Mieszko I

Thietmar of Merseburg calls him the renowned duke of the Poles and tells how his Christian wife Dobrawa brought him to baptism, and how his people followed him (Thietmar, Chronicle 4.55–56, pp. 194–196). The chronicle written at the Polish court in the early twelfth century says that he had seven wives before he married her and gave them up to become a Christian (Gallus Anonymus, Deeds of the Princes of the Poles 1.5–6, p. 428). The annals of the Kraków chapter put the baptism in 966 (Annals of the Kraków Chapter, years 965–966, p. 585).

After Dobrawa’s death he married Oda, a nun and the daughter of the margrave Dietrich, without the church’s sanction, which displeased the bishops; Thietmar adds that the marriage served peace, and that through her the service of Christ increased and many captives were sent home. He died, old and feverish, on 25 May 992, leaving his realm to be divided among several heirs (Thietmar, Chronicle 4.57–58, pp. 196–198). A document summarized at Rome in the 1080s, in which a “judge Dagome” and his wife Ote give the city of Schinesghe to Saint Peter, is read as his, since the names of the wife and of a son match those that Thietmar gives (Dagome iudex (Deusdedit, Collection of Canons 3.199) p. 359). See the Baptism of Mieszko I of Poland.