POMERANIA AND THE BALTIC SEA IN THE IMAGINATIVE GEOGRAPHY OF THE POLISH MIDDLE AGES FROM THE END OF THE 10th CENTURY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE 13th CENTURY

The paper deals with the problem of the place of Pomerania in imaginative geography of the inhabitants of the Polish lands since the rule of Mieszko I until beginning of the 13th century. The choice of the final date is justified by the political changes taking place at that time in Poland and in Pomerania itself, as well as the changes in imaginative geography, i.e. in the system of images of particular territories functioning in a community, in the case in question among the inhabitants of the Polish lands. The possibilities of reconstructing the images of Pomerania and the Baltic are limited because of the scarcity of sources, especially with reference to the earliest period. The article contains an analysis of the circumstances of creating and introducing into the written sources the names ‘Pomerania’ and ‘Pomeranians’. The picture of Pomerania in Gallus Anonymus’ chronicle has been extensively discussed, which results from the special position of that region in the spatial concept in that text. The paper indicates the main ways of the conceptualisation of the Pomeranian territory and its inhabitants by Gallus in the context of the contemporary system of learned geographical images, crusade ideology and political


Summary
The paper deals with the problem of the place of Pomerania in imaginative geography of the inhabitants of the Polish lands since the rule of Mieszko I until beginning of the 13 th century. The choice of the final date is justified by the political changes taking place at that time in Poland and in Pomerania itself, as well as the changes in imaginative geography, i.e. in the system of images of particular territories functioning in a community, in the case in question among the inhabitants of the Polish lands. The possibilities of reconstructing the images of Pomerania and the Baltic are limited because of the scarcity of sources, especially with reference to the earliest period. The article contains an analysis of the circumstances of creating and introducing into the written sources the names 'Pomerania' and 'Pomeranians'. The picture of Pomerania in Gallus Anonymus' chronicle has been extensively discussed, which results from the special position of that region in the spatial concept in that text. The paper indicates the main ways of the conceptualisation of the Pomeranian territory and its inhabitants by Gallus in the context of the contemporary system of learned geographical images, crusade ideology and political conditions of the textmaking and presenting the events. There is also a characterisation of the later mentions about Pomerania as a geographical space in the Polish sources of the beginning of the 13 th century, among which the predominant place occupies Master Wincenty Kadłubek's chronicle. The article shows how Master Wincenty Kadłubek presents Pomerania in various parts of his chronicle, especially in his narrative about the beginnings of the Polish state and nation, with possible causes and sources of the description. Finally, the article signals the changes which indicate that the period from the 13 th to the 15 th centuries should be regarded as a separate stage in the history of the Polish imagery of the Baltic and Pomerania.
The questions concerning the image of Pomerania in the Polish medieval sources have long been attracting the attention of researchers. Yet, historiography has rather concentrated on events, i.e. on how political, religious, social and other processes, which took place in Pomerania and in the Baltic Sea Basin, were perceived and presented in Poland; another question that has been explored is the position of these territories in Polish political theory and practice. Much less attention was paid to constructing images of Pomerania and the Baltic Sea as a space and their place in a wider picture of the physical world. Observations and insights concerning this subject are quite often valuable, but they are scattered, on the margins of publications devoted to other questions, and they do not present a comprehensive picture. This article is supposed to fill in this gap.
At the beginning I should explain the key terms that I use in the article. Imaginative geography is a set of geographic images which function in a community and are regarded as real, at least by the majority of the members of the community in question, and which are confirmed by the authorities accepted in the community. Spatial images of particular people are their maps or mental geographies; whereas the way of presenting space in a text of culture (a written source, a map) is called a spatial concept of that text. The spatial concept in a source text corresponds mainly to the mental geography of the author, but those two concepts cannot be used interchangeably. The author might have included in his text elements he did not identify with, e.g. under outside pressure. In most cases researchers cannot verify that. They have access only to the concept of space of source texts, whereas all the rest -mental and imaginative geographies -can only be (re)constructed.
