Bolesław III Wrymouth
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Bolesław III Wrymouth Bolesław III Krzywousty; 1085 – 1138) was Duke of Poland from 1102. He was the son of Duke Władysław I Herman and Judith of Bohemia, daughter of Vratislaus II of Bohemia.
Bolesław Wrymouth defeated the Pomeranians at the Battle of Nakło (1109) and took control of Pomerania (1119-1123), thus regaining Polish access to the Baltic Sea. The local government of the Pomeranians was left in place.
Bolesław also defeated Emperor Henry V (1109) in the Battles of Głogów and Psie Pole (the latter also known, in German translation, as the Battle of Hundsfeld). In the years 1113-1119 he had taken control over Pomerania.[1] In 1135, Bolesław gave a tribute to Emperor Lothair II (Lothar von Supplinburg) and the emperor received from Boleslaw parts of Western Pomerania and Rügen as fiefs.
Bolesław also campaigned in Hungary 1132 – 1135, but to little effect.
With his first wife, Zbyslava, daughter of Grand Duke Sviatopolk II of Kiev, Bolesław had one son:
- Władysław II the Exile (born 1105), King of Poland.
Bolesław subsequently married Salome von Berg-Schelklingen, by whom he had 14 children (six sons and eight daughters), of whom four sons and five daughters are known:
- Bolesław IV the Curly (born 1125);
- Mieszko III the Old (born 1126);
- Henryk of Sandomierz (born 1127);
- Casimir II the Just (born 1138);
- Rikissa of Poland (born April 12, 1116), who married firstly Magnus the Strong, pretender of Sweden and Denmark; secondly Volodar of Polatsk, Prince of Minsk; and thirdly king Sverker I of Sweden
- Dobronega of Poland (born 1128), who married Marquis Dietrich of Niederlausitz;
- Gertruda of Poland;
- Judith of Poland (born 1132), who married Otto I of Brandenburg; and
- Agnes of Poland (born 1137), who married Mstislav II of Kiev.
Before his death in 1138, Bolesław Wrymouth published his testament (Bolesław Wrymouth's testament) dividing his lands among four of his sons. The "senioral principle" established in the testament stated that at all times the eldest member of the dynasty was to have supreme power over the rest and was also to control an indivisible "senioral part": a vast strip of land running north-south down the middle of Poland, with Kraków its chief city. The Senior's prerogatives also included control over Pomerania, a fief of the Holy Roman Empire. The "senioral principle" was soon broken, leading to a period of nearly 200 years of Poland's feudal fragmentation.
