Women in the Piast Dynasty: A Comparative Study of Piast Wives and Daughters (c.965–c.1144)

At the heart of this book lies the exploration of the women who shaped the early Piast dynasty in medieval Poland. This is no easy task, as the textual sources are scarce. Grzegorz Pac presents a thorough assessment of these sources and analyzes them with sophistication. Moreover, throughout his work, Pac contextualizes the depictions of Piast women and their actions within wider European patterns—both historical and historiographical. Anna Kijak deserves mention as well—the book is masterfully translated and a pleasure to read.Pac outlines the purpose and methodology of the book in a succinct way in his introduction, stressing that he will focus only on the wives and daughters of Piast rulers and strictly on their contributions to the development of the Piast dynasty—as far as can be extracted from the sources available. This is followed by five substantial chapters that delineate the protagonists of the book, analyze their founding activities, explore their role in preserving family memory, look at the broader issue of nunneries in the Piast polity, and finally study the patterns of naming found in the milieu. While the short introduction serves its purpose well and doesn't overwhelm the reader with detail, the conclusion, on the other hand, would have benefitted from further elaboration. This is especially the case since it ends on quite a striking note—the notion that members of the Piast dynasty were aware of its “provincial” status among its neighbors (p. 466). Considering many of the comparisons that are made throughout the book, which illustrate how the Piasts were largely participating in (and, in some cases, adapting) practices shared by European nobility, the final conclusion that they felt and were seen as provincial and inferior to other families (pp. 466–467) is somewhat surprising, and certainly deserves a more thorough explanation.Pac starts with an analysis of who the women of the Piast dynasty were, primarily through the lens of the chronicler Gallus Anonymous and the wives and daughters he chose to include in his work, and the presence of these women in other sources. Pac situates these narrative accounts within contemporary (or comparable—depending on the time since the conversion to Christianity) literary traditions. Pac highlights that because the norm for Gallus Anonymous and many of his European peers was only seldom to include the names of women, it is particularly important to analyze the role of those women who are in fact named. These mentions are linked, in the Polish and other similar cases, to women's role in religiously significant events like conversion, peacemaking, intercession, or mediation. An important notion here is Pac's acknowledgement that because of contemporary literary tropes used by chroniclers, we will likely never know for sure whether certain events or actions took place—something that I often find missing from older polemical works of Polish medievalists (see, e.g., p. 52).Chapter 2 focuses on Piast wives and daughters as founders of religious institutions. This is one of the more familiar tropes within which royal and noble women are studied in the period, and Pac's analysis helps situate how European patterns were adopted and adapted among the Piasts, especially in the context of conversion (p. 251). Chapter 3, focusing on memoria is a natural continuation of this analysis, as most foundations were part of a wider process of memorialization. Here, Pac explores that pattern of commemoration and memorialization as based on land ownership. The origin of a woman's property would dictate who would be commemorated through its donation to the clergy (pp. 300–311). Therefore, early Piast women often contributed to the memorialization of, for example, their “German” families rather than their Piast husbands or children by donating the lands they had inherited. When, however, they had received property from their new husbands (or fathers), the souls of their Piast relatives—husbands and children—would be included in the prayers expected for the donation of said property.Chapter 4 is a brief exploration of the nunneries founded in Poland in this period. The brevity of this is a function of the particularly scarce textual and archaeological evidence. Although it is quite clear that nuns were present in Poland during the first two centuries after the polity's conversion, no nunneries were founded. As such, the chapter is an important one in highlighting a difference in Poland as compared to other parts of Latin Christendom, where Christianity had become more rooted in elite culture and led to the rapid foundations of women's houses (pp. 341–348). Poland—part of Kłoczowski's “Younger Europe” (pp. 381–383 and p. 381, note 186)—did not witness the establishment of nunneries in the thirty or so years after conversion as did England or Saxony.The final chapter deals with the naming patterns of the Piast dynasty, and links this to memorialization and dynasty-making. Here, Pac draws attention to the fact that while many medieval dynasties had pools of names for their male members, the situation of women was more complicated (pp. 412–416). Many took the names of the female predecessors of the families they joined or, if they kept their names (or had double names), they were not necessarily seen as foreign, but additions to an existing family pool. As such, “foreign” names among Piast women were likely not perceived as such by contemporaries.Overall, the introduction is a great example of how to set out the scope of a work and situate it within a wider context, and defines problems of the topic and of Polish medieval history in general very well. As such, it will be of use to all those hoping to gain a basic understanding of the women of the Piast dynasty, as well as those interested in medieval women more broadly. The subsequent chapters, however, require a much more solid grounding in general medieval history, and therefore will likely be more useful and accessible to specialists or those further along in their academic journeys. They require confidence in navigating detailed analysis of sources from a variety of regions, and familiarity with a diverse range of secondary literature—including archaeological studies. For those scholars, this book is a much-needed insight into medieval Poland, bringing a rich exploration of Polish historiography into Anglophone discourse.Moreover, the thorough foundations within such a diverse range of primary and secondary sources, while potentially less accessible to younger or non-specialist scholars, enable the comparative aspect of this book to be developed in a useful and nuanced way. Wherever appropriate, Pac draws out similarities and distinctions between Poland and other European regions in meaningful ways. He avoids the pitfalls of both “othering” Poland (often the result of non-engagement with Polish sources and/or historiography) as well as completely normalizing Poland (often found in older Polish works that insist Poland fit seamlessly within Latin Christendom soon after its conversion). The book serves as an excellent example of a comparative history that balances detail with scope.