Bishop's murderer, tyrant, cruel and zoophile? You can say a lot bad about Bolesław the Bold, but the last accusation is ... medieval fake news.
Bishop's murderer, tyrant and cruelty - this description of King Bolesław the Bold will probably come as no surprise to anyone. But even calling him a homosexual or a zoophile will cause astonishment among many experts in the ruler's biography. Meanwhile, such words about Bolesław the Bold are falling in the public space. The authors of this type of revelation repeat the historical fake news, although it must be honestly admitted that it was created hundreds of years ago ...
A dream about a crown
Bolesław the Bold was certainly an extraordinary ruler. He wanted to rebuild the power of the state of Bolesław the Brave. To this end, he did not hesitate to intervene militarily with his neighbors. Piast warriors invaded Ruthenia. The Bold was also involved in the dynastic policies of Bohemia and Hungary. He himself skillfully played the conflict between the emperor and the pope over investiture. He sided with the Pope. Thanks to this - like the great Bolesław the Brave - he was able to put on the royal crown.
With time, however, Bolesław's subsequent wars began to weigh on the country's economy. The king had a problem with finalizing the budget. In order to somehow save the treasury, he began to spoil the coin minted in the state. The royal denarius had less and less silver.
Bolesław the Bold was certainly an extraordinary ruler. He wanted to rebuild the power of the state of Bolesław the Brave.
The intensity of the subsequent expeditions and the ever lower wages translated into growing dissatisfaction in the ranks of the army. During the next expedition to Ruthenia, Bolesław's warriors refused to fight and returned home. The king had to stop the expedition and also returned to the country to severely punish traitors and deserters. It was then that Bolesław was to sentence the Bishop of Kraków, Stanisław. The clergyman was murdered cruelly - he was killed by beheading his members.
Sentence and escape
What happened to him so gloomy? The first chronicler of Polish history - Gall Anonim, who wrote his chronicle several decades after these events, spoke laconically about the matter. He blamed both sides, suggesting that the bishop was guilty of treason.
And when King Bolesław was expelled, it would be long to talk about it, but it can be said that, being God's anointed one, he should not punish the anointed person for any sin. It hurt him a lot when used sin against sin and for treason he handed over the bishop to cut off his members . And we neither justify the bishop - traitor, nor recommend the king, who was so ugly asserting his rights, but let's leave these matters and tell how he was received in Hungary.
After the murder of Stanisław, Bolesław had to flee the country due to the growing rebellion of the mighty.
After the murder of Stanisław, Bolesław had to flee the country due to the growing rebellion of the powerful. He hid in Hungary, where he was supposed to show pride and disrespect to the local ruler Władysław. When he wanted to say hello, Piast still behaved like a ruling king in his country, not like a fugitive. He did not get off his horse at the sight of the Hungarian monarch, which was arrogant. Apparently he was later poisoned in Hungary.
Puppy humiliation
The chronicler, who described these events over 100 years later, portrayed the conflict between the king and the bishop much more vividly. We are talking about Wincenty Kadłubek, sometimes called the first Tur-Slavic because of the fantastic stories about the splendor of the Polish state before Mieszko I. Suffice it to say that it was the Poles - according to Kadłubek - who defeated Alexander of Macedon, the Gauls and the Romans in the battles.
These types of phantasms were nothing strange at the time. The chronicles were written in such a way as to glorify glorious history, stigmatize some rulers and exalt others . In short, it was more about propaganda than reliable coverage.
No wonder then that Kadłubek, being a clergyman himself and, consequently, also a bishop of Kraków, could not help stigmatizing Bolesław the Bold for the murder of the bishop. He appropriately "spiced up" the story told. Well - the mysterious escape of Bolesław's warriors from Rus was supposed to be their ... unfaithful wives. Allegedly, in the absence of the knights, the spouses found other partners in the bed and on the property. This knowledge reached the warriors, who abandoned the expedition to return to the country and chase their competitors away.
According to Kadłubek, Bolesław became so furious that after returning from Ruthenia, he publicly humiliated the unfaithful spouses. To equate their status with a female dog, he was to order them to put dog puppies to their breasts and to feed them as unworthy of feeding human children.
Murder at the altar
Among other things, this matter was to upset Bishop Stanisław, who publicly opposed the ruler. The chronicler's hand did not tremble when wrote not only that the king had condemned the bishop to death, but that he had killed him personally. He stabbed him with his sword in front of the altar!
Therefore it demands the head of dignitaries, and it reaches out to those whom it cannot openly reach. Even women forgiven by their husbands, he persecuted with such horror that he did not hesitate to put puppies to their breasts, after throwing off the babies (...).
