She was Queen of Poland, yet little is known about her. The wife of Bolesław the Generous disappeared from the pages of history as mysteriously as she appeared. We do not even know her name – and yet she stood by the side of one of the most controversial rulers in Polish history. Who was the woman who shared her life with a king who was exiled and cursed by the Church?
Anonymous Queen of Poland
Bolesław the Generous maintained good relations with Kievan Rus. These ties were further strengthened by the marriage of the Piast ruler to a Rus’ woman about whom we know extraordinarily little. The existence of Bolesław’s wife is mentioned only in passing by Gallus Anonymus in his „Chronicle of the Poles”, where she is referenced during the account of her son Mieszko Bolesławowic’s funeral. According to the chronicler, the death of this promising young man filled the queen with immense grief and caused her to briefly lose consciousness.
Even less is communicated about Bolesław’s wife by Gallus Anonymus’s immediate successor, Wincenty Kadłubek. According to this chronicler, the king’s wife had no reason to grieve, as the death of her beloved son was a punishment for Bolesław’s sins. This motif was repeated by chroniclers in subsequent centuries, resulting in no real increase in knowledge about the king’s mysterious partner.
Based on the scant information in Gallus Anonymus’s chronicle, some scholars have attempted to reconstruct the basic facts of Bolesław the Generous’s wife’s life. Their marriage – as rightly noted – must have taken place no later than 1068, since by the following year they were celebrating the birth of their firstborn son, Mieszko (the date of his birth is recorded in Polish annals). The woman was crowned alongside her husband in 1076, and three years later, after a rebellion broke out in Poland against the king, she fled with him to Hungary. By 1082 at the latest, she had outlived her husband, though it is difficult to determine whether she was with him in his final moments. The widow returned to Poland in 1086 with Mieszko, at the invitation of her brother-in-law, Władysław Herman. The date of the queen’s death and her burial place remain unknown.
The image of Bolesław the Generous’s partner was supplemented in the 15th century with new details by Jan Długosz in his monumental „Annals”. From these, we learn that the Piast’s chosen bride was named Wyszesława and came from Rus. The chronicler mentions her four times in his work: first at the description of the wedding and Mieszko’s birth, and then twice when commenting on her son’s death. In the original version of the text, the woman appeared anonymously. Her name was added later, either in spaces left by the canon or in the margins. It is clear that Jan Długosz initially did not know the name of Bolesław’s wife but was certain of her Rus’ origin.
„Agnes regina”
Among those who disagreed with Jan Długosz’s account was T. Jurek, who, in a 2006 article published in „Roczniki Historyczne,” drew attention to an entry in the necrology of the Zwiefalten Abbey, in the fourth column under the date March 14, announcing the death of „Agnes regina”. Until then, historians had identified the mysterious Agnes with the wife of Emperor Henry III. However, it was later established that the empress actually died on December 14 (as confirmed by numerous independent annals and chronicles), rendering this theory untenable. Over time, German historians proposed that „Queen Agnes” was the wife of the Polish duke Bolesław the Curly, who died on March 15. But this theory also failed: Bolesław the Curly was never a king, so his wife could not have been a queen.
The Polish connection was picked up by medievalist T. Jurek, who, noting the links between Zwiefalten Abbey and the Piast dynasty, suggested that the mysterious queen should be identified as the wife of Bolesław the Generous. Contacts between Zwiefalten and Poland were established after the marriage of Bolesław the Wrymouth to Salomea of Berg (c. 1115), which led to the inclusion of the couple and their children – Leszek, Kazimierz, and Gertruda – in the German necrology. It is also possible, as T. Jurek suggested, that the monks were asked to pray for the soul of the Polish monarch, wife of Bolesław the Generous, uncle of Wrymouth. The researcher based his argument further on information from Jan Długosz, who wrote of the death of Bolesław’s wife under the date March 11. In Jurek’s view, the chronicler could not have invented this date and must have taken it from some now-lost necrological record. The discrepancy – March 11 in Długosz and March 14 in the Zwiefalten necrology – was explained by Jurek as the time it took for news of Agnes’s death to reach Zwiefalten from Poland.
According to T. Jurek, the queen „could hardly have come from Hungary. Bolesław the Generous was indeed allied with (the future Saint) Wladysław (whom he even placed on the throne), but he certainly could not have married his sister. They were close relatives: Władysław and his brother Géza I were sons of an unnamed Polish princess, daughter of Mieszko II, who married Béla I. For political reasons, it would also have been unlikely for Boleslaw to marry the sister of Solomon, who represented the other, hostile branch of the Árpád dynasty, at odds with Béla’s sons and with Poland. Here, too, there was close kinship: Solomon’s mother was the daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, who was either the brother (or father) of Bolesław’s mother. Unfortunately, the possibility that Queen Agnes came from a German ducal or comital family cannot be verified. Perhaps some clues might be found in a broad study of the spread of this name, which was not as popular then as it would become in later centuries”. The observations gathered by T. Jurek led him to conclude that Bolesław the Generous’s wife may have come from Bohemia and was most likely the daughter of Duke Bretislav I and his only wife, Judith of Schweinfurt. She would have been born before 1055 (the year of Bretislav’s death). Her existence is not recorded in contemporary sources (nor are those of other daughters of the ducal couple), but the authors of these sources were not interested in women and may not have mentioned her at all.
