Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/221

 POLAND

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POLAKt)

revolted from the empire, and the Polish Church began a reform in accordance with Gregory's decrees. By the leading nobles Boleslaw was thoroughly hated as a despot; the masses of the people murmured under the burden of incessant wars; the clergy opposed the energetic reformation of the Church, which the king was carrying on, their opjjosition being particularly directed against Gregory's decree enforcing the celi- bacy of the clergy. 'The dissatisfied elements rose and placed themselves under the jirotection of Bohemia, Bishop Stanislaw even i)lac(>d the king under the ban of the Church, while the king declared the bishop guilty of high treason for allying liimself with Bohemia and the emperor. The king's sentence was terribly executed at Cracow, where the bishop was done to death and hewn in pieces. In the civil war which ensued Boleslaw was worsted and compelled to take refuge in Hungary.

After his death Poland had to pass through severe and protracted struggles to maintain its independence. Towards the end of the eleventh century its power was broken by the Bohemians and Germans, and it was once more reduced to the condition of an insignificant principality, under the incompetent Wladislaw Her- man (1081-1101). At this period the clergy consti- tuted the only educated class of the entire population, but they were foreigners, and the natives joined their ranks but slowly. At all events they are entitled to extraordinary credit for the diffusion of learning in Poland. The convents were at that time the centres of learning; the monks taught the people improved methods of cultivating the soil, and built inns and hospitals. During the whole of the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries Poland was in a most unfortunate condition. Boleslaw HI, Krzywousty (1112-39), at his death divided the country into principalities, which were bequeathed to his sons as hereditary possessions. The eldest son was to receive the terri- tory of Cracow, with his capital at Cracow, and to be the overlord of the whole country. In course of time the other sons again divided their lands among their children, and thus Poland was split up into smaller and smaller principalities — a process which proved fatal. The overlords were unable to effect permanent reforms; Wladislaw II (11.39-46), Boleslaw the Curly- haired (1146-73), Mieczyslaw the Old (117.3-77), Casimir II the Just (1177-94), Mieczyslaw the Old (supreme for the second time, 1194-1202), Wladislaw III (1202-06). The only spiritual bond that held the dismembered parts of Poland together was the Church. With this in mind Leszek the Wise (1206- 27) increased popular respect for the clergy by giving them the right to elect their bishops, and territorial jurisdiction over church lands. His brother. Prince Coiu-ad of Masovia, about this time summoned the knights of the Teutonic Order. The heathen tribes on the borders of Poland — Jazygians, Lithuanians, and Prussians — were constantly making predatory in- cursions into the country. The Prussians, who had settled east of the Vistula, were active in these raids.

To put an end to this state of things a knightly order established by Germans in Palestine was summoned by Conrad for the conquest and Christianization of Prussia. These Knights of the Cross, so called from the black cross upon their white cloaks, established themselves on the \'istula in 1228. They were also known as the Teutonic Knights (Deutschen Ritter). In a short time they exterminated the Prussians, to replace whom German colonists were brought into the land, forming a powerful state controlled by the order, a state of strictly German character, which soon directed its attacks against Poland. The condition of Poland, meanwhile, was disastrously affected by another cause: it was subdivided into about thirty small states, and the supreme princes, Henry I the Bearded (1232-38), Henry II the Pious (1238-41), Boleslaw (1243-79), Leszek the Black

(1279-88), Henry Probus (1288-90), Przemyslaw II (1290-95), and Waclaw II (1290^1305), could find no remedy for the evil. Moreover, in the years 1241 and 1259 the Tatars invaded the country, completely devastated it, and carried off vast multitudes into captivity. The territories thus depopulated were then occupied by well organized colonies from Ger- many. In the early thirteenth and late fourteenth centuries these colonists became possessed with a de- sire to seize the sovereign power in the State, weakened as it was by sub-division. But the magnates of Poland decided to oppose this scheme resolutely. The clergy issued instructions at synods against the ad- mission of Germans to church benefices, the church being the only power that could supply any means of firm national or- ganization. The Archbishop of Gnesen was the supreme religious head of all the Pol- ish principalities. The clergy of the time, having been for fully a century native Poles, culti- vated the Polish language in the churches and schools. It was among the clergy that the opposi- tion to the Ger- man influence first took form. Above all, it was the clergy who took active measures to bring about the union of Tomb of Casimir the Gbeat

the various divi- By Veit Stoss, in the Cathedral, Cracow sions of Poland into one great kingdom.

Circumstances favoured this plan. For during this period of incessant civil wars, Tatar invasions, fam- ine, contagious diseases, conflagrations, and floods, the piety of the common people was remarkable. Never before or after was the number of hermits and pilgrims so large, never was the building of convents carried on so extensively. Princes, princesses, nobles, and knights entered the various orders; large sums of money were given for religious foundations. To this period belong the Polish saints whom the Church has recognized. The clergy gained extraordinary in- fluence. In the convent-schools singing and preaching was henceforth carried on in tlic Pulisli language. Germans were not admitted to the higher dignities of the Church. At the same time the Polish clergy pre- pared to bring about a union of the several states into which the country was divided. This was accom- plished after many years of war by the energetic prince Wladislaw, sumamed the Short (1305-33). He determined, furthermore, to have himself crowned king. After receiving the kingly crown from the pope, he crowned himself in the city of Cracow (1320). His whole reign was spent in warfare; in a way, he re- stored Poland and preserved it from foreign domina- tion. His son and successor, Casimir the Great (1333-70), undertook to restore order in the internal affairs of the realm, demoralized by a century of al- most uninterrupted warfare. He promoted agricul- ture, the trades, and commerce; he built fortresses and cities, constructed highways, drained marshes, founded villages, extended popular education, de- fended the laws, made them known to the people by collecting them into a code (1347), established a supreme court at Cracow (1366), and offered a refuge in Poland to the Jews, who were then everywhere per- secuted. He also founded a university at Cracow