The first in Poland to be decorated with a royal crown, he, as the victor, delimited the borders of the state on the Elba, the Dnieper and the Ossa. Died in 1025 Anno Domini, aged 58, in the 33rd year of reign. Due to the absence of the original, the portrait of Bolesław Chrobry is a work of imagination. It shows the monarch wearing a crown from a later period. The inscription on the first medal in the series, on which the coin with Bolesław Chrobry has been modelled, reads as follows: “The first in Poland to be decorated with a royal crown, he, as the victor, delimited the borders of the state on the Elba, the Dnieper and the Ossa. Died in 1025 Anno Domini, aged 58, in the 33rd year of reign, on the 3rd day of April”. This first king of Poland of the Piast dynasty, the son of Duke Mieszko I and Bohemian princess Dobrawa, born around 967 and crowned in 1025, created a powerful state, having conquered territories in the east (Red Ruthenia, temporarily Kiev) and west (Meissen, Upper Lusatia and Lower Lusatia). He elevated Poland into the European policy elite; at the Congress of Gniezno in 1000 Emperor Otto III presented him with the symbol of power, i.e. the lance of Saint Maurice, and placed his imperial crown on Bolesław‘s head as a pledge of coronation. The canonisation of Saint Adalbert in 999 enabled Bolesław to establish the organisation of the Polish church with an archbishopric in Gniezno and bishoprics in Kraków, Kołobrzeg and Wrocław. He waged wars against Bohemia and border German marches with changing fortunes. He started minting coins in his name with the name of Poland.

Marta Męclewska
former curator of the Numismatic Cabinet of the Royal Castle in Warsaw

Coins linked with an article