THE POLANIAN DYNASTY 77
Wielkopolska (who was murdered by his would-be kidnappers at Ragazno in
February 1296) and finally, for a second time by Vaclav II.
What he lacked in early success, he made up by persistence. During the reign
of the Bohemian king, he was exiled, and travelled to Rome to lobby the Pope.
It was not difficult to raise a coalition. The Czechs, vassals of the Emperor, had
many enemies, not least in Hungary, in the newly elected Angevin king, Charles
Robert. By 1306, both Vaclav II and his son Vaclav III, the last of the
Przemyslids, were dead. Cracow opened its gates to Lokietek. The war of
unification could be organized from the centre. With the exception of Kujawy
and Pomorze, Lokietek's successive goals were all achieved. Wielkopolska was
secured by 1314. A revolt by the Germans of Cracow, headed by one Albert, and
by Bishop Jan Muskata, who thought of returning to their earlier Bohemian
allegiance, was suppressed after a year-long siege. In this struggle, the first signs
of Polish chauvinism appear. The Czechs were denounced as foreigners, ser-
vants of the 'German' Emperor, allies of the 'German' knights in Prussia, and of
the 'German' Piasts of Silesia. The Archbishop of Gniezno, Jakub Swinka,
brought Bishop Muskata, the 'enemy of the Polish people', before an ecclesias-
tical court. He excommunicated the princes of Glogau, who 'were turning
Silesia into a new Saxony' and had resigned their claim to Pomerania in favour
of the Teutonic Order. Investigations into the Cracovian revolt were assisted by
a simple language test. Any suspect who could repeat and correctly pronounce
'soczewica, koto, miele, mlyn' was judged loyal; he who faltered was guilty. The
knights who took to the field in Lokietek's cause, and we're duly rewarded with
grants of land, developed the first hesitant notions of a corporate 'Polish' estate.
Lokietek's coronation took place in the cathedral in Cracow on Sunday 2.0
January 1320. The Pope had agreed on condition that the rate of Peter's Pence
was raised from 3d. per family to Id. per person. Lokietek, wearing a purple
cloak, was anointed with holy oil. He took the 'notched sword' of Kiev in his
hand, and made the sign of the cross in the air. As the diadem was placed on his
head, the Age of Fragmentation ended. The Kingdom was restored.^10
Lokietek's son, Casimir HI (1310-70), the only Polish ruler to be deemed
'Great', added the skills of diplomacy and statesmanship to the warlike prowess
of his forebears. His succession was not physically contested. He was young and
lusty, with a lifetime before him. The first decade was marked by a long series
of diplomatic treaties in which the Polish king painstakingly secured his position
at the cost of calculated concessions. In 1333, he made a truce with the Teutonic
Order, ending the indecisive war over Pomerania and Kujawy which had occu-
pied his father's last years. His coronation at Wawel on 25 April 1333 was
attended by the Grand Master, Luther von Braunschweig. In 1334, he made
peace with the Czechs. In the spring of 1335, at the Hungarian castle of
Vyshegrad overlooking the Danube, he met with his family's traditional ally,
Charles Robert of Anjou, King of Hungary, and their common rival, John
of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia. In return for 400,000 silver groats, he per-
suaded the Bohemian to renounce his claim to Poland and Mazovia, and to