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POLAND

During the Late Iron Age and Early Middle Ages, the area that makes up contemporary Poland belonged to the outskirts of "civilized" Europe dominated by the Roman Empire. This distant part of the so-called Barbaricum, however, maintained contacts with the lands at the forefront of cultural development. Thus, processes observed in the Romanized parts of the Continent had unavoidable effects in the area north of the Sudetic and Carpathian Mountains. Because written sources are scarce and difficult to interpret, one must rely mainly on archaeological data, with the support of historical anthropology, to piece together a history of Poland from the fifth to the tenth century.

In late antiquity the territories to the north of the Carpathian and Sudetic Mountains faced a serious socioeconomic crisis. In the fifth and sixth centuries this resulted in a retreat from hierarchical authority and a return to an egalitarian form of organization. This process was accompanied by a decrease in widespread exchange, a deterioration of crafts, a reduction in the assortment of metal products, the disappearance of adornments, and a declining quality of pottery production. In general, it was a phase characterized by visible poverty.

This shift might have stemmed from the disruption of long-distance trade connections. Imported Roman products played an important role in the regulation of the social order among the "barbarians" surrounding the Roman Empire. Thus, control over the nodes of the trade network had the weight of a political argument because circulation of prestige objects used for ostentation of status conditioned the sustaining of power relations. Those relatively ranked societies required a steady stream of supplies from the outside; this made them quite sensitive to changes in contacts with the empire, which was the main source of status goods. Those contacts became unpredictable in the wake of the turbulent geopolitical situation in and around the Roman Empire in late antiquity. Historians usually blame this turmoil on the appearance of the Asiatic Huns, who arrived in the eastern European steppe zone in A.D. 375 and subsequently installed the center of their "empire" in the Carpathian Basin. A later breakdown of the transcontinental communication network might have caused barbarian elites to leave distant peripheries in search of closer contacts with still attractive Roman markets.

SUDDEN CAREER OF THE SLAVS

Such new circumstances resulted in radical changes in social organization as well as in the archaeologically observed material culture. The changes discernible from the sixth century onward cannot be reliably explained only by the migration of the Slavs, who settled lands emptied by departed Germanic populations, for example, the Vandals. It is difficult to accept the rather common vision of the whole region between the Vistula and Oder Rivers being suddenly completely depopulated and then resettled by the Slavic newcomers. These changes, however, should be viewed from a much broader perspective.

Archaeological data indicate that from the time of the sixth century, simple societies, based on a


nonspecialized, self-sufficient agricultural economy with an egalitarian power structure, became common over vast areas of the northern parts of central Europe. Their uncomplicated socioeconomic organization is indicated by the layout of their settlements, composed of small houses of a uniform type (square, sunken huts with stone ovens in one corner, see figs. 1 and 2) arranged in rows or dispersed irregularly, as well as by analyses of the cemeteries. This stage, commonly identified as early Slavonic culture, was characterized by its small, nondefensive settlements, poor cemeteries with cremation burials, lack of adornments, and technologically primitive pottery of a uniform shape—the so-called Prague type. In a rather short time this simple style of life was adopted by almost all sedentary societies occupying vast areas of central Europe.

The widespread success of the Slavonic culture, measured by its spatial expansion, may seem surprising in light of its poor material equipment and strict egalitarianism. Nonetheless, decentralization of the power structure resulting from a return to the self-sufficient economy of local farming communities had the advantage of durability, stability, and predictability. It was a return to the relationships of solidarity based mainly on kin ties and not on subjugation (even voluntary) to the interests of military elites. Studies of spatial patterns of early Slavic settlements indicate a lack of any territorial organization, which may suggest that expansion of the Slavs and the durability of their decentralized ethnicity were based on the integrative potential of local rural communities and not on some regional power structures. During that silent revolution, in the course of about two centuries, Slavonic culture came to cover huge areas of the Continent—from Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany to Thessaly in Greece, and from the Ukraine to Bavaria. This rapid expansion of Slavic culture did not result from military aggression or a demographic explosion


but rather from acceptance of a new lifestyle that appeared attractive despite its apparent simplicity. It turned out to be economically effective in the long-term exploitation of various geographic environments.

