it so happened that autonomy was given only by the Russian Empire, as a result of which an autonomous Kingdom of Poland was formed as part of Russia.
Recent history of Poland
In 1918 the independence of Poland was proclaimed. Yuzev Pilsudski became the first head of state after gaining independence. From 1919 to 1921, the newly formed state was at war with the Soviet Union. The result of the war was the signing of a peace treaty in Riga. This treaty defined the borders between the countries. Western Belarusian and Western Ukrainian lands went to Poland. In 1939 the country was occupied by German troops, in the same year the Western Ukrainian and Western Belarusian lands were ceded to the USSR. Poland was liberated from Germany by the Soviet Union. In 1952, the country was named the Polish People's Republic, and in 1955 it became a member of the Warsaw Pact. In 1989, free elections were held in the country. Reforms began in the republic. In 1999, the state became a member of NATO, and in 2004 joined the European Union.