THE POLANIAN DYNASTY 57fourteenth century. Although there is every reason to suppose that the ruling
elite spoke that version of the West Slavonic language from which modern
Polish has developed, they ruled over people of mixed cultural and ethnic con-
nections. Their encouragement of a common cultural and political tradition
throughout their far-flung domain can only have proceeded very slowly. There
is no hard evidence for a separate and distinct Polish linguistic community
before the twelfth century. The earliest record of the Polish language is to be
found in the 'Bull of Gniezno' of 1136. (See Map 4, p. 58.)
In many ways, the history of the ecclesiastical province of Poland, the See of
Gniezno, was more straightforward than that of the state. Once established in
AD 1000, it continued undisturbed throughout the Middle Ages. In the tenth cen-
tury, the baptism of Mieszko I did not lead immediately to the creation of any
formal church hierarchy. There was just the one apostolic bishopric at Poznan
under its missionary bishop, Jordan. In 991, in the Dagome Index, preserved in
the papal archives, Mieszko I asked that his realm be placed under the direct
protection of the Pope, presumably to avoid the closer patronage of one or other
of his Christian neighbours. Five years later, his successor received a mission
from Rome headed by Vojtech (Adalbert), the exiled Bishop of Prague. Vojtech
was a devoted missionary, and, after a brief stay among the Polanians, sailed on
from Gdansk to the land of the pagan Prussians. There, in 997, he was foully
murdered. His mutilated corpse was redeemed 'for a sack of gold' by the
Polanians, and buried before the altar at Gniezno. He was speedily canonized,
and as the patron 'Saint Wojciech' became the object of a popular Polish cult. It
was the moment for action. In this year, when the world was supposed to come
to an end, the Emperor, Otto III, was urged by the Pope to make a pilgrimage to
Gniezno, and to create a metropolitan see. Lavishly entertained by Boleslaw
Chrobry, he nominated Vojtech's brother, Radim (Gaudentius), as the first
archbishop, and confirmed the request of the Dagome Index. Bishoprics were
established at Cracow for the Vistulanians; at Vratislav (Wroclaw) for the
Silesians; and at Kolobrzeg (Kolberg) for the Pomeranians. After Boleslaw
Chrobry's death, the entire structure of the infant see was crippled in 1035-7 by
a vast pagan uprising, which engulfed both State and Church. But it was
patiently reconstructed during the next decades; and, with this one interval,
began its unbroken career. As fresh provinces came into the Polish orbit, the
diocesan structure was expanded. Plock received its bishop in 1050; Wloclawek
and Lubusz (Lebus) in 1128; Western Pomerania at Wolin in 1140; Red
Ruthenia, at Halicz and later at Lwow, in 1367. A parochial network was estab-
lished in the twelfth century, and steadily consolidated. Monasticism, which
made its first appearance with the Benedictines at Miedzyrzecz (Meseritz) near
Poznan and at Tyniec near Cracow in the early eleventh century, was further
strengthened by the arrival of the Cistercians in the twelfth, and of the mendi-
cant orders in the thirteenth century.
The character and connections of the early Christian church in Poland were
far from simple, however. Catholic apologists from the Middle Ages onward