The age-old controversy between supporters of the "autochthonous," or indigenous, presence of Slavs in the vast lowlands between the Oder and Dnieper Rivers and those who claim that they came from a small "cradle" located between the Carpathians and Dnieper cannot be resolved conclusively. The first group of scholars, stressing continuation of some elements of "Germanic" material culture and survival of archaic hydronymy is not sensitive enough to the dynamism of the period of great migrations. Their opponents, who concentrate on the breakdown of the ancient social structures of the Barbaricum, overestimate "demographic explosion." Such an uncompromising opposition of "continuity" versus "colonization" is false because both hypotheses are based on radical simplification of the historical process. Sudden expansion of Slavdom cannot be disputed either in cultural terms or by using demographic categories only, and both aspects must be combined. Historical sources, archaeological evidence, and linguistic data suggest that the spreading of Slavic cultural codes was much more extensive than the range of the physical migration of their carriers, who intensively interacted with locally bound populations. Both processes were closely interdependent, and it may be impossible to decide which one was decisive in a given area.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SLAVS

The early Slavic self-sufficient agricultural economy could not supply much of a surplus, which determined a relatively flat power structure. Apart from economic constraints, there were also geopolitical reasons for political retardation of the Slavs. The most important was the extensive control exerted by the Avars—Asiatic nomadic warriors who settled in the Carpathian Basin in 568 and militarily dominated all of central Europe. It was only after their defeat by Charlemagne in 799 that dynamic changes began to be seen among the Slavs. The collapse of the Avar "empire" and contacts with the mighty Frankish state, which expanded its tributary zone toward the east, initiated a lively process of social hierarchization among the Slavs.

The Polish lowlands had no direct contact with their mighty eastern Frankish neighbor until the mid-tenth century. For this reason, the territory north of the Carpathians did not attract the attention of early medieval chroniclers. The oldest source, written c. 848 by the so-called Bavarian Geographer at the court of the emperor Louis the German, offers very vague information, which reflects little knowledge of the area lying far from the empire's direct tributary zone. Notes on some mighty tribes suggest, however, that centralization of political power took place there as well. It can be assumed that experience of the long-lasting cooperation with the Avars, the establishment of long-distance commercial relations, and development of agrotechnology led, around the mid-ninth century, to the appearance of local chiefdom organizations based on redistribution economy. There are various archaeological indications of such a process.

Great mounds raised in the southeastern Polish highland in the eighth and ninth centuries (in Sandomierz, Kraków, and Przemyśl) are good indications of such a process. These monumental earthworks may be viewed as evidence of attempts to ease the tensions provoked by growing stratification. None of these mounds contains a grave, which may imply that their main function was to materially manifest the ability to mobilize massive labor input. The aim was to "hide" the proliferating social differentiation behind the traditional symbolism of a burial mound. Such actions can be seen as a form of "propaganda" aimed at social integration despite the progressive stratification. Big mounds also display competition for power by men of status who used them to demonstrate their capacity to mobilize large groups to act collectively. Thus, they indicate periods when new elites symbolically marked their domination.

Arabic written sources address the development of trade relations with the Muslim world, as does the inflow of oriental coins that appeared north of the Carpathian Mountains in three waves during the course of the ninth and tenth centuries. Slaves were probably the main export in that period, although Arabian sources also mention honey, wax, furs, and amber. These commodities left northern central Europe either with Scandinavian merchants via the numerous Baltic trading emporia (e.g., Wolin and Truso), and later along the eastern European river system, or by the transcontinental route (from Spain to Verdun, Mainz, Regensburg, Prague, Kraków, Kiev, the middle Volga, and Khazaria at the Caspian Sea coast) served directly by Arab and Jewish merchants.

Apart from the erection of big mounds and the hiding of silver deposits, archaeological evidence of a new process of power centralization includes the building of earth-and-wood strongholds that began around the mid-ninth century (fig. 3). The strongholds indicate a reorganization of the social space because settlements were concentrated around fortified centers, breaking the older network of agricultural settlement into centralized "cells." As physical and symbolic centers, they fulfilled an important role as nodes of social geography. The strongholds served military functions and were evidence of the wealth of the ruling elite and its capability to execute extensive labor expense. Their construction indicated the economic and demographic potential of the area and might have fulfilled the socially important function of uniting a population around a common goal.

