Chronicle

Thietmar was bishop of Merseburg, on the eastern border of Saxony, and wrote in the last years of his life. His see lay close to the Slav lands, and Polish and Bohemian affairs take up much of his book. For the 960s he writes half a century after the events; the year 1000 fell within his own lifetime.

He is not a neutral witness. He calls Boleslav, the son of Mieszko I, a son far unworthy of his good mother, and he notes that the archbishopric at Gniezno was founded without the consent of the bishop to whose diocese the region belonged. His one sentence on Stephen I of Hungary, whom he calls Waic, says that the Hungarian ruler received crown and blessing by the favour and urging of the emperor, and does not mention the pope.