Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Volunteer Marek (talk | contribs) at 01:49, 12 March 2013. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Gąsawa massacre (Template:Lang-pl, literally "the crime in Gąsawa") was an attack upon a meeting of Polish Piast dukes in 1227, which was being held near the village of Gąsawa in Kujawy, Poland. As a result of the ambush the High Duke of Poland Leszek the White was assassinated, while Duke Henry the Bearded of Silesia was heavily wounded. Because several of the victims were retiring for the night and taking a bath at the time of the attack, the event is sometimes known as the Bloodbath of Gąsawa (krwawa łaźnia w Gąsawie) in Polish historiography.

While the direct responsibility for the attack is generally ascribed by historians to Świętopełk of Pomerania, there are many circumstances surrounding the crime which are controversial and remain unexplained. Świętopełk's aim was to make the Duchy of Gdańsk Pomerania, which his House of Sobiesław held as regents of the Polish rulers, independent of Piast overlordship. The murder of Leszek the White, his suzerain, served his interests in that regard. However, several historians have pointed to Duke Władysław Odonic, who shortly before the attack forged an alliance with Świętopełk, as the main instigator of the plot. Odonic's, whose presence at the congress is subject to dispute (Gerard Labuda has argued that he was not presentCite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Whatever the exact circumstances of, or the responsibility for, the event, it is generally accepted that the crime contributed to the deepening of the feudal fragmentation of Poland. Świętopełk successfully cast off the control of Piast dukes over Gdańsk Pomerania and began using the title dux (rather than regent). Piast control over this area was not re-established until the Treaty of Kępno between Mściwój II of Pomerania and Przemysł II (perhaps ironically, a grandson of Odonic) in 1282. The death of Leszek the White undermined the authority and status of the "High Duke of Poland" (principat) who technically ruled over all the other regional Polish dukes, with the "seniorate" province of Kraków/Małopolska essentially becoming just another feudal area to be fought over. Poland, as a unified political entity, was not reestablished until the rule of Wenceslaus III or Władysław the Elbow-high at the turn of the 13th and 14th century.

References

1. ^ Jasienica Pawel (2007). Polska Piastow. Proszynski. p. 174. ISBN 9788374694797.
2. Bartos, Sebastian (2008). Negotiations of Power in a Medieval Society: Ecclesiastical Authority and Secular Rulership in Little Poland, 1177--1320. ProQuest. p. 66.
3. ^ Gladysz, Mikolaj (2012). The Forgotten Crusaders: Poland and the Crusader Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Brill. p. 209. ISBN 9789004185517.

• History of Poland (966–1385)
• Żnin County
• Conflicts in 1227
• 1227 in Europe