The beginnings of the presence of Pomerania and the Baltic Sea in Polish imaginative geography are poorly documented. But undoubtedly that area played a much more significant role in the images of the world cherished by the Polish elite of the time of Mieszko I and Bolesław the Brave (Chrobry), than it appears from the Polish available written sources. It is proved by -documented in the Saxon sources -Mieszko's activity at the estuary of the Oder and, according to the Scandinavian sources, by his contacts with Eric the Victorious, the king of Sweden, sealed by the marriage between Eric and Mieszko's daughter, probably at the beginning of the 980s 1 . There is a commonly accepted assumption in the historiography, that it was just the period when in the milieu of the Polish ruler, in relation with his Northwest expansion, there appeared an idea of conceptualizing of the area situated south of the Baltic between the Vistula and the Oder as one region called Pomerania, and not as a group of small tribal territories or an empty space without a name 2 . It is, however, only a conjecture, and available sources don't allow us to explain the details of the whole process in a clear-cut way. For example, it is not known which was the first to appear: the endonym or the name of the region. Neither is it clear whether -as most researchers assume -the name 'Pomerania' originally had a character of exonym 3 , or since the very beginning it had been used the Pomeranians themselves. Another unclear question is whether the name originally included the whole area or only some part of it. The area denominated as Pomerania might have been expanding in the course of time, as new territories were subdue to the control of the Piast dynasty. On the other hand, 1 Cf.: L. Leciejewicz, "U źródeł konfliktu Pomorzan z państwem Piastów w X-XI wieku", Archeologia Historica Polona 8 (2000) the Piast expansion might have enhanced the common collective identity of the people who lived in the region which was later to become Pomerania; those people might have cooperated in their common fight against the invaders, and this struggle contributed to crystallizing and consolidating the name 'Pomeranians' as an endonym 4 .
Contrary to the circumstances of coming into being the names 'Pomerania' and 'Pomeranians' south of the Baltic, their etymology is clear and well attested since the Middle Ages. As common nouns they denote an area situated close to the sea shore (old-Polish: 'po-morzu'), and the inhabitants of such an area. In literature concerning that question the words of Herbord of Michelsberg from the mid-12 th century are quite oftenquoted, 'Pomerania […] id est iuxta vel circa mare sita' 5 . It should be also noted that such names as 'Pomerania' are commonly used in all the areas where the Slavs had lived, which were situated near a sea. In addition to Pomerania south of the Baltic, other regions bearing the same name may be easily indicated: Pomorie in Northern Russia on the White Sea, Primorie in the Far East of Russia on the Pacific, the town and district of Primorie in Bulgaria on the Black Sea, Primorje/Pomorje, a historical part of Serbia, and a few seaside districts in Croatia, e.g. Dubrovačko Primorje.
In written records, the names 'Pomerania' and 'Pomeranians' appeared relatively late. They are not to be found in Thietmar of Merseburg, who otherwise was well aware of what the situation in the eastern borderlands of the Ottonian Empire at the end of the 10 th was like. In spite of that, there have been historiographical attempts to find some traces of perceiving Pomerania as a separate region in the milieu of Mieszko. With referrence to earlier concepts of Z. Wojciechowski and M.Z. Jedlicki, E. Rymar pointed to Thietmar's words on the tribute Mieszko must have paid to the emperor for the region of usque ad Vurta fluvium. According to him, the tribute region up to the River Vistula included the territories north of the right bank of the river, i.e. Pomerania, or at least West Pomerania 6 . Still, it is impossible to prove that the emperor had been vested with any authority over the region; of course, if we disregard the weird concepts of Charlemagne's conquests that reached the banks of the Vistula and the recognition by the rulers from the Ottonian dynasty (as well as the Roman kings or emperors and Brandenburg margraves that succeeded them) of the continuity of their rights that dated back to the Carolingian time 7 .
Historians looked for the traces of the region in question in the imaginative world of the Piast elite in the regestum 'Dagome iudex', where the phrase longum mare could be understood as a literal translation of the Slavic name 'Pomerania' ('Pomorze') 8 . Additionally, there were attempts to identify a place mentioned in the text, Schinesghe, with Szczecin 9 . The logic of the description of the boundaries of civitas Schinesghe indicated such a possibility, it did not however make sense why all Mieszko's state should have been named after the marginal Szczecin. In the regestum the name Schinesghe might have meant Gniezno (as the name of region or as its center) in some places and Szczecin in other ones (as a point where the description of the borders ends); the current state of research does not allow us to extend beyond conjectures. What should be noted is the fact that the events taking place in Pomerania during the reigns of the early Piast rulers and their expansion in that region at the turn of the 10 th and 11 th centuries have been almost completely repressed from historical memory of the Polish elites of the so called second Piast state and the subsequent ones, as perceivable in the written sources.
