German–Polish War

Mieszko's son and successor Boleslaw I (r. 992-1025), known as the Brave, builds on his father's achievements and becomes the most successful Polish monarch of the early medieval era.

Boleslaw continues the policy of appeasing the Germans while taking advantage of their political situation to gain territory wherever possible.

Frustrated in his efforts to form an equal partnership with the Holy Roman Empire, Boleslaw gains some non-Polish territory in a series of wars against his imperial overlord in 1003 and 1004.

The Polish conqueror then turns eastward, extending the boundaries of his realm into present-day Ukraine.

Shortly before his death in 1025, Boleslaw wins international recognition as the first king of a fully sovereign Poland.

The building of the Polish state continues during the eleventh century and the first half of the twelfth century under a series of successors to Boleslaw I, but by 1150, the state will be divided among the sons of Boleslaw III, beginning two centuries of fragmentation that will bring Poland to the brink of dissolution.

The most fabled event of the period is the murder in 1079 of Stanislaw, the bishop of Krakow.

A participant in uprisings by the aristocracy against King Boleslaw II, Stanislaw is killed by order of the king.

This incident, which leads to open rebellion and ends the reign of Boleslaw, is a Polish counterpart to the later, more famous assassination of Thomas á Becket on behalf of King Henry II of England.

Although historians still debate the circumstances of the death, after his canonization the martyred St. Stanislaw will enter national lore as a potent symbol of resistance to illegitimate state authority—an allegorical weapon that will prove especially effective against the communist regime in the post-Second World War era.

The German–Polish War consists of a series of struggles between the Ottonian Henry II (first as King of Germany and then Holy Roman Emperor) and the Polish Piast ruler Boleslaw Chrobry.

Fought from 1002 to 1018, the locus of conflict is the control of Lusatia, Upper Lusatia, as well as Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia.

Boleslaus III, called the Red (-haired) or the Blind, the duke of Bohemia since 999, has been called the "worst of all men who ever sat on the Bohemian throne."

The eldest son of Boleslav II the Pious and Adiva of England, Boleslav III is a weak ruler in whose chaotic reign Bohemia will become a pawn in the long war between the Emperor Henry II and Boleslaw the Brave, King of Poland.

Henry the Strong is the son of Leopold I, the first Margrave of Austria, and Richardis of Sualafeldgau.

At the time of Henry's investiture in 996, the land between the Bisamberg and the March river had not yet been settled by Germans.

The name Ostarrîchi, from which the modern German name of Austria—Österreich—develops, is first mentioned in a preserved document from 996.

Henry faces his most significant threat from the north.

Following the death of Duke Boleslaus II of Bohemia in 999, the area north of the Eastern March had become unstable due to the brutality of his successor, Duke Boleslaus III the Red.

Eckard I, Margrave of Meissen, is of noble east Thuringian stock, the eldest son of Margrave Gunther of Merseburg.

In 985, the young King Otto III of Germany had appointed him to succeed Margrave Rikdag in Meissen, following severe Saxon setbacks against the Slavic Lutici tribes.

He was later elected Duke of Thuringia by the magnates of the region, an event which has been taken as evidence of the principle of tribal ducal election.

Eckard is high in the favor of the Emperor Otto III, who has rewarded him handsomely by converting many of his benefices (fiefs) into proprietas (allods).

In Otto's conflict with his rival cousin Duke Henry II of Bavaria, Eckard's military responsibilities as holder of the Meissen march consists primarily of containment of the neighboring Polish and Bohemian duchies.

Duke Boleslaus II of Bohemia had allied with Duke Henry and had taken the occasion to occupy the Albrechtsburg in 984; he nevertheless had had to withdraw the next year, after Otto III had prevailed.

Margrave Eckard had had to restore Thiadric, Bishop of Prague to his see after his expulsion by Boleslaus II of Bohemia.

When in January 1002 Otto III dies without issue and the German princes meet at Frohse (today part of Schönebeck) to elect a new king, Eckard even aims at the German crown, because the late emperor's Ottonian relative Henry of Bavaria, son of Duke Henry II, who is the preeminent candidate, meets with strong opposition.

Eckard is at this time the most obvious Saxon candidate, but the nobles are opposed to him.

They only agree to meet again at the Kaiserpfalz of Werla and to support no candidate before then.

Otto III is only twenty-one at the time of his unexpected death in January 1002, leaving no children and no instructions for the Imperial succession.

The emperor, dealing with a revolt against his reign in Italy in 1001, had sent word for Duke Henry of Bavaria to join him with reinforcements from Germany. 

In the Ottonian dynasty, succession to the throne has been drawn from the Saxon branch, not the Bavarian line of which Henry is a member.

As the funeral procession moves through the Duchy of Bavaria in February 1002, Henry meets the procession in Polling, just north of the Alps.

To legitimize his claims, Henry demands Archbishop Heribert of Cologne give him the imperial regalia, chief among them being the Holy Lance.

Heribert, however, had sent these ahead of the procession, possibility out of distrust of Henry and possibly because he favors the succession of his relative Duke Herman II of Swabia as the next king.

In order to force Herman II to relinquish the Holy Lance to him, Henry imprisons the Archbishop and his brother the Bishop of Wurzburg.

With neither the symbols of imperial authority, the crown jewels, nor the cooperation of Heribert, Henry is unable to persuade the nobles attending Otto III's funeral procession to elect him as king.

The Werla meeting takes place in April and Henry, through his cousins, Abbess Sophia I of Gandersheim and Adelheid I of Quedlinburg, the sisters of deceased Otto III, succeed in having his election confirmed, at least in part by hereditary right.

Nevertheless, Eckard receives enough support to commandeer the closing banquet of the Werla assembly and dine in state with Duke Bernard I of Saxony and Bishop Arnulf of Halberstadt.

Eckard is subsequently honored as royalty by Bishop Bernward when he arrives at Hildesheim.

Within days, however, he his assassinated by agents of his Saxon opposition in Pöhlde.

Among these rivals are Count Henry III of Stade, his brother Udo, and Count Siegfried II of Northeim.

Otto III, having never married, has died without issue, leaving the Empire without a clear successor.

As the funeral procession moved through the Duchy of Bavaria in February 1002, Otto III's cousin Henry II, son of Henry the Quarrelsome, and the new Duke of Bavaria, had asked the bishops and nobles to elect him as the new king of Germany.

With the exception of the Bishop of Augsburg, Henry II had received no support for his claims.

At Otto III's funeral on Easter 1002, in Aachen, the German nobles repeat their opposition to Henry II.

Several rival candidates for the throne—Count Ezzo of Lotharingia, Margrave Eckard I of Meissen, and Duke Herman II of Swabia—strongly contest the succession of Henry II.