Oil the day previous tO that ceremony St. Adalbert is
-aid to have appeared to the Pole- in a battle with the
lded hi- -tates during hi^ lifetime between Boleslas
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and another illegitimate son, Zbigniew. The latter had revolted a few years before, and was pardoned at. the in- tercession of the bishops. Wladislas died in 1102, at Plock. The new ruler, Boleslas III' (1102-1139), mar- ried a Russian princess, and undertook expeditions, con- sidered in the light of crusades, against the pagan Pom- eranians. In 1103 Walo, chosen bishop of Beauvais, and, after his return, bishop of Paris, came to Poland as the legate of pope Paschal II, and in his zeal for justice deposed two bishops — "nullo vel prece vel pretio sub- veniente." In 1109 Boleslas reported such a complete victory over the Pomeranians that, of their 40,000 warriors, 10,000 only escaped ; he took the stronghold of Nakel, thus preparing the way for the spiritual ex- pedition undertaken soon afterwards by Otho, bishop of Bamberg. In 1109 the emperor Henry V was utterly defeated in his attempt to submit Poland a second time to the empire. In 1110 Boleslas fought successfully against the Bohemians: the bishops, as usual, accom- panied the troops, and distributed the Eucharist to the whole army on the eve of an engagement. In 1120- 1121 the Pomeranians, after a desperate struggle, were completely subdued and Stettin was taken. Tin- con- quered foe promised tribute and conversion. It was then that Boleslas besought Otho of Bamberg to in- struct the Pomeranians. See Pomerania. The last years of the great king were less successful. In 1135 Boleslas recognised at Merseburg the emperor Lothair as his liege lord for Pomerania and Riigen; promised a tribute for twelve years, and carried the sword of the emperor as the imperial procession proceeded to church. In 1139 he divided his dominions among the four oldest of his sons, and died Oct. 28, 1139. In 1123 the papal legate iEgidius, bishop of Tusculum, sent by Calixtus II, had to establish more distinctly the limits between the dioceses, and this division of the temporal sover- eignty in nowise affected the Church. But the Church was far from enjoying in Poland the privileges she pos- sessed in other parts of Christian Europe. Her goods and subjects stood under the secular laws; there was no immunity from taxes, and the bishops were altogether dependent on the princes. Still at the beginning of the 13th century the princes disposed of the prebends of the cathedrals, and took hold of the goods of the bishops at their demise, as the patrons did of the heri- tage of curates. A number of priests lived in concu- binage. There were churches, the charges of which had become, in some sense, the possession of certain families. The dissensions of the successors of Boleslas, as was to be expected, dismembered the empire after a century of bloodshed. Prussians, Lithuanians, Mongols, and other tribes devastated the country. The authority of the Church grew among those ruins. Papal legates appeared more frequently, synods became more frequent too, and altogether the Church sought for herself the rights she had long attained elsewhere. The Templars, assisted b)r Crusaders from the West, attacked the pa- gans of Prussia, and the voice of the popes constantly called the Western Christians to arms against the bar- barians. In 1157 the emperor Frederick I indicted a crusade of the Germans against Poland, to re-establish the tie of vassalage that once united the land with Ger- many. The Poles were defeated, and Boleslas appeared at Krzyszkowo before the emperor barefooted, and with a naked sword tied around his neck. Wladislas died in Germany, and was succeeded by Boleslas IV, who died in 1173, leaving an only son, Leszek : but it was his brother Micislas who succeeded him. The people, led by Getka (Gedcon), bishop of Cracow, revolted against Micislas, and his younger brother, Casimir Sprawied- liwy (the Just), was put in his place. In 1180 there was a synod of Polish bishops. They threatened with in- terdict whoever should rob the peasants of their stores, appropriate the heritage of an ecclesiastic, or refuse to restore within a given time whatever of Church prop- erty had been taken. After Casimir, who died May 4. 1194, at table, while talking with the bishops about saiva- VIII.-Y
Hon— "non sine veneni suspicione"— Fulko assembled the primates, and prevailed upon them to recognise the sons of Casimir. Helena, Casimir's widow, made ar- rangements with Micislas, and, in the name of her minor sons, recognised him as archduke, and left him Cracow : her son Leszek was to be his successor. This Micislas died in 1202 at Kalisch, and Leszek waived in favor of his son Wladislas his own rights to Cracow. In these years the endeavors of the popes for the refor- mation of the Polish Church were crowned with some success. Clement III sent in 1189 cardinal Giovanni Malabranca to collect contributions for a crusade, and reform the clergy of Poland; several regulations for that purpose were agreed upon at the Synod of Cracow. Cardinal Peter came in 1197; but when he published at Prague the edict against the matrimony of clergymen, the wrath of the clergy was so great that his life was put in danger. He held another synod at Cracow, where he insisted on the same views ; journeyed through the bishoprics, giving his attention to a dereliction of sound morals more deplorable than the marriage of ecclesias- tics, and traditional with the Poles : for he besought the laymen to seek some consecration for their wild copula- tions. He made slow work of it, and it required all the energies of archbishop Henry Kentlitz to establish, little by little, a more Christianlike state of things. In 1212 bishop Peter was freely elected by the chapter of Posen. The dukes at that time promised to touch nothing of the heritage of prelates save gold, silver, etc.,. and waived their judiciary rights on clergymen and their subjects. In 1231 Wladislas Odonicz became the only ruler of Great Poland. At this epoch some crusades against the Prussians took place, and the Poles, though slowly and reluctantly, had a part in them. We find the same bishoprics in the 13th and 14th centuries, but not in those firm metropolitan relations which the interest of the Church required (see Gregory VII, IJpist. ad Bo- leslaum, Pol. regem, lxxiii). The first bishop of Posen, Jordan, and the duke Boleslas Chrobry distinguished themselves by their successful attempts to expand the Christian faith; Bodzanta, archbishop of Gnesen, in the 14th century, by the conversion of the barbarians of Lithuania and Samogitia. This prelate extended his diocese, augmented by a half, over Pomerellia and Neringia, and added Silesia to his spiritual dominions : in one word, the country between the Netze River, the sources of the Vistula, the grand-duchies of Moscow and Semgallen, constituted the territory of his archi- episcopal see. In consequence of these aggrandize- ments the new bishoprics of Wilna, in the grand-duchy of Lithuania, and of Wornie or Miedniki, in the duchy of Samogitia, were established — the first in 1387, the latter in 1417.