Boleslaw I the Brave
Bolesław I the Brave was the first crowned king of Poland and doubled the state his father left him. Born around 967, the son of Mieszko I and the Bohemian princess Dobrawa, he was sent as a child hostage to the imperial court, which gave him an education in German politics he used for the rest of his life. He took power in 992 and expelled his stepmother and half-brothers. His first great success was diplomatic and religious. He received the missionary bishop Adalbert of Prague, sent him to convert the Prussians, and, when the Prussians killed him in 997, bought the body back for its weight in gold and enshrined it at Gniezno. That made Poland a place of pilgrimage. The Emperor Otto III came in the year 1000, and at the Congress of Gniezno recognised Bolesław as a friend and ally of the empire, placed his own diadem on his head, and agreed to an independent Polish archbishopric at Gniezno — which freed the Polish church from German control permanently. Otto's successor Henry II reversed the policy, and the two fought three wars between 1002 and 1018, ending with the Peace of Bautzen, which left Bolesław holding Lusatia. He intervened in Kyiv in 1018, installed his son-in-law, and is said to have notched his sword on the city's Golden Gate. He was crowned king in 1025, shortly before his death that year — the act that made Poland a kingdom rather than a duchy. His son Mieszko II lost the crown within a decade, and Poland spent the rest of the century recovering it.
- Lived: 967 CE – 1025 CE
- Nationality: Polish
- Roles: ruler, general
