{"product_id":"the-first-kingdom-and-the-age-of-fragmentation-9798235572379","title":"The First Kingdom and the Age of Fragmentation","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Ivo Vichev\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Ivo Vichev\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Ivo Vichev\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Eastern Europe - General\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe First Kingdom and the Age of Fragmentation\u003c\/strong\u003e is the second volume in Ivo Vichev's \u003cstrong\u003eHistory of Poland\u003c\/strong\u003e series, a serious narrative history of medieval Poland from the final years of Mieszko I to the reign of Casimir the Great.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis volume follows the making, breaking, and rebuilding of the first Polish kingdom. It begins with the damaged document known as the \u003cem\u003eDagome iudex\u003c\/em\u003e, the succession crisis after Mieszko I's death, and the ruthless seizure of power by Boleslaw Chrobry. From there, it traces the rise of the early Piast state through the Congress of Gniezno, the cult of Saint Adalbert, the wars with the Holy Roman Empire, the road to Kiev, and Boleslaw's coronation as the first king of Poland in 1025.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut the kingdom Boleslaw left behind was not secure. After his death, Poland entered one of the most dangerous periods in its early history. Mieszko II inherited royal authority, foreign enemies, dynastic rivals, and a state stretched beyond its institutional strength. The result was collapse: invasion, rebellion, pagan reaction, the flight of rulers, the sack of sacred centres, and the near-destruction of the Piast monarchy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe book then follows the long reconstruction under Casimir the Restorer, the renewed ambition of Boleslaw the Bold, the murder of Bishop Stanislaw, the troubled rule of Wladyslaw Herman, and the powerful reign of Boleslaw Krzywousty. His Testament of 1138 divided the realm among his sons and opened the age of fragmentation, when Poland became a political landscape of rival Piast dukes, provincial courts, broken senioral authority, and competing claims to Krak�w.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcross the following centuries, the Polish lands faced pressure from every direction. The rise of Silesia, Mazovia, Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, and Pomerania reshaped the old kingdom into a fractured political world. German settlement, Church power, urban growth, ducal rivalry, Mongol invasion, and the arrival of the Teutonic Order all changed the balance of power. The seizure of Gdańsk by the Teutonic Knights became one of the defining wounds of medieval Polish history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom that fractured world emerged Wladyslaw Lokietek, the small duke who refused to vanish. His long struggle for Krak�w, his battles against rivals, his conflict with the Teutonic Order, and his coronation in 1320 marked the return of the Polish kingdom. Yet reunification remained incomplete. It was Casimir the Great who gave the recovered monarchy its deeper structure: law, administration, diplomacy, castles, towns, royal courts, and a political system strong enough to survive the end of the direct Piast royal line.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is not a simple story of national rise. It is a history of fragile institutions, dynastic violence, royal ambition, frontier war, Church authority, foreign pressure, law, memory, and survival. The Polish kingdom did not move smoothly from foundation to strength. It broke, contracted, adapted, and slowly learned how to outlive the rulers who claimed it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten for readers of medieval history, Polish history, European history, royal history, and the Piast dynasty, \u003cstrong\u003eThe First Kingdom and the Age of Fragmentation\u003c\/strong\u003e tells the story of how Poland survived the collapse of its first monarchy, endured the age of divided duchies, and returned as a kingdom under kings who understood that power needed more than blood. It needed institutions, memory, law, and stone.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ivo Vichev","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47892025507991,"sku":"9798235572379","price":3369.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9798235572379.webp?v=1781185503","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/the-first-kingdom-and-the-age-of-fragmentation-9798235572379","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}