Some scholars have raised a number of significant arguments against T. Jurek’s hypothesis, considering it highly improbable. The historian K. Benyskiewicz had the most to say on the matter. In his view, for every lay person listed in the Zwiefalten necrology, geographical information indicating their Polish origin was provided, whereas for Queen Agnes, no such designation appears.
Benyskiewicz also found it intriguing that Cosmas of Prague, who faithfully recorded all marital ties between the Přemyslids and the Piasts in his „Chronicle of the Czechs” (even though he spoke unfavorably of Poles and their rulers), made no mention of a supposed daughter of Bretislav I. Similarly, Gallus Anonymus did not record the existence of a Přemyslid woman who, by marrying Bolesław the Generous, might have contributed to normalizing relations between the Czech and Polish states. Ultimately, this did not happen, and during Bolesław’s reign, relations between the two countries were particularly cold, often erupting into border conflicts, with each side prevailing at different times.
A Controversial Idea
K. Benyskiewicz also pointed out other weak points in T. Jurek’s proposal: the matter of Agnes’s royal title and her rather undistinguished place in the necrology. According to the scholar, „Bolesław the Generous’s Polish crown, like earlier Piast coronations, was regarded in Germany as a usurpation. In Germany, Bolesław, until recently a tributary, was considered a pretender. Why, then, was his widow given this title? […] T. Jurek, justifying Agnes’s modest place in the necrology (fourth column), cited Bolesław’s lack of prestige, the result of the ruler’s less than glorious deeds. I suspect that the Zwiefalten monks knew little about the Polish king and his past. Moreover, the ‘black legend’ of Bolesław II was still in the future; there was no basis for a new image of the monarch, that is, the chronicle of Master Wincenty. In the first half of the 12th century, at most, the version reflected in Gallus Anonymus’s chronicle prevailed, portraying the king as valiant but unfortunate, brought down by excessive pride. The image of a bishop-killer and sodomite did not yet exist, even in the consciousness of the Cracow intellectual elite. From T. Jurek’s explanation of Agnes’s modest position in the necrology, it follows that, on the one hand, the monks highlighted the royal title of the Piast’s partner, but on the other, did not value her as the widow of a long-dead ruler from the periphery of Christendom”.
At the end of his reflections, K. Benyskiewicz put forward an innovative hypothesis regarding the origins of Bolesław the Generous’s wife. He suggested that she arrived on the Vistula from Scandinavia as the daughter of King Sweyn II Estridsson of Denmark, as a result of closer Polish-Danish relations, which led to Bolesław sending military aid to the Scandinavians in 1069 during their expedition to England. In the scholar’s view, such a marriage arose from the Piast’s desire to find an equal partner with whom he could ally against hostile Pomeranians and Germans.
Benyskiewicz’s observations are intriguing, but lack supporting source data. There is no mention of any Polish-Danish alliance in contemporary accounts. In fact, we know very little about Piast-Scandinavian relations in the early Middle Ages, and researchers must rely on conjecture. Polish troops did indeed participate, alongside Saxons, Liutizians, and Frisians, in the 1069 invasion of England, but it is uncertain whether Boleslaw the Generous sent them to Sweyn Estridsson. The Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis mentioned „Poles” in this context. According to the latest research, this term could refer to volunteers recruited from Polish lands or possibly Pomeranian warriors, who at that time were outside Bolesław’s authority, as he had lost control of Pomerania at the beginning of his reign. As can be seen, basing the thesis of a Polish-Danish alliance on Orderic’s chronicle is at least problematic. There are more doubts than certainties here.
Benyskiewicz was aware of the weaknesses in his own hypothesis, so he sought further support by looking for confirmation in Scandinavian sagas, which mention a mysterious King of Vinland, Burislav, his wife Thyra, and their three daughters: Gunhild, Geira, and Astrid. The scholar was inclined to see Burislav as Bolesław the Generous, and Thyra as his wife. However, this identification is contradicted by the findings of previous generations of historians, who have repeatedly studied the Burislav question. This figure has been identified as Mieszko I, Bolesław the Brave, or Bolesław the Wrymouth, or possibly some Pomeranian duke. Many researchers consider him a strictly legendary figure due to the lack of references in other sources. The claim that Bolesław the Generous had three daughters is untrue. Our oldest chronicler, Gallus Anonymus, knew only of one daughter of the king. Equally improbable is the report that Bolesław the Generous, upon marrying Thyra, was a pagan and an old man!
