great families of the Empire—the looming power to the west. Bohemia and Poland
both were largely Slavic-speaking; linguistically Hungary was odd man out, but in
almost every other way it was typical of the fledgling states in the region.
Bohemia and Poland
While the five German duchies were subsumed by the Ottonian state (see p. 139),
Bohemia in effect became a separate duchy of the Ottonian Empire. (See Map 4.6.)
Already Christianized, largely under the aegis of German bishops, Bohemia was
unified in the course of the tenth century. (One of its early rulers was Wenceslas—the
carol’s “Good King Wenceslas”—who was to become a national saint after his
assassination.) Its princes were supposed to be vassals of the emperor in Germany.
Thus when Bretislav I (d.1055) tried in 1038 to expand into what was by then
Poland, laying waste the land all the way to Gniezno and kidnapping the body of the
revered Saint Adalbert, Emperor Henry III (d.1056) declared war, forcing Bretislav
to give up the captured territory and hostages. Although left to its own affairs
internally, Bohemia was thereafter semi-dependent on the Empire.
What was this “Poland” of such interest to Bretislav and Henry? Like the Dane
Harald Bluetooth, and around the same time, the ruler of the region that would
become Poland, Mieszko I (r.c.960–992), became Christian. In 990/991 he put his
realm under the protection of the pope, tying it closely to the power of Saint Peter.
Mieszko built a network of defensive structures manned by knights, subjected the
surrounding countryside to his rule, and expanded his realm in all directions.
Mieszko’s son Boleslaw the Brave (or, in Polish, Chrobry) (r.992–1025), “with fox-
like cunning” (as a hostile German observer put it), continued his father’s expansion,
for a short time even becoming duke of Bohemia.^15 Above all, Boleslaw made the
Christian religion a centerpiece of his rule when Gniezno was declared an
archbishopric. It was probably around that time that Boleslaw declared his alliance
with Christ on a coin: on one side he portrayed himself as a sort of Roman emperor,
while on the other he displayed a cross.^16 Soon the Polish rulers could count on a
string of bishoprics—and the bishops who presided in them. A dynastic crisis in the
1030s gave Bretislav his opening, but, as we have seen, that was quickly ended by
the German emperor. Poland persisted, although somewhat reduced in size.
Hungary