The Medieval Chronicle 11 Edited by Erik Kooper Sjoerd Levelt leiden | boston For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV Contents Preface ix List of Contributors xi Eyewitness and Medieval Historical Narrative 1 Marcus Bull La Chronique de Memmingen: histoire et luttes politiques dans une ville d’Empire au xve siècle 23 Dominique Adrian Le rôle du connecteur car (ou nam/enim) dans la prose historique: connecteur interphrastique? 43 Anders Bengtsson The Vindication of Sancho ii in the Crónica de Castilla: Political Identity and Historiographical Reinvention in Medieval Castilian Chronicles 64 Kim Bergqvist Faux Pas in the Chronicles: What is a Pas d’Armes? 87 Catherine Blunk The Perception and Evaluation of Foreign Soldiers in the Wars of King Peter i of Cyprus: The Evidence of the Cypriot Chronicles and Its Shortcomings 108 Nicholas Coureas Toujours loyal. A Middle Dutch Chronicle of Flanders by Jan van Dixmude in Sixteenth-Century Ghent 127 Lisa Demets Using an Example: Denis Sauvage, Philippe de Commynes and the ‘Vieil Exemplaire’ 154 Catherine Emerson Reassessing Spanish Chronicle Writing before 900: The Tradition of Compilation in Oviedo at the End of the Ninth Century 171 Rodrigo Furtado For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV viii contents Decennovenal Reason and Unreason in the C-Text of Annales Cambriae 195 Henry Gough-Cooper The Battle of Gallipoli 1416: A Detail Rescued from a Chronicle 213 John Melville-Jones The Origins of the Polish Piast Dynasty as Chronicled by Bishop Vincent of Kraków (Wincenty Kadłubek) to Serve as a Political Model for His Own Contemporary Time 220 Grischa Vercamer Review: The Chronicle of Amadi, Translated from the Italian by Nicholas Coureas and Peter Edbury 248 Karl Borchardt Review: Éloïse Adde-Vomáčka, La Chronique de Dalimil 253 Ivan Hlaváček Anthony Munday’s ‘Briefe Chronologicall Suruay Concerning the Netherlands’ and the Medieval Chronicle Tradition of Holland in the Early Modern Period: Introduction and Edition 258 Sjoerd Levelt For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV The Origins of the Polish Piast Dynasty as Chronicled by Bishop Vincent of Kraków (Wincenty Kadłubek) to Serve as a Political Model for His Own Contemporary Time Grischa Vercamer Abstract Bishop Vincent of Kraków, known as Wincenty Kadłubek, was the most influential scholar in Poland in the late twelfth to early thirteen century. In his Chronica Polonorum (c. 1205) he wrote the prehistory of Poland in a very untypical way. Instead of construct- ing a straight lineage of the dynasty of the Piasts from ancient times up to his own day (as most of the other authors of his time did), he invented deliberately different prehistoric dynasties for the Poles and inserted artificial time gaps among them. Thus, he stressed the idea of Poland as a res publica (people of Poland), who could survive quite well without rulers, if indeed the latter turned out to be bad and egotistical. This implied a clear warning to the contemporary Piasts: they should keep the matters of the res publica in mind or they could be replaced. Poland had already managed to get by— so he argued—without rulers for various periods in the past and could, if necessary, do it again. Introduction When inquiring into the origins of a dynasty, we soon come to the term origo gentis. This term was rarely used in direct translation as a certain model in the Middle Ages and perhaps this is the reason why it seems to be controversial among scholars nowadays.1 The origo gentis does not refer to a dynasty specifi- 1 For a survey of recent research, see Anton et al. (2003), Plassmann (2006: 13–27, esp. 15–16). The term is rarely used in a title, as it is for instance in the Origo gentis Langobardorum from the seventh century (Anton et al. 2003: 174–175). There exists as well an origo gentis romanae from the fourth century. In 533 Cassiodor wrote his Origo actusque Getarum. Other authors (for instance, Isidor and Gregory of Tours), however, do not have origo in the title. For a critical © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004351875_013 For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV the origins of the polish piast dynasty 221 cally, but rather to the origins of the people (gens).2The two terms gens and reg- num are closely connected in this context.3 There are simply no origines regum or origines ducum as far as we know; so the histories of the dynasties are part of the origo gentis. The princes of the time period with which we are dealing here wanted to trace their ancestors back as far as possible.4 In the twelfth cen- tury a revival occurred in recalling the heroes and members of the royal family of Troy, invoking them to serve as ancestors of various