The economic base of a ruling power was supported by attempts to institutionalize ideology,


which resulted in the organization of cult centers. Control over these centers was important in sustaining power, because it strengthened political domination by the sacral legitimization of authority. In this respect, large regional cult centers located on "holy" mountains (e.g., Śle˛z˙a in Silesia and Łysa Góra in Little Poland) should be viewed, first of all, in terms of political struggle.

"CONSTRUCTION" OF THE STATE

The first written evidence of political organization in Polish lands may be found in the legendary hagiography of St. Methodius, in which "a powerful prince of Vislech" is mentioned. He used to "harass" Christian Moravians and subsequently was defeated and converted to Christianity between 874 and 880. The traditional interpretation of this account as a proof of some "state of Vislane" finds no confirmation in the available data. That "prince" probably was just one of many regional leaders functioning around the border of Great Moravia, which was the main target for looting expeditions.

Despite obvious signs of hierarchization, the Early Middle Ages were still a time when the process of power centralization could have been stopped or even reversed. "Democratic" political institutions avoided the transition to territorial organizations ruled by stable monopolistic centers. That "opposition" had to be broken by ambitious individuals. Seeking exclusive power, they counteracted egalitarian attitudes, while violation of "democratic" mechanisms often was camouflaged by manipulating the common tradition. A distant reminiscence of one such illegitimate takeover of supreme authority is recorded in the dynastic legend of the first ruling Polish dynasty—the Piasts, as cited by the socalled Gallus Anonymus in the twelfth-century Cronica Polonorum [Chronicle of the Poles]. The story relates the expulsion of the ninth-century "prince" Popiel because he did not meet the basic requirements of acceptable leadership.

In the words of Gallus Anonymus, when "the Polish principality was not yet so large," Gnezno was ruled by prince Popiel, who had "many noblemen and friends." Once he was not able to "fulfill the needs of his guests," meaning he was unable to give them enough beer and meat; this obligation of a successful leader was met instead by a simple farmer, Piast, whose son Siemowit, "after common approval," was elected the prince of Poland. Popiel was expelled "together with his progeniture." Siemowit "enlarged the borders of his principality" by military means, which was continued by his son Lestek and his grandson Siemomysl. Siemomysl often used to gather together his "earls and dukes" and organize sumptuous feasts, at which the prince asked advice of "the elderly and wise men." He ruled unchallenged for many years, and his successor, Mieszko, also "energetically invaded the neighboring peoples." "Finally, he demanded to marry one good Christian woman from Bohemia," and, with her help, he "renounced the mistakes of paganism."

This is a very good description of the process of stable territorial state formation, in which military expansion helped mobilize the whole population and furnished the economic means to sustain dynastic supremacy. The Piasts were raised to the throne by disillusioned people. The family managed to maintain their position thanks to military successes, which provided material gains and expanded their domain. The leaders continued to seek the counsel of the members of the social elite but were, in fact, beyond their effective control. Mieszko I ultimately reinforced his power in 966 by conversion to Christianity, which offered him ideological legitimacy for unquestioned paramount power.

FOUNDATIONS OF PRINCELY POWER

From such a perspective one must view not only the military but also the political and psychological importance of long wars that mobilized and unified whole societies around victorious chiefs. Wars also had economic importance because booty supported the system of redistribution and gift exchange. War mobilization (against an enemy or for booty) was the best way to maintain the social order. Most important, however, war gains (horses, cattle, weapons, slaves, precious metals, and so on) made it possible to maintain a retinue. Military leadership, even if temporary, offered very efficient, although short-term, possibilities of strengthening one's status. It also helped limit access to paramount positions to one privileged family.

Apart from the strategy of reinforcing political power by military means, it was also necessary to increase the base of economic power by supplementing war income through trade and systematic coercive exploitation of one's own territory. Thus, the hundreds of strongholds built by the western Slavs from the late ninth century onward did not simply serve military purposes but also were safe places for staple produce. Those staples came from agricultural surpluses collected from the inhabitants of the ruler's own territory. Surpluses were made possible through the agricultural progress achieved in optimal climatic conditions. The growing role of agriculture caused the land to develop into a "commodity" and to become the most important element in determining the power structure. A class of people at first controlling and then possessing the land soon became the main supporters of the state.