Given the above, there is nothing left but to conclude that Burislav, if he ever existed, could not have been Boleslaw the Generous. This also weakens the supposition of a Polish-Danish alliance during this ruler’s time, of which, incidentally, contemporary sources – including German ones – were unaware.
See also: Wife of Mieszko the Old – the Mysterious Princess
The Wife of Boleslaw the Generous…
If Bolesław the Generous’s wife did not come from Bohemia, Germany, Hungary, or Scandinavia, there is a strong likelihood that – as Canon Jan Długosz suggested in the 15th century – she came to Poland from Rus. Of course, we have no certainty in this regard, just as with the other alternatives explaining the queen’s origins. It is difficult to determine the source of Długosz’s knowledge about her. If the figure of Wyszesława was not a product of the chronicler’s imagination, it must be assumed that he drew on some unidentified accounts independent of Gallus Anonymus’s chronicle. It is unlikely that these were annals or necrologies, as in that case he would have known not only the name of Bolesław the Generous’s wife, but she would also have appeared in the main text of his monumental work, not just in the margins.
According to Jan Długosz, Bolesław the Generous, despite reaching a mature age, was in no hurry to marry, and it was only at the urging of his secular and ecclesiastical advisors that he began to look for a life companion. Whether this was really the case is difficult to determine today. Jan, in describing this episode from the king’s life, may have wanted to fill a gap in his biography from the early years of his reign. As mentioned earlier, historians have dated Bolesław’s marriage to no later than 1068, while Długosz himself placed it in 1067. It is possible, however, that the son of Casimir the Restorer did not delay so long in marrying, which could have happened many years earlier. It is also possible that the ducal couple waited a long time for the birth of their much-desired heir (Mieszko), or that older children died young. Nor can it be ruled out that Boleslaw, before marrying Wyszesława, was involved with another woman whose name has been completely lost to history. This last possibility corresponds with G. Gromadzki’s assertion that „Gallus Anonymus, in shaping the past, consistently presented only one ruler, one wife, and one male offspring,” which is a characteristic feature of the first book of the „Chronicle of the Poles”.
Elsewhere, Jan Długosz wrote that the wedding celebrations of Bolesław the Generous and Wyszesława took place in Cracow and lasted several days. This information deserves greater trust, even though the canon’s predecessors had absolutely nothing to report on the matter. In the Middle Ages, weddings typically lasted several days, and larger celebrations went on even longer, as documented by written accounts from the period. During Bolesław the Generous’s reign, as in the time of his father Casimir the Restorer, the ruler’s permanent residence was in Cracow, from where he was closer to Poland’s allied states (Rus and Hungary) and could more easily influence events along the Polish–Czech border. The important role of Cracow in Boleslaw’s state is indicated, for example, by Gallus Anonymus’s story about the palace located there, before which the king admired tributes laid out on carpets, brought to him by many peoples, including the Rus’.
Jan Długosz’s statement that Bolesław the Generous’s bride was an only child and heiress to a large part of Rus also warrants separate comment, as it seems highly unlikely, especially since women in Rus at that time were not included in succession. Dlugosz himself did not mention Bolesław’s acquisition of any supposed inheritance in Rus, which, in such a case, would theoretically have been his due. Historiography has repeatedly attempted to identify the father of Bolesław the Generous’s wife. Marcin Kromer saw the Polish monarch’s father-in-law as Vseslav, while the author of the „Hustyn Chronicle” pointed to Vyacheslav Yaroslavich. For Vasily Tatishchev, Wyshesłava’s father was Sviatoslav of Chernigov, a view adopted by leading Russian scholars. There is also the opinion that Boleslaw’s wife was the daughter of Igor Yaroslavich, or Vladimir Yaroslavich, or Rostislav Vladimirovich.
See also: The Mysterious Wife of Mieszko Bolesławowic
Nothing is known about the marriage of Bolesław the Generous and Wyszesława. Jan Długosz was convinced that the king cheated on his lawful wife with a certain Krystyna. In so doing, he wronged not only his wife but also broke up another family, as the woman who attracted his attention was the wife of the knight Mścisław of Burzenin. It is unknown how much truth there is in the story told by the Cracow canon. Długosz’s predecessors knew nothing of any Krystyna, which casts serious doubt on the veracity of his information. Scholars have so far been merciless toward the 15th-century chronicler, considering his reports to be fabricated. We must agree with this assessment, especially since even Pope Gregory VII, with whom the Polish king corresponded, seemed unaware of Bolesław’s alleged infidelity. This would suggest that Bolesław did not, in fact, betray his wife. Besides, if Dlugosz is to be believed, he had no reason to, as Wyszesława was said to be exceptionally attractive, with both her intellect and beauty being particularly striking.
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Author: Gabriela Zapolska