noble dynasties. A first wave in this process shows up already in the sixth to eighth centuries.5 Direct descendants of Priam of Troy like Aeneas, Francio or Brutus were adapted to take on the roles of heros eponymos for a people or dynasty, for example by the Franks or the British.6 The Carolingians, by omitting the Merovingian dynasty, tried to monopolise theTrojans for themselves.7 Later, dynasties like the Staufer or Capetians or Plantagenets—who were quite aware that their ancestors had come from rather humble backgrounds in comparison to emperors and great kings—as a consequence claimed to be related to Charlemagne. Such a lineage sufficed and there was no need to trace their dynasties to Troy as well. The Cen- tral and East European8 dynasties like the Arpads, Přemyslids, Rurikids or Piasts differ from theWest European dynasties—here, a different legend of origin was chosen in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. What is striking is that they did approach to the concept, see Goffard (1988), whose views are well summarised by Gillett (2002: 8–9). 2 Plassmann (2006: 11, 189), Anton et al. (2003: 174–178),Wenskus (1961: 14–17). Plassmann shows how Fredegar put the gens and the duces of the Carolingian dynasty (at that time the ‘mayor of the palace’) in the traditional line from Troy by playing down the Merovingian dynasty.The conflict with the Romans was especially important, something in which the duces played a major role. 3 Werner (1997); Plassmann (2006: 17), Anton et al. (2003: 189, 192). Earlier authors from the Early Middle Ages relate the origo from Troy to the folk, while younger authors like Gregory of Tours took into account the representatives of the Merovingian Dynasty. 4 Anton et al. (2003: 175). 5 Wolf (2009: 14–39). 6 Anton et al. (2003: 194):The re-interpretation by the Carolingian authors of their predecessors (Fredegar, Gregory) by directly connecting the Carolingians to the Trojans (Anchises, Franco) and by omitting the Merovingians is typical. One should mention that the older Anglo-Saxon authors like Bede had no interest in the origo from Troy (cp. Anton et al. 2003: 202). 7 Anton et al. (2003: 194). 8 We could speak as well of ‘Alteuropa’ (Old Europe) and ‘Neueuropa’ (New Europe) (Halecki) or, later, of ‘Older Europe’ and ‘Younger Europe’ (Moraw, Samsonowicz, Kłoczowski; cp. Kersken 1999: 111–113). For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV 222 vercamer not choose to refer to Troy, Macedonia (Alexander the Great), the Romans or other ancient places, but seemingly were content with much more modest origins.9 The historic realms of Bohemia, Hungary, Rus’ or Poland emerged in the ninth and tenth centuries. The first historiographical works from these areas about the origins and developments of their nations or peoples did not appear until some two hundred years later, in the first half of the twelfth century.10This delay between the process of the conquest of their territories and the establishment of their dynasties, and then only later the subsequent historical legitimation through chronicles, is not easily explainable. I would suggest that there was in all areas of written activities a certain backlog during this period and in the eleventh century the rulers of these regions did not see the necessity for, or even the possibility of, legitimising themselves.11 It is, in any case, no coincidence that the origins of these peoples as constructed were indeed more provincial or modest; yet at the same time they were markedly independent and self- referential in that they did not require any explanatory reference to an entity outside themselves. The Arpads, somewhat more ‘international’ or glamorous than the rest, were presented as descendants of a mythological hawk (turul), who impregnated the mother (Emese) of Álmos in a dream while she was still in Scythia, the ancient home of the Hungarians. The grandson was Árpád, the founder of the dynasty.12 In Bohemia, Přemysl is the mythical first prince of the Bohemians (a ploughman, who was accepted by Libuše, the daughter of Boemus, as her husband).13 In the first chronicle of the Rus’ one reads how the Slavic people, after God had shattered the union of humankind during the building of the tower of Babel, then wandered and settled in the areas of the Danube, and later on the Polianians, a smaller Slavic tribe to whom the author of the chronicle seemed to number himself, settled along the Djnepr. They got rid of the Varangian ruler, but in the end quarrelled so much that they decided to ask the Rus’ (once again, the Varangians) for a leader (ad862), who eventually became Rurik.14 9 Cp. Plassmann (2006: 367), with regard to Gallus and Cosmas of Prague in comparison to ‘western’ authors.