Kronika Polska (The Polish Chronicle) by Marcin Kromer, the royal secretary and later Warmia Bishop, published in Latin in 1555 under the title De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum[1], contains numerous descriptions of bloody conflicts between rulers, battles and wars that sometimes give way to comments about a surprisingly cold winter or exceptionally hot summer, or the birth of a two-headed calf. However, grand politics and the world of animals are not the only topics discussed in the Chronicle and the author tries to reach deeper into the past, searching for reasons of the afflictions tormenting the country and explaining the God's anger, manifested by the imbalance in nature, in human actions.
What could be more unnatural than a woman who, instead of delivering and raising children, supporting the evangelisation work of the Church and exercising ascesis, prefers to rule the country? Marcin Kromer attributes such strange behaviour to the wives of the Polish rulers of the Piast dynasty, who came to the Polish court from the Holy Empire of the German Nation. They strongly contrast Slavic and Hungarian princesses who made their way into male history only as pious mothers and widows. Richeza, daughter of the Palatine of Rhineland and wife of Mieszko II, and Agnes, daughter of Markgrave Leopold III, married to Władysław the Exile, were not remembered as the daughters of their fathers or even as the wives of their crown-losing husbands, but rather as women who ruled men. Kromer, who was not favourable of such demeanour, describes Richeza as a woman apparently pious and saintly, as she pretended to be, but in fact bold, cunning and greedy, she oppressed the people more and more with the numerous and unbearable taxes imposed by her husband and constantly came up with new ways of collecting money[2]. According to the author of Kronika Polska, the actions of the wife of Mieszko II are not a precaution or an effort to strengthen her husband's power or a struggle over a crown for her exiled son Casimir, but rather female rule, perversion resulting from the mental weakness and promiscuity of Mieszko, who spent his whole time idling [...] devouring the thrill of temptation and physical contacts [...] and outside the wedlock, too.[3]. Ironically, as the author of the Chronicle thinks, Mieszko died as a result of castration in Czech captivity. The loss of manhood, in the literal meaning of it, takes place, according to the Kronika Polska, as a result of Mieszko's symbolic castration by his energetic wife, and female rule leads to the fall of the State and the suffering of its subjects.
According to the Kronika Polska, similar consequences were caused by the years of the reign of Agnes of Babenberg (called Krystyna by Kromer), who exerted a strong influence on her husband Władysław II. Agnes, tied by blood to the imperial court, is believed by Kromer to have insisted on her husband to assume full power over Poland and unite the country to the detriment of his brothers. In her attempts to change the distribution of power in Poland, she did not refrain from exerting pressure on her husband, speaking before the senate, alone defending besieged Krakow and asking the Reich's army for help. Marcin Kromer contributes to her strong personality the fall of the Commonwealth and the exile of Władysław, whom the ambitious wife caused more trouble than good: she caused her pitiful husband to suffer even more sorrow, showing what a common person he was and that he was, beyond the rights of all nations, squeezed into a mere forth part of the duchy. He reminds him that she, being an imperial daughter [...], married him with her huge dowry hoping for the entire duchy [...][4].
The love of women turned out to be fatal both for Mieszko II and Władysław and resulted in an imbalance in the State. The female reign was depicted by Kromer as the fall of moral values and the effect of male weakness as well as the cause of wars and the ruler's death. After all, it was evident already in the 16th century that the wild love of a woman and her persuasions as well as bedtime flattery [...] can win a lot from married men [...][5].
[1] German translation Mitnächtischer Völckeren Historien, Bazylea 1562, in Polish Kronika Polska, Krakow 1611 (here quoted from the second edition, Sanok 1857).
[2] Kronika Polska, p. 143.
[3] Ibid, p. 141-142.
[4] Ibid, p. 281.
[5] Ibid, p. 284.
Translation: Lingua Lab