The name 'Pomerania' did not appear in written sources before the mid-11 th century. In 1046 the author of the 'Annales Altahenses' ('Annals of Niederalteich') informed that among participants of a meeting at the court of Henry III 7 Cf. G. Labuda, "O zakresie rzekomych uprawnień Królestwa Niemieckiego i Marchii Brandenburskiej nad całym Pomorzem we wczesnym średniowieczu", Roczniki Historyczne 73 (2007): 17-34 (résumé of an earlier polemic with E. Rymar's theses). By the way, although basically Labuda's critique of Rymar's theses is fully justified, the former had also committed a few interpretational abuses, e.g. writing, '…at the beginning of the 11 th century the name of 'Pomorze' was used in Germany, because (…) since 1000 Bishop Reinbern resided in Kołobrzeg, who was well known by Thietmar' (ibidem: 25). The second part of that sentence does not justified the first one because -as I have already mentioned -Thietmar had not used the name 'Pomerania' even once. were Czech Prince Bretislav and Polish Prince Kazimierz, as well as certain "Zemuzil (Siemomysł?), Prince of Pomeranians" (Zemuzil dux Bomeraniorum) 10 .
Some 30 years later Pomeranians' land for the first time became part of the medieval learned picture of the world thanks to Adam of Bremen, who mentioned it in the Chronicle of the Archbishopric of Hamburg as the 'first' of Slavic peoples living behind the Oder (as seen from Hamburg) 11 . Adam's text later played an important role in the process of constructing of the image of Pomerania and Pomeranians in West Europe, as well as in creating the identity of the intellectual elites of the late medieval Duchy of Pomerania., According to the available sources however, it was not known in the medieval Poland, and -consequently -it did not influence here the imaginative geography. As a matter of fact, the Polish did not need it, as at that time the main source of their knowledge on Pomerania was the direct contact with that region during the subsequent military expeditions of Bolesław (Boleslaus) Szczodry (the Generous), Władysław Herman and Bolesław (Boleslaus) Krzywousty (Wrymouth) 12 .
Under the rule of Bolesław Krzywousty, in the second decade of the 12 th century, the Chronicle of the so-called Gallus Anonym(o)us' (Gesta principium Polonorum) was created. It is the oldest source containing the geonym 'Pomerania'. The land of Pomeranians, called Pomorania, was mentioned at the beginning of the chronicle as a part of Sclauonia, the Slavdom. Together with Prussia and Selentia, Pomerania made a triad of barbarous pagan peoples of the north, settled between Poland and the sea 13 . What is interesting here is the phenomenon -quite frequent in the early medieval geographical descriptions -of blurring the line between ethno-and geonymy. In that case the naciones were described with the names of the territories, although there were opposite cases when regions were called with the names of their inhabitants. It seems that mentioning of three regions/peoples by Gallus should be -at least partly -considered in the context of 10  the medieval number symbolism 14 . Three peoples meant in a symbolic way all the pagan peoples living north of the Piasts' state, which were a potential and actual target of the expansion and Christianisation by the Piasts. Such a context results from the other place the triad in question was mentioned in the chronicle. In the descriptions of Bolesław Chrobry's expeditions Selentia, Pomorania and Prussia, appear again as the countries defeated or totally Christianised 15 . Of course, in that case not the real events were recorded. Gallus wanted here to create a picture of Bolesław Chrobry as an ideal ruler, who expands his territories in all directions and introduces there the true faith that the chronicler draw upon -kept in the collective memory -the deformed echoes of the temporary control over Pomerania or over its part, which resulted in creating -during the Congress of Gniezno -the bishopric in Salina Kołobrzeska (Salsa Cholbergensis) 16 . The picture of the territories north of Poland in the spatial concept in Gallus' text was in principle based on the paradigmatic knowledge of the chronicler, but at the same time it was subordinated to persuasive goals. Describing the Slavdom, he referred to the concept functioning in the ancient and medieval geography of the division of the globe into five latitudinal zones: the equatorial torrid zone (zona torrida), the polar frigid zones (zonae frigidae) and temperate zones between the two first, and only the moderate zones were thought to be suitable for people to live 17 . Only monsters or similar beings might live in the frigid zones. According to Gallus just at such an edge of oecumene (οἰκουμένη, inhabited zone) Pomerania was to be situated. Farther on there was only mare septemtrionale […] vel amphitrionale, with some islands inhabited by wild pagans and some other islands, uninhabited, covered with eternal snow and eternal ice 18 . It seems that the chronicler who came from southern Europe visualised the region in question just in that way, drawing upon his earlier readings, but at the same time emphasising the place of Pomerania at the edge of the human world he showed off the ominous and monstrous character of its inhabitants against whom the hero of his chronicle had to defend himself. The picture of Pomeranians as an aggressive, constantly threatening Poland, 'nation of barbarians' (nacio barbarorum 19 ), emerge several times in his chronicle.
