Name Suffix:<NSFX> " King Of Poland
Boleslaw I, byname BOLESLAW THE BRAVE, Polish BOLESLAW CHROBRY (b. 966/967--d. June 17, 1025), duke (from 992) and then (from 1024) first king of Poland, who expanded his country's territory to include Pomerania, Lusatia, and, for a time, the Bohemian princely lands and made Poland a major European state. He also created a Polish church independent of German control.
Son of Mieszko I, the first of the Piast dukes, and the Bohemian princess Dobrawa (Dubravka), Boleslaw I inherited the principality of Great Poland (Wielkopolska, between the Oder and the Warta rivers) upon his father's death (992). He conquered Pomerania (on the Baltic Sea) in 996 and seized Kraków (formerly a Bohemian possession) soon afterward. He ransomed the relics of the martyred St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague, from the pagan Prussians and buried the relics at Gniezno. The Holy Roman emperor Otto III, who had been Adalbert's student and Boleslaw's ally since 992, attended the ceremony (March 1000) and marked the occasion by personally crowning Boleslaw king of Poland. With Pope Sylvester II's approval, the emperor granted Poland its own archdiocese, with Gniezno as its seat. Boleslaw then reorganized Poland's church structure, making it a national church directly under papal jurisdiction and independent of German ecclesiastical control.
After Emperor Otto III's death (1002), Boleslaw seized the imperial lands of Lusatia and Misnia (Meissen) and the principality of Bohemia. These actions started a series of three wars between him and the German king Henry II; it lasted until 1018, when, by the Treaty of Bautzen, Boleslaw retained Lusatia and Misnia and Henry II won Bohemia. Boleslaw's expansionist policy continued. When he defeated Grand Prince Yaroslav I the Wise of Kiev in battle (July 21, 1018) and placed his own son-in-law (and Yaroslav's brother), Svyatopolk, on the Kievan throne, his control extended from the western tributaries of the middle Elbe to the eastern reach of the Western Bug River. Though recognized as king by Otto III in 1000, Boleslaw sought to strengthen his position and his independence from imperial control by being crowned again by the archbishop of Gniezno (Dec. 25, 1024). [Encyclopaedia Britannica CD '97, BOLESLAW I