anointed King. Otto sat on his horse that all the people might see him, and with his own hands he placed the crown on the head of Boleslaus. On the same day he gave his niece Rixa for a wife to Mieczslaw, the son of Boleslaus. He also gave the new-made king a nail of the cross of Christ, and the lance of St. Maurice of the Theban legion, in order that he might vanquish all barbarians. Boleslaus, in exchange, gave Otto an arm of St. Adalbert. As the emperor was returning to Magdeburg, Boleslaus escorted him to the frontier, and sent a company of his chief men to fetch Princess Rixa and to carry rich gifts to her parents, the count and countess palatine.
The infant bride lived in Poland with her mother-in-law, Queen Judith of Hungary, for twelve years, until, in 1013, she was given to her husband, Mieczslaw, who succeeded to the throne in 1025. He was very far below his father in energy and ability. Dlugosch says he was lazy and gluttonous and was ruled by women and that the Poles despised him, and many of the newly annexed provinces threw off the Polish rule. The clergy, however, spoke well of him, as he encouraged the spread of Christianity. The Gospel was preached in Poland in his time in three languages, Latin, Greek, and Polish. Wolski says he was ruled entirely by his German wife, and her influence was prejudicial to Poland. He went mad at fifty, and Rixa was Regent during his madness. He died in 1034. Half the people elected his son Chatimir or Casimir, who was twenty years old. The coronation was deferred because many feared that he would inherit his father’s madness. Rixa gave offence by increasing the taxes and by trying to ameliorate the condition of the lower classes, and still more by mistrusting the Poles, appointing Germans to all the principal offices, and taking Germans for her advisers. After a time of great difficulty and anxiety, the nobles deposed her and she had to fly from the country with her son, and take refuge at the Court of her kinsman, the Emperor Conrad II. (Dlugosch, History of Poland.)
The Life of Rixa, by a monk of Brauwiller, says that she was divorced from her husband through the intrigues of one of his mistresses, and at that time fled in disguise, with a very small retinue, to Saxony, to Conrad, taking with her the two crowns, her husband’s and her own. This was a very important gift, as the possession of the kingdom was always supposed to go with that of the crown. Conrad therefore invaded Poland, took Mieczslaw prisoner, and laid the whole country under tribute. When, in 1034, she fled for the second time, Conrad was still reigning and she gave him the two crowns.
Casimir studied for two years in Paris, and then became a monk at Cluny (Wolski says at Liége).
When the queen and the young king were gone, the Poles fell to fighting among themselves. The people rose against the nobles, the serfs against their lords, the laymen against the clergy; the towns and churches lay in ruins, the fields were untilled, bands of robbers infested the country, famine and brigandage were rife. Yaroslav, duke of Russia, attacked Poland, carrying away great spoil and many captives. Then the Poles knew that anarchy was the worst of all conditions. They sent to various countries in search of their proscribed king. For a long time his mother would not reveal to the messengers the place of his retreat. She thought he would be happier in a peaceful and law-abiding country than on the stormy throne of Poland. When at last the messengers found him, in 1041, he refused to leave the peaceful cloister where he had lived for five years. He had renounced the world and was not only a Cluniac monk, but also a deacon and was intending soon to be ordained a priest.
The Emperor also, who, before he be came a monk, had advised him to be content with the rich inheritance of his mother and uncles and not to tempt the uncertain fortune that awaited him in Poland, approved of his remaining in the monastery. The abbot, however, and Rixa, were both moved to compassion at the miserable state of Poland, and
