Dlaczego polska historiografia cierpi na obsesję korony królewskiej pierwszych Piastów?
Why is Polish historiography obsessed with the idea of royal coronations of the first Piast rulers?

An essay on differences in the perception of royal power and its function in newly converted West-Slavic Lands and Scandinavia

Summary/Abstract: This paper analyses the difference in the perception, definition and usage of the concept of royal ideology in the tenth-eleventh-century Poland and Bohemia (or among Western Slavs in general) versus Scandinavia. It demonstrates that while Polish (and Czech) rulers agreed to follow Carolingian (‘Frankish’) model of royal power, the old pagan model of rulership preserved in Scandinavia seemed to secure more power for the king, including the truly royal title. The paper proposes that the West Slavic elites decide to enter the imperial system of Western Europe in an attempt to act as external members of the Christian and Imperial world, but instead they had to accept a new religion, rules, hierarchy and their own subordinate position. Hence, contrary to the general understanding, the coronations of the first three Polish kings were not symbols of sovereignty, but rather of dependence on the Holy Roman Empire.

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