Topic: Reunited Kingdom of Poland

Target group

5th‑grade students of elementary school

Core curriculum

5th‑grade students of elementary school.

VI. Poland during the district breakdown. Pupil:

1) places Poland in the period of district breakdown in time and space;

2) describes the causes and indicates the effects of neighborhood breakdown;

3) places at the time the most important events related to Polish‑Teutonic relations (...) regional disintegration;

4) describes social and economic changes, including settlement movement;

5) characterizes the process of unification of the Polish state at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, pointing to the role of the Piast rulers (with particular emphasis on the role of Władysław Łokietek) and the Church.

VII. Poland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Pupil:

1) describes the territorial development of the Polish state in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

General aim of education

Students learn about the reunification of the Kingdom of Poland

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• to characterise what factors facilitated the reunification of Poland;

• to describe achievements of Władysław I the Short;

• to characterise why monarchs of Bohemia claimed the Polish crown;

• to describe why bringing the Piast lands back together was a difficult process.

Methods/techniques

• activating

  • discussion.

• expository

  • talk.

• exposing

  • film.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• notebook and crayons/felt‑tip pens;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

1. Students remember how the feudal fragmentation occurred and what its consequences were.

Introduction

1. The teacher gives the students the subject, the purpose of the lesson and the criteria for success.

2. Then the teacher informs students that the lesson will be based largely on their activities, because most of the time they will be preparing a plan for the unification of Poland.

Realization

1. The teacher reminds students the situation that took place in the Piast lands between 1138 and 1241. He presents the economic and political situation and disputes that took place between individual principalities. He also reminds everyone who ruled individual lands. It is very important for the teacher to explain exactly the situation prevailing around the middle of the 13th century, providing external and internal threats.

2. Then the teacher divides the class into small groups (2‑4-person) and gives the students a task. The aim is to conduct a simulation, a historical game, the result of which is to unite the largest possible area of Polish lands. The teacher explains the students that they begin in 1241, when Henry II the Pious died in the battle fields of Legnica, and the idea of unification initiated by the Silesian Piasts falls. Students can choose any district / region and within a hundred years try to unite the country. It is only up to them what path they choose, who allies will be and what policy they will lead. The teacher emphasizes that the pupils' plans are as real as possible (e.g. from day to day, nobody will have 100,000 armies or possess firearms or aircraft).

3. Students present their ideas, and the teacher writes the most bold and realistic concepts (he should certainly note proposals that coincide with reality).

4. Next, the teacher explains in the form of a lecture on how the unification of Polish lands and the royal coronation of Władysław Łokietek took place. He also presents briefly the most important events of his reign. He compares the path that Władysław Łokietek defeated to achieve the goal, with the proposals of the students. Students perform Exercise 1, comparing the monarchies of Wacław II and Władysław Łokietek. The teacher makes sure that the task has been correctly completed and gives feedback.

Summary

1. Summing up the lesson, the teacher mentions that the next king was Władysław Łokietek's son, Casimir the Great. Outlines the policy (diplomacy instead of wars) of the last of the Piasts.

2. Students perform Task 1 (learn interactive graphics) and Exercise 2 (connect historical events and their dates). The teacher makes sure that the tasks have been correctly completed and gives feedback.

3. The teacher assesses the students' work during the lesson, taking into account their input and commitment. Tells students feedback on their work.

Homework

1. The teacher sets homework (it is not an obligatory part of the script). The students are to read the source text and do Exercise 1.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Reunited Kingdom of Poland

The division of the country under the so‑called testament of Bolesław III the Wry‑Mouthed subsequently led to a great fragmentation of the territory of the former monarchy. However, the conviction in the existence of one common Poland still persisted among the Piast elites through the 12th and the 13th centuries. But the idea of reunification under the Piast reign was very far from materialising. First signs of such desires are related to the 13th century cult of Saint Stanislaus, Bishop of Kraków. It was believed that Poland would one day reintegrate as miraculously had the members of Saint Stanislaus's body. Such attempts were supported by the Roman‑Catholic Church because dioceses were often split under the rule of several different dukes. Nobles were also dissatisfied with the excessive fragmentation of the country. Noble families had very wide connections and held residences and estates in various duchies. Part of burghers supported reunification for economic reasons; they found it cumbersome to deal with the existing tax system and numerous trade charges (separate customs houses and the individual right of the staple in each principality). As a result, the pursuit of undisturbed growth by Polish elites and dukes in the mid‑13th century led to the common goal: the reunification of Poland. Dukes of Silesia, Henry I the Bearded and his son Henry II the Pious, were the first to attempt to consolidate the Piast lands. They managed to take over several principalities: Silesia, Lesser Poland and a part of Greater Poland, but they never used the title of the monarch of Poland. The breakthrough came with the attempts of Henry IV Probus, Duke of Wrocław. Having taken Kraków in 1290, he started official negotiations for the Pope's permission to be crowned as king, but his death in the same year ruined those plans. They were resumed by Przemysł II, Duke of Greater Poland and Pomerania. The intervention of Jakub Świnka, Archbishop of Gniezno, with the Pope in 1295 enabled the duke's official coronation as King of Poland. It was an unprecedented and momentous event as more than 200 years had passed since the previous coronation. Unfortunately, Przemysł's resuscitated Kingdom of Poland was limited to just two provinces: Pomerania and Greater Poland and survived just a year; early in 1296, the king was murdered.

The contenders for the legacy of Przemysł II were the Piast dukes Władysław the Short and Henry III of Głogów and the King of Bohemia Wenceslaus II. Eventually, the latter succeeded and was crowned as King of Poland in 1300. But his rule faced resistance from the Piasts. They thought it unacceptable that the crown of Poland should have rested on the head of a member of a foreign dynasty. Despite the opposition, Wenceslaus II continued to hold the title until his death in 1305 and it was taken over by his son Wenceslaus III for just a year. His death put Władysław the Short, Duke of Kujawy, in a good position to seize power. In a couple of years, he brought the majority of the Piast principalities under his rule, including Lesser Poland with Kraków, where he had to tackle the rebellion of the nobles and burghers led by Mayor Albert. Once he managed to relatively deal with the domestic situation and safeguard the borders, the ruler resumed his plans to reclaim the king's crown. He leveraged the international developments to be crowned as King of Poland in 1320 in Kraków. His coronation was not recognised by the Dukes of Silesia and Mazovia or by the monarch of Bohemia, John of Luxembourg, who himself claimed rights to the title. Nonetheless, upon Władysław's death in 1333, the crown remained in the hands of the Piast dynasty, and his son Casimir, called the Great, became King of Poland. The coronation of Władysław I the Short and his son's accession to the throne ended the almost 200‑year period of feudal fragmentation of Poland.