Bishops and the Legitimisation of War in Piast Poland until the Early Thirteenth Century

Abstract

In the article the author examines the question of the legitimisation of military activities of the Piasts by Polish bishops in the period preceding the intensification of the autonomisation of the Polish episcopate vis-à-vis the monarch. The question emerges from the recent research into the links between the Church of the Piast era and warfare, which demonstrate that warrelated military activity of prelates was shaped until the 1200s by the rules of public service in line with the model of a state (monarchical) Church. At the same time scholars conducting that research argue that the military duties of the clergy should no longer be viewed as stemming only from being rooted in the political system of the day and the rules of feudal service. The present article provides additional arguments in favour of such a view, with the author also suggesting that the religious dimension of bishops’ wartime service — highlighted in the sources — should not be treated as dictated only by the Church’s pastoral mission or inspired by the crusading ideology. Instead, the author proposes that the bishops’ warfare-related religious activities, especially their efforts to present the monarchs’ military endeavours as having a religious nature, be regarded as an integral part of public service. Such a perspective makes it possible to define the activities of Polish bishops as a phenomenon drawing on models of Carolingian origin and requiring the clergy to place the wars waged by monarchs in a unique context of religious ideas and to build an ideological integrity of the body politic in the face of military actions.