The sea shore is a border of the available world, and bringing that border under control is synonymous with the end of the symbolic conquest of the whole 'North'; such a vision appeared in Gallus' narration in the descriptions of Krzywousty's expeditions to Kołobrzeg. The chronicler did not express it explicitly but he referred to pre-knowledge and the system of images of the receiver, giving it a poetic form of a famous song, in which landlocked horizons of the ancestors were contrasted with the new perspectives that were opening due to the proximity of the sea 20 . But the attention is attracted by an overtone of the song that is different from the one of the previous words of prohemium. In that case the overtone was negative there and the territories situated outside Pomerania were shown as unwelcoming, hostile and worthless; whereas here the north seems to be a friendly area inviting to a further expansion. It is not known whether that inconsistence is accidental or it reflects actual changes in imaginative geography of the chronicler's milieu or in his personal mental geography, which took place while the chronicle was being written. In the context of this appreciating of the north, especially symptomatic are the words about sea monsters and treasures (monstra maris et opes equoreas), which explicitly allude to the fascination for the exotic of the time, especially the tales of Alexander the Great and the marvels of the East 21 . In this way the north changed in the imagined equivalent of the Orient and the 'northern prince' Bolesław became equal to the rulers of the East or the crusaders capturing Jerusalem. That kind of thinking was not typical only for Gallus, to mention is an earlier (1107/1108) crusade manifesto of Magdeburg, in which Polabia was -although in a bit different context -referred to as Hierusalem nostra 22 . Unfortunately, we cannot assess the extent to which it was shared by Polish clergy and knighthood.
Pomerania in the spatial concept in Gallus' chronicle was one territorial unit, clearly separated from Poland, referred to as terra, patria, or even regnum. Within that regnum the chronicler (or his informant) recognized, however some internal diversity. He seems to distinguish a part of Pomerania situated directly at the seaside (circa maritima) from the one situated farther from the sea shore (infra terram) 23 . It might have been a reflection of the political division of the region into two powers, concentrated in the main centres, Kołobrzeg and Białogard, in the chronicle referred to as 'towns' (urbs or civitas), contrasted to the remaining 'castles/strongholds' (castrum or castellum) 24  Alba / Białogard which was to be situated in medio terre 28 , seems to allude to the system of images related to being in power, where the control over the symbolic centre was synonymous with the rule over the whole territory 29 . Especially noteworthy isthe wording quasi centrum terre medium reputatur 30 , which the chronicler used in relation to Białogard. He did not claim that Alba was the centre of the region but that it was considered to be the centre of the region. It is a very rare case in the sources of that time when the writer so openly underlines the creative or imaginative character of the described reality.
