Of Mice in a Tower: Memory and Interpretation of the Deep Past across Piast Poland

• In Event: 300 Years Ago: History and Memory of Premodern Poland

Abstract

A recurrent subject of historical works produced in medieval Poland—chronicles, gesta, annals, hagiography—is the deep past, as viewed from the authors' perspective. Occasionally, that past extends back to foundational moments, comprising either origins or crucial transitions. As expressed in the texts, and presumably experienced by the authors and their audiences, such moments, and the entire past of which they are markers, comprise knowledge over time—memory—and elicit ever evolving attention and elaboration—interpretation—invariably related to the authors' present. This interpretive retrogression occurs across the Piast period, from the twelfth until the fourteenth century. I use a sample of such works to trace out of knowledge over time, its interpretation, and its relationship to the authors' present. Following the authors, the salient themes include: the Piast dynasty; other actors and units of power; and aspects of culture, above all religious conversion and its aftermath.

Author

• Piotr S. Górecki, UC Riverside