Ideological power was strengthened by control over the ceremonial centers and the rituals celebrated there as well as by creating an ethnogenetic tradition. Such a largely legendary tradition was promoted by the privileged elites who, referring to the Indo-European stereotypes, equaled their genealogy with the origins of their peoples in order to legitimize their dominant position. This was aimed at increasing their power over the people and not over territory. In the beginning, those people could have been of many ethnic groups. For this reason, the monarch needed ideological reinforcement that would give his people a feeling of unity. Thus, "ethnic" identity resulted mainly from relationships with a specific leader and his family and not from the fact of living within the same territory or from some commonly experienced past.

THE ORIGINS OF POLAND

It seems that when a territorial authority and the control over the religious sphere are turned into a permanent political center with coercive capability (an "army"), it is only a step away from becoming a state. This breakthrough is difficult to discern from early medieval evidence. For example, the Polish state of Mieszko I (922?–992) seemed to appear ex nihilo, because his home area in Great Poland (Wielkopolska) did not boast any particular concentration of strongholds, no dense settlement, and no rich cemeteries. In the early tenth century various areas (Little Poland, Silesia, Great Poland, Masovia, and Pomerania) showed similar development. Every one of these regions could have emerged as a small state. It seems that the main advantage of Great Poland was its geographical isolation, which limited military dangers. Thus, Silesia offered protection from the direct interventions of the mighty eastern Frankish empire, Little Poland protected from Rus aggression, Pomerania absorbed the activity of the Scandinavian Vikings, and Masovia stood against violent Prussians. Thus the final success of Great Poland was determined greatly by its location, which enabled the Piast dynasty to win the race for stable state formation.

Dendrochronological dates indicate a growing settlement network in Great Poland as late as the mid-tenth century, when Mieszko's state already had entered Continental geopolitics. His strategy was described in 965/66 by the Spanish Jewish merchant Ibrahim ibn Jaqub of Tortosa, who reported on his journey to Prague. He noticed the striking effectiveness of a military model based on the domination of a professional, heavily armed cavalry and the stabilizing effect of the stronghold network. Soon the Polish prince effected an ideological revolution by accepting Christianity as the new state religion in 966. All these measures allowed him to secure unquestionable political domination for himself and his descendants.

There must have been a centralized form of coercion applied, under which old kin-based relationships were replaced with new social hierarchy relationships of political obedience while "democratic" supervision by the common assembly was replaced by norms of the imposed royal law. Military power was applied, which in the core area of the early Piasts' state in the mid-tenth century manifested as the phase of destruction of the old strongholds, which were replaced by new ones. Those new nodes of power often were localized at the same site or nearby the earlier ones.

Mieszko's state was not yet "Poland." It was the state of the Piasts who had executed their dynastic goals with the support of a military aristocracy. To Ibrahim ibn Jaqub it was obvious in 965 that it was the monarch with his retinue who created and represented the state. Thus he called it "the state of Mieszko." It was not until much later, after stable territorial foundations of dynastic power were laid down, that it was possible to identify the state not personally but geographically. It was recorded in the last quarter of the tenth century, that the name of the central town (Gniezno) was used for identifying the state ruled by the Piasts. In a document written c. 990 and called Dagome iudex (the meaning of which remains unknown), Mieszko I described his own domain as civitas Schinesghe/Schignesne, that is, "the state of Gniezno." The first coin of his son Boleslav I (r. 992–1025) makes a similar reference, written as "Gnezdun civitas." The general territorial name Polonia appeared as late as about A.D. 1000, when the relatively stable geopolitical structure of central Europe took shape. It was then that the need to attain geopolitical legitimacy forced Boleslav I to introduce a package of commonly accepted attributes of an independent state, that is, an archbishopric, coinage, a territorial name, and a royal crown.

THE REGIONAL POWER

It took three generations of the Piast dynasty to organize a large, stable, strong state, which came to dominate central Europe by the turn of the millennium. Dendrochronology indicates that it must have been Mieszko's father, Siemomysl, who laid the foundations of the dynastic domain in central Great Poland during the fourth and fifth decade of the tenth century. It was in that period when a network of strongholds was created with centers in Gniezno, Giecz, Poznań, Lednica, Moraczewo, and Grzybowo. They were surrounded by dense systems of rural settlements. As the first historical ruler, Mieszko I laid the territorial foundations of the state, which quickly expanded in all directions. Growing in power, he had to enter the geopolitical stage, where he showed skills of an experienced gambler.

