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From: Rafal Prinke <>
Subject: Richiza of Poland
Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 02:20:28 +0200


Ulf H Larsson <mg20270%MAILBOX.SWIPNET.SE> wrote:

>As I believe that Sigrid "the haughty" is an literary invention
>of Snorre Sturlason, "Swietoslawa" may be the proper name of
>the actual polish princess (Adam gives no name and is not sure if she
>was the sister or daughter of Boleslaw, the commenter points out
>Mieszko I as the father).
>
>From a recent book on Cnut "the greath"
>I recall that he had a sister with a polish name, maybe "Swietoslawa",
>(and a brother named Torstein).
>Cnut, Swietoslawa, Torstein and Estridh should then have been
>born in Swietoslawas marriage with while Olaf "skotkonung" was
>born in Swietoslawas marriage to Eric "the victorious".
>
>What are the primary sources of entries 260 & 261?

The most recent research on the early Piast dynasty was done
by Prof. Kazimierz Jasinski. I have put the data from his results
on my home page (http://hum.amu.edu.pl/~rafalp/GEN/gedcomy/).

I have not got his book at hand. But I have a facsimile edition of
the standard work by Oswald Balzer, Genealogia Piastow (Krakow, 1895)
and he discusses Sigrid on 9 folio pages of small print :-)

He used various standard sources (including the sagas) but it seems that
the basic piece of evidence comes from Thietmar's chronicle:

"De geniminis viperarum, id est filiis Suenni persecutoris [later named
explicitely: Harald et Cnut] pauca edissero. Hos peperit ei Miseconis
filia ducis, soror Bolizlavi successoris eius et nati; que a viro suimet
diu depulsa, non minimam cum ceteris perpessa est controversiam."

Balzer did not give her name as Swietoslawa. I suppose this is
a later hypothesis as that name was used by other Piast girls.

Best regards,

Rafal

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