Przemysł II

Przemysł II (also given in English and Latin as Premyslas or Premislaus, Polish: Przemysł or less properly Przemysław) (14 October 1257 – 8 February 1296) was the Duke of Poznań, Greater Poland, Kraków and Pomerelia, and then King of Poland from 1295 until his death. After a long period of polish High Dukes, and two nominal kings, he was the first to obtain the hereditary title of King, and for Poland the rank of Kingdom.

Biography

Przemysł was born to Duke Przemysł I of Greater Poland and Elisabeth, daughter of Duke Henry II the Pious of Silesia.

Before 1277, he became a duke of Poznań, and after the death of his uncle Boleslaw the Pious in 1279, he became the duke of whole of Greater Poland. Przemysł held a secret meeting and according to the Treaty of Kępno (1282), he was co-ruler with Mestwin II, duke of Pomerelia or Eastern Pomerania. In 1283 that meeting place, the later Kępno received from Przemysł city rights under the name of Langenfort/vort. In 1294 Przemysł became the successor at Gdańsk. In 1287 this alliance had been extended to duke Boguslaw IV of Western Pomerania.

According to the last will of Henry IV Probus, duke of Silesia and high-duke of Poland, he inherited in 1290 the provinces of Kraków and Sandomierz (both were called Lesser Poland), but soon ceded them to Wenceslaus II, King of Bohemia. As he was the strongest Polish duke of the time, possessed the royal insignia from Kraków, and had support of the clergy for the unification of Poland, he was crowned king of Poland in 1295 by the archbishop of Gniezno, Jakub Świnka, and five other bishops.

In 1296, he was kidnapped by men of the electors of Brandenburg, with some help from the Polish noble families of Nałęcz and Zaremba, and murdered on February 8 in Rogoźno by Jakub Kaszuba. His kingship was short but the revived kingdom survived for the next 500 years.

According to medieval chronicles, he murdered his first wife Ludgarda because she could not bear him children. Ludgarda foresaw his intentions, and beseeched him to spare her life and send her away. He declined and is said to have had her strangled.

Marriages

1. 1273 Ludgarda, daughter of Henry I the Pilgrim, Duke of Mecklenburg; no children
2. 1285 Rikissa, daughter of King Valdemar of Sweden; one daughter: Ryksa Elizabeth (1286–1335), married King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia in 1300, secondly King Rudolph I of Bohemia in 1306
3. 1293 Margaret of Brandenburg, daughter of Albert II, Margrave of Brandenburg; no children

Realm of power

• 1277–1296 Duke of Poznań
• 1279–1296 Duke of Greater Poland
• 1290–1291 Duke of Kraków (Little Poland)
• 1294–1296 Duke of Eastern Pomerania
• 1295–1296 King of Poland

Ancestors

Gallery

References

Further reading

• Nowacki, B. Przemysł II.
• Boras, Z. Poczet piastów wielkopolskich.

See also

• History of Poland (966–1385)
• Dukes of Greater Poland
• Jakub Świnka
• Royal coronations in Poland