The only other country in Europe in which the forcible conversion of the people was accompanied by cruelty similar to that which attended the conversion of Prussia was, as we shall see later, the kingdom of Norway, but in this case the oppression of its non-Christian inhabitants was of comparatively short duration and was followed by religious tolerance, which did much to obliterate the effects of the period of persecution.

CHAPTER XV

POLAND

in Poland.

Or the first introduction of Christianity into Poland Methodius we have no satisfactory record. Methodius (d. 885), who became the evangelist and archbishop of Moravia, which bordered on Poland, made some attempt to evangelize it, and in 949 missionaries from Moravia are said to have founded a church at Kleparz near Cracow where, for five centuries, Christian services were conducted in the national language.

1

of Mieceslav, 966.

In 966 Duke Mieceslav 1 (or Mjesko), the first king Baptism of Poland, married Dambrowka the sister of Boleslav II (of Bohemia), and as a result of her influence he received. baptism. Hardly any information is available which throws light upon the conversion of the Poles to a nominal Christianity, but the result was due more to political than to moral suasion. Having embraced Christianity for himself Mieceslav regarded it as his duty to make his subjects Christians with the least possible delay. A bishopric was established at Posen A bishopin 968, but the means which he adopted for securing Posen, adherents to his new faith were not such as to com- 968. mend its adoption to his subjects, or to render possible missionary efforts of a more enduring character. Thietmar (Ditmar), the bishop of Merseburg, states that he

2 E

1 Pronounced Meecheslav.

433

ric of

issued a proclamation forbidding them to eat meat between Septuagesima Sunday and Easter Day and threatening them with the loss of their teeth in case of disobedience. Thietmar pleads that, as the Poles were a people who needed to be tended like oxen and chastised like dilatory asses, nothing could be accomplished by their ruler except by means of severe punishments. The threatened punishments did not however meet even with superficial success.

The subsequent marriage of King Mieceslav (982) with his fourth wife Oda, who was the daughter of a German count, and had apparently been a nun,2 reIntroduc- sulted in the introduction of many clergy from Germany, tion of Italy and France, and in the establishment of closer

foreign clergy.

relations between the Roman Church and the Christian communities in Poland. Oda helped to establish several monasteries throughout Poland, and the close relations which existed between the Polish and the German Courts tended to increase the influence exerted by the German clergy throughout Poland. Many parishes in Poland were placed in charge of German clergy who were unable to speak to their people in their own language, and many of the monasteries made it a rule to admit only those who were of German nationality. As late as the thirteenth century Polish bishops found it necessary to enjoin the parish clergy to preach in the language understood by the people and not in the German language, and to prohibit the appointment of priests unacquainted with the national language.3

Mieceslav died in 992 and was succeeded by his son 1 See Thietmari Chronicon, v. 861;

ix. 2, 240. Migne, P. L. cxxxix.
2 Thietmar, iv. 57, 895.

3 See Krasinki's Lectures on the religious history of the Slavonic nations, p. 173.

reaction,

Boleslav. In 1000 the Emperor Otto III, on the Boleslav. occasion of a visit to Gnesen, created this city a metropolitan see and gave it authority over the sees of Breslau, Cracow and Colberg.1 During the troublous years at the beginning of the eleventh century the chief disputants were the Germans and the German sympathizers who represented a nominal Christianity, and the Slavs, who were for the most part heathen. The tendency of the intermittent fighting was to increase German influence and the number of German settlers. Boleslav was succeeded in 1026 by his son Mieceslav II, who died in 1034. On his death the heathen party A heathen regained the ascendancy, burnt many of the monasteries, 1034. and killed some of the bishops and other clergy. The miseries of the people were increased by two foreign wars, one with Russia and the other with Bohemia. Casimir, a son of Mieceslav II, who was eventually Casimir. chosen (1040) to succeed him, had become a monk and was living in a monastery at the time of his election to the throne. Having been released from his vows by the Pope Benedict IX, he became king and soon afterwards married Maria the sister of Yaroslav, the prince of Kiev. As a result of his influence the use of the Slavonic liturgies was still further restricted and the Pope obtained greater control over the Polish Church.

Casimir introduced monks from the monastery of Cluny and founded for them two monasteries, one near Cracow and the other in Silesia, which at this time formed part of the kingdom of Poland. His successor Boleslav II Boleslav (1058-1081) murdered with his own hand Stanislaus

1 Milman, Latin Christianity, ii. 485.

II.

Invasion by the Mongols.

bishop of Cracow, who had denounced his many crimes, and in consequence of the unpopularity which this act provoked he fled as an exile into Hungary, where he died in 1082.

During the reign of Boleslav V (1227-79) the Mongols invaded Poland and carried off many prisoners and much plunder. Cracow was burnt in 1241. In 1386 the kingdom of Poland was united with that of Lithuania.1

1 See below, p. 521.