Long unnoticed by the German empire, the Piast state emerged in the seventh decade of the tenth century as a military power able to challenge mighty Bohemian and Hungarian princes. Mieszko I started a complex game of alliances aimed at reinforcing his geopolitical position. To balance the expansive strategy of the German church, he asked his closest neighbor, the Bohemian prince Boleslav I, to send a Christianizing mission together with his daughter, Dobrava. The first bishop, Jordan, was responsible directly to the pope, which made the Polish church independent of German supervision. The interdynastic marriage of Mieszko and Dobrava in 965 obliged both courts to maintain political solidarity, which was reflected in their support for the anti-Ottonian opposition.

This alliance lasted as long as Dobrava lived. Mieszko took political advantage of her death in 977 to break the Polish-Bohemian partnership. In 979 he married Oda, daughter of the Saxon margrave Dietrich, and became a close ally of the Ottonian empire. His strategic goal was to challenge Bohemian domination in central Europe. Sometime in the ninth decade he invaded Silesia and Little Poland and included them as southern provinces of his state, despite diplomatic actions taken by the prince of Prague, Boleslav II, the son of the Bohemian prince Boleslav I and Mieszko's own former brother-in-law.

The Piasts' strategy of geopolitical isolation of Bohemia is well reflected in the sequence of quick marriages arranged for Mieszko's oldest son, also named Boleslav. In 984 this Boleslav married the daughter of the Meissen margrave Rikdag. The death of this mighty Saxon aristocrat made possible the annulment of that marriage, which opened the way to finding a new wife for the young prince in 986/87. This time it was a Hungarian princess, who was herself replaced in 988/89 by Emnilda, the daughter of a western Slavonic prince, Dobromir. This clever policy restricted potential partners of Bohemia to pagan Polabians and resulted in Bohemia's loss of its former dominant position.

After Mieszko's death in 992, his son, now Boleslav I, continued the strategy of further expanding and reinforcing his inherited state. Active in all directions, he ran a complex game of military and diplomatic actions. His sister was married first to the Swedish king Eric the Victorious and later to the Danish king Svein Forkbeard. His daughter was sent to Rus as the wife of the prince of Kiev, and his son, Mieszko II, married the German princess Richesa, the niece of the emperor Otto III.

Boleslav's real masterpiece, however, was a summit with emperor Otto III, who came to Gniezno in A.D. 1000. The official reason for this unprecedented visit was a pilgrimage to the grave of St. Adalbert of Prague (originally called Vojtech), who had been killed in 997 during a mission to the pagan Prussians. The emperor substantially reinforced Boleslav I, however, because he brought with him Archbishop Radim (Gaudentius), the half-brother of St. Adalbert, and established an independent church province with a metropolitan seat in Gniezno. Four new bishoprics (in Poznań, Kołobrzeg, Wrocław, and Kraków) formed an administrative network that covered all the lands between the Baltic Sea and the mountain belt. The Polish prince also was freed from the obligation of paying yearly tributes and was elevated to the position of a "brother of the empire," effectively a monarch equal to any other in Europe. Since that time the political name Polonia has been used for the state that has survived to the present.

A review of the origins of the other early states (Bohemia, Hungary, Rus) that constituted eastern central Europe during the tenth century shows a common strategy applied by their leaders, who all achieved stable territorial power. None of them had an overview of the geopolitical situation, and none could foresee the long-range results of their actions. Their ability to organize broad support, their determination in applying coercion, their capacity to muster the necessary means to sustain power, their intelligence in borrowing solutions from more developed neighbors, and simple good luck led to their supreme successes as first monarchs and creators of their states.

One may conclude that Poland emerged in the tenth century as a "private" venture of the Piasts, who managed to defeat local challengers, stop expansion of their neighbors, impose Christian ideology that legitimized monopolistic rules, organize effective exploitation of subjugated territory, and achieve geopolitical acceptance. That state was not an "emanation" of the political striving of a nation. It was just the opposite—the Polish nation was a much later "product" of a state that imposed cultural unification.

See also Iron Age Poland (vol. 2, part 6); Slavs and the Early Slav Culture (vol. 2, part 7); Russia/Ukraine (vol. 2, part 7); Hungary (vol. 2, part 7); Czech Lands/Slovakia (vol. 2, part 7).

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PRZEMYSŁAW URBAŃCZYK