The borders of Pomerania were not clearly defined by Gallus. The northern border was the sea. One can find a trace of perceiving the Vistula as the eastern border in the words about castellum Wysegrad on the Vistula, situated in confinium Pomoranie 31 . The western border was not mentioned explicitly, and establishing where it was is even more difficult because it is related with identifying Selentia referred to as one of the northern neighbours of Poland. In that territorial context the name appears exclusively in Gallus. Because the third of the pagan peoples of the north in Gallus' chronicle were the Old Prussians, eastern neighbours of Pomerania, it points to one logical conclusion that Selentia should be situated west of Pomerania. It may be only said that it was 'a kind of west Slavic territory' 32 , but its precise identity must remain a riddle 33 . Gallus presented the southern borderland between Poland and Pomerania, according to the actual state, as a typical zonal border of the time, i.e. a woody and swampy area, situated between the farthest castles controlled by both sides. Gallus described an attempt 28  made by the Pomeranians to narrow that border zone down by building a new, stategically placed stronghold in the direct vicinity of the Polish castle of Santok, 34 . The imaginative Pomerania of Gallus was first of all an area of action for the protagonist of the chronicle and his father. That way of describing a space was typical of the writing of that time. The topography of the area in question was not valuable in itself for the writer, and its elements appeared only in a direct relation to the described events. The way of the presentation of the landscape of Pomerania was presented in the way completely subordinated to the purposes of the narration, i.e. to underline the military talents of Bolesław through showing the difficulties he had to overcome in his struggle against the Pomeranian 'barbarians'. Among the components of the natural landscape of Pomerania, the chronicler mentioned only forests, marshes, rivers and other hydrographic objects, which the Polish warriors had to force their way through. In several places the chronicler recalled the open spaces or fields (campus), where battles had been fought 35 . On the other hand, the main element of the cultural landscape were towns/strongholds. Also their place in the narration and the way they were presented were justified exclusively by their narrative context, i.e. the role played during Krzywousty's expeditions. The strongholds were always described as powerful and difficult to conquer, but the invincible Bolesław managed to conquer them, which emphasised his invincibility. The author quotes the following strongholds Białogard 36 , Kołobrzeg 37 , Czarnków 38 , Wieluń 39 Nakło 40 , Bytów/ Bytyń 41 , probably Międzyrzecz 42 , stronghold the frontier Wyszegrad (castellum Wysegrad). In other cases the castles remained nameless, and the chronicler limited himself to the descriptive expressions of the type of quoddam nobile satis ac forte castrum 43 . It seems that not in all the cases it resulted from his ignorance, because the names of the castles were omitted in the descriptions both of the past 34 Ibidem,II,15,79. and of the contemporary events, e.g. an anonymous castrum aliud, the siege of which was extensively presented in the last chapter of the chronicle 44 .
In Gallus' approach not only Pomerania constituted one region. Also the Pomeranians were presented by him as an uniform group. Introducing elements of the internal division of Pomerania into the spatial concept of the Chronicle's text did not result in the diversity of its inhabitants, who always appeared in the narration as one people of Pomeranians, unanimously taking arms against Poland 45 . They were unambiguously opposed to the Poles 46 , and to other ethnic groups such as e.g.the Masovians (Mazouienses). It may be disregarded whether this approach reflected the actual relations in the area in question or not, but what should be noted is the analogy with the way of conceptualising the middle-European population relations in 'the Russian Primary Chronicle', which was created in Rus at that time; its author listed the Polans, the Luticis, the Pomeranians and the Masovians as groups the "Lachy" had been divided into 47 . Although Gallus described the Pomeranians as barbarous pagans, they were not a horde of savages living sine rege et lege, like their neighbours, the Old Prussians 48 . They demonstrated features of a civilised people: they had their duke (dux), they lived in towns, they were able to attain considerable wealth. All that reflected the actual relations in Pomerania, and -at the same time -it referred to the crusade writing, where the same coincidence of aggressive hostility against the infidels was joined with a respect for the level of their civilisation and wealth 49 . It is one more proof that the picture of Pomerania and the Pomeranians in Gallus' chronicle can be depicted in the context of his interest in crusades and may be treated as one of the elements of 'the proto-crusade ideology' 50 .
Gallus' chronicle is being here analysed because Pomerania occupies a special place in its spatial space. It resulted from the context in which the chronicle was created: probably in the milieu of Bolesław Krzywousty, and certainly in the time when Pomerania was especially interesting as a target of expansion. There are no similar sources concerning the period directly after the one covered by the chronicle, which does not mean that the position of Pomerania was weakened in imaginative geography of the Polish elites. Its area still attracted great interest, which sometimes ended with military actions. Successive attacks of the Pomeranians were repulsed. Bolesław continued his military activities in Pomerania, which finally led to subordinating almost the whole area between the Vistula and the Oder, but not to its direct incorporation 51 . The military action was followed by Christianisation, carried out mainly by Otto of Bamberg, and its logical continuation were the efforts to establish a church organisation in Pomerania 52 .
