THE POLANIAN DYNASTY 53office', suggests that like the Carolingians in France or the Stuarts in Scotland,
Piast turned the office of major-domo at the princely court into that of heredi-
tary ruler. At all events, his descendants provide the most important thread of
continuity over half a millennium. The least unmemorable among them include
Mieszko I (c. 922-92), the first Christian prince; Boleslaw I Chrobry (Boleslaus
the Brave, 967-1025), the first crowned King; Boleslaw II Szczodry (Boleslaus
the Bold, 1039-81); Boleslaw HI Krzywousty, (Boleslaus the Wry-mouthed,
1085-1138); Konrad Mazowiecki (Conrad of Mazovia, c. 1191-1247); and
finally Wladyslaw Lokietek, (Ladislaus the Elbow-High, c. 1260-1333) and his
son Kazimierz III (Casimir the Great, 1310-70), who were the real founders of
the Polish monarchy. (See Diagram E.) For practical purposes, their rule can be
divided into three distinct periods. The first, to the death of Krzywousty in 113 8,
embraces the period of primitive monarchy in which the Piast princes succeeded
each other in direct line. The second, from 1138 to 1320, was a period of frag-
mentation, or, as it is presently referred to, of 'regionalization' - where several
branches of the dynasty fought for supremacy over the provinces of a divided
country. The third, which began with Lokietek's coronation in Cracow in 1320,
was followed by the process of reunification and by the growth of permanent
institutions.^1
The emergence of the Piast dynasty from its previous obscurity was provoked
in the third quarter of the tenth century by the rise of the neighbouring Saxon
Empire. In 955, Otto I, son of Henry the Fowler, gained immense prestige in
Central Europe through his momentous victory over the heathen Magyars on
the Lechfeld near Augsburg. Seven years later he was crowned Emperor by the
Pope in Rome. In the following years he was able to exert considerable pressure
over the Slavs on his eastern borders. He had received the homage of the
Premyslid prince of Bohemia already in 950; and he now vigorously extended his
father's policy of planting German colonies in the Marks of Brandenburg and
Lusatia. In 961-2, he obtained papal support for raising the see of Magdeburg
into a missionary diocese over all the Slavonic lands, and sent its prospective
bishop on a mission to Kiev Rus. Such was the context of Mieszko I's alliance
with Boleslas of Bohemia - the brother and assassin of St. Wenceslas - and of
his Christian baptism. Seeing the inexorable advance of Christendom in general,
and of the German Empire in particular, the Polanian prince may well have
judged his christening to be the better part of valour. By accepting Christianity
from Bohemia, he parried the prospect of forcible conversion, which even then
was facing his Wendish and Obodritian neighbours; and he stood to benefit
from their distress. At the same time, he stood to put some distance between
himself and the Emperor's ambition, and in particular to keep the missionary
instincts of the German clergy at bay. In short, the Piast dynasty could hope to
preserve a measure of independence. This indeed proved to be the case.
Although Mieszko may possibly have made some form of token submission to
Otto III in 984, during the infant Emperor's minority, there can be no doubt that
Mieszko's heir, Boleslaw Chrobry, rose to be one of the Emperor's principal