56 PIAST
associates. Otto III, whose mother Theophano was a Byzantine princess, was
not bounded by the narrow vision of his German ecclesiastical mentors, and his
brief dream of a universal western empire undoubtedly held an honourable
place for the Slav princes. His visit to Gniezno in AD IOOO and his confirmation
of the autonomous Polish See were much resented in Germany. But the marked
growth of Polanian power and prestige at this juncture enabled the Piasts to defy
later attempts to reassert imperial hegemony.
The territory of Piast Poland cannot be simply described. It is the practice in
some quarters to publish a map of 'Poland in the year AD IOOO', showing both a
clearly marked frontier line and a remarkable resemblance to the territory of the
People's Republic since 1945.^2 This map is slightly misleading. Although for a
very brief moment at the beginning of his career, Boleslaw Chrobry did indeed
rule over the inhabitants of an expanse of land coinciding most conveniently
with the decisions of the Potsdam Conference, it can easily be overlooked that
he went on to conquer lands as far as the Danube and the Dnieper. The territory
of the Piasts did not coincide with the limits of c.990-1002 and 1945 — at any
other time, either before or afterwards. If the map-makers were to take as their
point of reference not the exceptional vintage of AD 1000, but AD 900,1100,1200,
or 1300, or, more relevantly, the year 991 in which, in the Dagome Index, the
boundaries of the 'realm of Gniezno' were first described, they would notice
some remarkable differences. Polish territory was fluctuating constantly. Prior
to 1320, it was not united into a single organic whole, except for brief interludes.
In these early centuries, historians would be better advised to talk less of 'Polish
territory' and more of 'the Polish obedience'. Although Boleslaw Chrobry was
said to have driven iron stakes into both the Saal and the Dnieper to mark his
conquests, there were few fixed frontiers; and there was no state, in the modern
sense of a central authority evenly spread over all parts of a defined area. Indeed,
in the modern sense, there was no 'Poland'. Land was much less important than
people. Princes described their realm not in terms of acreage but in terms of the
people who obeyed their orders, or sought their protection. Their political
power pulsed irregularly from established centres, whose direct influence dimin-
ished in proportion to the time and distance required for a posse of knights to
ride out and enforce it. In outlying districts, located more than three or four
days' ride from the centre, it would be reduced by the separate and competing
power of subordinates, rivals, or enemies. At any one moment, a man in any
particular locality could be bound by different forms and by different degrees of
fear and loyalty, to his neighbours, to his tribe, to his liege lord, to the prince, to
the bishop, to the commander of the local garrison, to the outlaws in the forest,
or to the 'foreigners' over the hill. His predicament was infinitely subtle and
mobile, and cannot be represented by a spot on a map, in a nice red area, inside
a tidy black line. The Piasts began as princes of just one of the many tribes. They
only assumed control of the Vistulanians and of their town of Cracow, in 990.
Their hold on Pomerania and Silesia was impermanent, and on Mazovia incom-
plete. Their conquests in Red Ruthenia and beyond were not confirmed until the