Regrettably, all those events were hardly reflected in the available Polish sources. All the Pomeranian activity of Otto of Bamberg and the role of the Polish prince and his milieu in it were known from Otto's vitae created in the German lands. The Polish medieval sources passed it over in silence. Polish annals contain only laconic mentions of some fights in Pomerania, and inform of conquered castles and defeated princes, partly nameless 53 . They confirm the fact that in Poland there was an interest in Pomerania, but they do not permit to draw any conclusions about the spatial images associated with this interest in. From the point of view of imaginative geography, the most interesting mention is the one kept in several annals from Lesser Poland (Polonia Minor)  was a crusade to the Holy Land should be rejected as unlikely 55 ; instead, most researchers are of the opinion that the purpose was Rugia, Wolin or Szczecin 56 . In the second and third case 'sea' might be interpreted as the Szczecin Lagoon (Stettiner Haff ). Then the word used here might be interpreted as a sign of the 'land' perspective of images of the authors from Lesser Poland, for whom a relatively tiny, closed water body was 'a sea'. On the other hand, it might be a sign of the paradigmatic knowledge of the author(s) of the annals, who treated -in principle rightly -the Szczecin Lagoon as one of the Ocean's gulfs. It should be also remembered that in the Latin of the time the word mare was ambiguous and meant different water bodies, not only seas sensu stricto. The Szczecin Lagoon was referred to as mare by -for example -the hagiographers of St Otto 57 . The mention from the annals was later used by the author of 'Greater Poland Chronicle', who compiling it from the chronicle written by Wincenty Kadłubek, added a description of the abduction of the Ruthenian prince Wołodar by Piotr Włostowic, and constructed a tale about Piotrek of Dacia (Denmark) and the conquest of Denmark by Bolesław Krzywousty 58 . The chronicle written at the beginning of the 13 th century by the Cracow Bishop Wincenty Kadłubek, was created in a different geopolitical context than Gallus' text. Kadłubek represented the elites of Lesser Poland, for whom the areas at the Baltic seaside were not as important as they were for the milieu for whom Gallus worked. Now the centre of gravity of the political interest moved to south-east, and accordingly to that movement the spatial concept in the text of Kadłubek's chronicle was shaped. In his description of the Central Europe, the chronicler used his own system of double names (in some cases even triple names) of peoples and countries (for example, the Polish: Poloni-Lechitae-Wandali; the Germans: Lemanni-Teute; the Czechs: Bohemi-Pragite, the Hungarians: Ungari-Pannoni-Hunni) 59 . Pomerania and the Pomeranians had also double names.
In addition to the 'main' names -Pomorania and Pomorani -there appeared 'learned' names: Maritima and Maritimi, which were literal translations of the Polish geo-and ethnonyms into Latin 60 . This situation proves that the chronicler, who was an erudite person, was not able to find any ancient name to denominate Pomerania. The main purpose of his system was to stabilise the position of Poland in the world of ancient Greek and Roman civilisation, and to create an impression that the land is situated in partibus orientis, like some years later put it his namesake, Wincenty of Kielcza 61 . Therefore, it could be regarded as a way to oppose the spatial concept in Gallus' chronicle, in which Poland had been presented as 'a northern country' situated at the edge of the oecumene, which might have been perceived by Wincenty Kadłubek as deprecating in the light of the symbolism of the time.
The spatial concept in Kadłubek's chronicle represents a purely landlocked perspective and is oriented unambiguously eastwards, both towards the real world of the eastern neighbours of Lesser Poland, where the chronicle was created, and the East of imaginative geography, which combined elements of the ancient Mediterranean world, the contemporary crusade realities and the whole complex of associations related with the Orient. At the first sight it might seem that there was not enough room for Pomerania and the Baltic Sea in that concept. Yet, the Cracow bishop included the northern -Pomeranian and oversea -episode in the oldest history of the pre-Poles. At the beginning of his historical narrative he informed that they conquered not only the cismaritimas undique naciones, but also the danomarchicae insulae, after having defeated its inhabitants in sea battles, and finally imprisoned Canute, their king 62 . The territory of the first of the mentioned nations was sometimes identified in historiography with Pomerania 63 . Yet, taking into account the system of double names coined by Kadłubek, and especially the name Maritima as an additional, 'learned' name of Pomerania, the expression cismaritimas naciones should be understood not as 'the nations living on that side of the sea', but rather as 'the nations bordering Pomerania from our side', so in that case the expression might have referred to the area of what was to be later called Greater Poland (Polonia Maior), situated between Pomerania and Lesser Poland, which was for Kadłubek the eternal centre of the whole of Lechia. It must have been a reflection of animosities between Lesser Poland and Greater Poland, which competed for the primacy among the Polish principalities.