The chronicler's hand did not tremble when he wrote not only that the king had condemned the bishop to death, but that he had killed him personally.
And when Stanisław, the holy bishop of Kraków, could not dissuade him from this cruelty, at first he threatened him with the destruction of the kingdom, finally he stretched the sword of curse towards him (...), he himself raises his sacrilegious hands, he himself tears the bridegroom from the bride's womb, the shepherd himself from the sheepfold . Sam kills his father in the arms of his daughter and son in the mother's entrails. O pathetic, most mournful death spectacle!
Scientists have no doubt that Kadłubek simply made up a large part of this story to paint a suggestive image of a tyrant king who destroyed his enemies, humiliated women and killed a bishop.
The "against nature" king
To this day, on widely read Polish websites you can sometimes read articles suggesting that Bolesław the Bold was… homosexual. This suggestion was based on the account of another chronicler, a certain Wincenty from Kielcza, who wrote his chronicle even later than Kadłubek. At that time, the cult of Stanisław, who was elevated to the altars in 1253, was already well-established.
Wincenty from Kielcza stated that King Bolesław, the killer of Stanisław, "following the lust of the flesh, changed his glory into disgrace, and the natural way of life for one that is contrary to nature" . It was precisely these words that led to the later suggestion that the king was homosexual. In fact, we don't know if this is what the author meant. Does "a way of life contrary to nature" mean homosexuality? It cannot be denied or confirmed.
We know that Bolesław had a wife (although her name and origin are unknown)
We know that Bolesław had a wife (although her name and origin are unknown) and a son who, according to Gallus Anonymus, was a child of great beauty, intelligence and personal culture. He promised to be a great ruler, but was poisoned, incl. because he feared he would take revenge for his father's wrongdoing.
Having a wife and children, especially in the Middle Ages, could not be a sign of true sexual orientation. However, the criticism of the sources, which the chronicles were, requires a different interpretation of the words of Wincenty of Kielcza. The narrative certainly knew the work of Kadłubek and it can be assumed that it alluded to it. It is possible that while writing about life contrary to nature, he followed the trail outlined by Kadłubek and his stories about punishment for unfaithful wives, prompting the king with "interspecies" tendencies.
Zoophile on the throne
Whether it was so - we do not know that either. In any case, this interpretation of the king's indecency appears in the pages of subsequent chronicles. Starting from Kadłubek and the story about puppies, in line with the rule that the word would fly out and come back as an ox, chroniclers began to attribute ... zoophilia to the king.
From the Kronika Wielkopolska created in the second half of the 13th century, we learn that King Bolesław was so furious with the unfaithful wives of his knights that - to show contempt for women - he physically possessed a mare "adorned with purple and linen". He even had to appear in public with the mare and even "take" her . As the chronicler writes:"wherever he went, he ordered to lead a pack beast with him instead of his wife, decorated with purple and a linen cloth".
The story did not run out of imagination. Following the example of his predecessors, he gave the king psychopathic features, while also painting the image of a deviant
The story did not run out of imagination. Following the example of his predecessors, gave the king psychopathic features, while also painting the image of a deviant having - whether deliberately or not - even a feature somewhat reminiscent of the Roman Caligula. It should be added that later the version that the king "against nature" had intercourse with the animal was repeated by another chronicler - a Cistercian monk, author of the Polish-Silesian chronicle.
A slander from centuries ago
As we can see - none of the later chroniclers interpreted the words of Wincenty of Kielcza about "life contrary to nature" as a testimony of royal homosexuality. Instead, the king was "framed" for zoophilia. None of the chroniclers who repeated these revelations had information about it. For this, everyone knew that they were to stigmatize the king who killed St. Stanislaus. It is possible, therefore, that the story made up by Kadłubek about puppies planted by women was considered to be "against nature". Then, exaggerated, it "turned" into his zoophilia and raping the mare.
Based on the knowledge of the realities of medieval historiography and criticism of the king, we can say both about his alleged homosexuality and his zoophilic tendencies. We know nothing about the king's sexual orientation from the chronicles, and the alleged zoophilia is mere slander.
Bibliography:
- Gall Anonim, Polish Chronicle , comp. M. Plezia, Wrocław 2003.
- Banaszkiewicz, Black and white legend of Bolesław the Bold , "Kwartalnik Historyczny", vol. 88 (1981).
- Barański, Piast Dynasty in Poland , Warsaw 2008.
- Grudziński, Bolesław Śmiały – Szczodry and Bishop Stanisław. History of the conflict , Krakow 2010.
- Plezia Marian, Around the case of Saint Stanislaus. A source study , Bydgoszcz 1999.