Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Introduction: Looking across the Baltic Sea and over Linguistic Fences
- Section 1 Mental Maps
- 1 The Northern Part of the Ocean in the Eyes of Ancient Geographers
- 2 Austmarr on the Mental Map of Medieval Scandinavians
- 3 The Connection Between Geographical Space and Collective Memory in Jómsvíkinga saga
- Section 2 Mobility
- 4 Rune Carvers Traversing Austmarr?
- 5 Polish Noble Families and Noblemen of Scandinavian Origin in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: The Case of the Awdańcy Family: By Which Route did they come to Poland and why?
- 6 A Medieval Trade in Female Slaves from the North along the Volga
- Section 3 Language
- 7 Ahti on the Nydam Strap-ring: On the Possibility of Finnic Elements in Runic Inscriptions
- 8 Low German and Finnish Revisited
- Section 4 Myth and Religion Formation
- 9 Mythic Logic and Meta-discursive Practices in the Scandinavian and Baltic Regions
- 10 The Artificial Bride on Both Sides of the Gulf of Finland: The Golden Maiden in Finno-Karelian and Estonian Folk Poetry
- 11 Local Sámi Bear Ceremonialism in a Circum-Baltic Perspective
- 12 Mythologies in Transformation: Symbolic Transfer, Hybridisation, and Creolisation in the Circum-Baltic Arena (Illustrated Through the Changing Roles of *Tīwaz, *Ilma, and Óðinn, the Fishing Adventure of the Thunder God, and a Finno-Karelian Creolisation of North Germanic Religion)
- Contributors
- Indices
5 - Polish Noble Families and Noblemen of Scandinavian Origin in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: The Case of the Awdańcy Family: By Which Route did they come to Poland and why?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Introduction: Looking across the Baltic Sea and over Linguistic Fences
- Section 1 Mental Maps
- 1 The Northern Part of the Ocean in the Eyes of Ancient Geographers
- 2 Austmarr on the Mental Map of Medieval Scandinavians
- 3 The Connection Between Geographical Space and Collective Memory in Jómsvíkinga saga
- Section 2 Mobility
- 4 Rune Carvers Traversing Austmarr?
- 5 Polish Noble Families and Noblemen of Scandinavian Origin in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: The Case of the Awdańcy Family: By Which Route did they come to Poland and why?
- 6 A Medieval Trade in Female Slaves from the North along the Volga
- Section 3 Language
- 7 Ahti on the Nydam Strap-ring: On the Possibility of Finnic Elements in Runic Inscriptions
- 8 Low German and Finnish Revisited
- Section 4 Myth and Religion Formation
- 9 Mythic Logic and Meta-discursive Practices in the Scandinavian and Baltic Regions
- 10 The Artificial Bride on Both Sides of the Gulf of Finland: The Golden Maiden in Finno-Karelian and Estonian Folk Poetry
- 11 Local Sámi Bear Ceremonialism in a Circum-Baltic Perspective
- 12 Mythologies in Transformation: Symbolic Transfer, Hybridisation, and Creolisation in the Circum-Baltic Arena (Illustrated Through the Changing Roles of *Tīwaz, *Ilma, and Óðinn, the Fishing Adventure of the Thunder God, and a Finno-Karelian Creolisation of North Germanic Religion)
- Contributors
- Indices
Summary
Abstract
Polish historiography has accepted the theory of the Scandinavian origins of the Awdańcy family, one of the most powerful aristocratic families in Poland during the Middle Ages. Those facts have been well known to Polish medievalists for nearly a century, but remain largely neglected by Scandinavian scholars. This article discusses possible routes by which the Awdańcy may have reached Poland and their possible original role, before they came into a position of power. Furthermore, it shows that the Awdańcy were not a totally unique case, in relation to efforts to clarify the origin of a certain Magnus and the hypothesis regarding his possible Scandinavian roots.
Keywords: Awdancy, Poland, Noble families, Viking Period, Scandinavians
Introduction
This article begins with a short survey of known contacts between Poland (emerging at that time as a state) and Scandinavia and Scandinavians in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The focus of the discussion is, however, on the problem of the possible Scandinavian origin of the Awdańcy family, which was one of the most powerful noble families in the first part of the twelfth century in Poland. While familiar to Polish medievalists, this question remains almost unknown among Scandinavian scholars. The article presents a hypothesis of Polish scholarship about a possible route by which the Awdańcy could have come to Poland (via Rus’ in the early eleventh century) and speculation about their role before the family rose to the height of political power. It is also shown that the Awdańcy were not a totally unique case in Poland, presenting an example of a Polish comes Magnus, a nobleman bearing a very unusual name and a powerful person probably with Scandinavian or even Anglo-Saxon roots.
The contacts between early medieval Polish territories and Scandinavia have been analysed frequently in the last two decades. I do not intend to summarise in this short article all the important questions already more or less investigated. This means that:. I will not address Jómsborg following Jakub Morawiec's book (2009b; cf. Słupecki 2000: 49-60). 2. I am not going to discuss archaeological sites in Poland with some Scandinavian elements, or Scandinavian or Scandinavian-like artefacts (although there is a lot to say about new discoveries and new investigations).
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- Contacts and Networks in the Baltic Sea RegionAustmarr as a Northern Mare Nostrum, ca. 500–1500 AD, pp. 117 - 128Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019