Silva Rerum | 07.07.2015 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, their greed for power and lack of moderation.
In his chronicle, Marcin Kromer many times asks about the position of a married woman and mother in the family and in the State, and his deliberations often focus on difficult issues and the cases of imbalance of power. Frictions between ruling elites take place when the man dies or is imprisoned by enemies and the woman is left alone in the political battlefield. Kromer, usually disinclined to energetic wives who push their husbands into the background, seems to make an exception for wives who defend the interests of their husbands or minor sons. An interesting example of such exceptional treatment of women in Kronika Polska is the fate of women who are remembered in history as pious and merciful founders of monasteries and saints living an ascetic life, but who, in Kromer's book, are for the first time in history portrayed as female warriors. Grzymisława, wife of Leszek the White, usually identified as daughter of Ingwar of Łuck[2], Hedwig of Silesia, daughter of Berthold, Count of Andechs and Duke of Merania and Queen Hedwig of Anjou, lead military resistance against the enemies of their husbands and the State.
After Leszek's tragic death at a meeting in Gąsawa in 1227, Grzymisława fiercely defends the interests of her son Bolesław threatened by his uncle Konrad of Masovia, and, captured together with her son by Konrad and imprisoned at the Czersk castle and later at the Benedictine monastery in Sieciechów, she escapes having bribed some guards and got others drunk and put them to sleep, on a dark and quiet night, on horses secretly deployed[3]. After Bolesław has come into power in Krakow, Grzymisława continues to support her son, but withdraws into shadow, devoting herself to doing merciful deeds, founding churches and promoting evangelisation.
The same conflict engages Hedwig of Silesia, who enters the scene of military struggles when her husband Henry the Bearded is captured by Konrad of Masovia at a meeting in Spytkowice in 1229. Hedwig and Henry's son, Henry the Pious, plans to liberate his father by force, but Hedwig, a saintly woman, having predicted everything, as if by prophetic spirit, disapproved of his plans of restoring the duchy to her husband, knowing that the result of the war was uncertain and wishing to spare the blood of Christians and her compatriots, and fearing further oppressions and evil that accompanied every war, [...] before her son had taken any steps, [...] she visited Konrad in Masovia and, using her wisdom, managed to put out the early fire of shameful external war.[4]. Having obviated the conflict, Hedwig goes to live in a monastery and reacts with stoic calm to the news of the death of first her husband and then her son in a battle with Tatars at Legnica in 1241, claiming that it would be a sin to oppose the will of God[5]. In 1243, after a long period of self-mortification, Hedwig dies in Trzebnica in an atmosphere of sanctity.
Nearly 200 years later, Hedwig of Anjou also gets involved in a war, not only as a mediator or husband's trusted adviser, but also as an army commander: she helps her husband, who is engaged in a civil war in Lithuania, and she and her army manage to conquer Jarosław, Przemyśl, Gródek, Halicz, Tembowla and some other castles in South Rus[6], she takes an active part in talks with the German Order and, bitter about the ingratitude and impudence of Teutonic Knights, she predicts their destruction after her death[7].
Both Grzymisława and the two Hedwigs were portrayed by Kromer in exceptional roles - as advisers, victorious commanders, strong wives and mothers, however, they performed these roles only sporadically, in the face of danger, in the absence of the husband or before the son came of age. According to the author of Kronika Polska, the common feature of the three strong and energetic women is not their share in power but rather their willingness to step aside and give way to men, to resign from power to the benefit of their husbands and sons, and to assume the role of a saint benefactress, nun and virgin, which, in Kromer's world, is the proper place of a woman.
[1] German translation Mitnächtischer Völckeren Historien, Bazylea 1562, in Polish Kronika Polska, Krakow 1611 (here quoted from the second edition, Sanok 1857).
[2] See M. K. Barański, Dynastia Piastów w Polsce. Warsaw 2005, p. 305; Dorota Żołądź-Strzelczyk, Rola i miejsce kobiet w edukacji i kulturze polskiej, vol. 1. 1998, p. 50.
[3] Kronika Polska, p. 406.
[4] Ibid, p. 402.
[5] Ibid, p. 414.
[6] Ibid, p. 730.
[7] Ibid, p. 749.
Translation: Lingua Lab