From a formal point of view, the mention of the conquest of 'the Danish islands' was most probably a reference to Plato's 'Timaeus' 64 . For Plato, the victory over the insular empire of Atlantis was the main proof of the power of the pre-Athenians. The Polish chronicler used similiar narrative pattern to show the power of the pre-Poles. Moreover, it seems that the episode was included in the tale about the beginnings of Poland as an element of a wider concept, the purpose of which was to emphasise the importance of the country as a kind of centre of the world. The chronicler indicated that the pre-Poles had defeated the powerful enemies from all over the world in the 'primeval age' of Poland, when it was 'in statu nascendi'. The same narrative strategy was used 150 years later by the author of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. Its anonymous creator highlighted the position of Jerusalem as umblicus mundi by enumerating the four roads from Western Europe leading to the Holy City, entering it from east, west, south and north 65 . In addition to that, for representatives of such cultures as the one of the medieval Europe, the events taking place in the mythical time of the beginning possessed a constitutive dimension shaping all the reality. Showing the victories of the pre-Poles over their enemies from the four sides of the world at the beginning of their history, Wincenty wanted to prove that Poland had always been, was and would be invincible.
In that pattern the Danes (Dacis) 66 represented the north, and placing them at the very beginning of the chronicle as the first serious enemies of the Poles might have been a conscious reference to the contemporary symbolism of world's directions, where the north was the most negative direction. The pre-Poles started their history with defeating Canute, who personified the worst evil, and subsequently crushed all their other enemies, who personified threats from the remaining sides: the western 'German tyrant' (Lemannorum tyrannus), the ruler of the East Alexander the Great, and Julius Ceasar ruling in Rome, south of Poland. An additional argument for such an interpretation might be the fragment where the 'Daci' appeared for the second time in Kadłubek's chronicle, in the description of the fights between Kazimierz Odnowiciel (Casimir the Restorer) and Masław, supported by quatuor Maritimorum acies, totidem Gethicas, nec non Dacorum ac Ruthenorum […] suffragia 67 . The support of the Masovian ruler on the part of the Pomeranians is not questioned by historians, whereas the mention of other peoples seems unintelligible, especially in the case of Ruthenians who were allies of the Polish prince. As I have already proved in another place, the chronicler might have meant to show the fight of Kazimierz with the enemies of the unity of Poland a struggle against the forces of the evil, symbolised by the coalition of the peoples of the ominous north, who came from Magog according to Saint Isidore of Seville 68 . It also might be a loose reference to Gallus' triad of the pagan northern neighbours of Poland.
Previous researchers had supposed that the 'Danish episode' in Wincenty's chronicle was a trace of his contacts with some Dane during his studies in Western Europe and -possibly -a trace kept in the Cracow tradition of some battles fought between Poland and Denmark in Pomerania, or a sea expedition of one of the earlier rulers of Poland, for example the already mentioned expedition of Bolesław Krzywousty 69 . Such explanations should be rather regarded as a supplement, and not as an alternative for the above proposed interpretation. Neither is it possible to discard a contemporary political context of the mention in question. In the second half of the 12 th century the Danesh showed interest in Pomerania and Pomerelia. It would have been a peculiar appeal to the Polish High Duke to recover control over the territory, the independence of which his ancestors going to great pains had been fighting for, and which now had weaker and weaker links with Poland. At the same time, the 'Danish episode' in the history of the pre-Poles permitted to legitimise the earlier expansion (and possible the present one). As can be seen, although the dominance of the eastern direction in the spatial concept and in the 'political thought' in Wincenty's chronicle was unquestioned, Pomerania still occupied an important position in both the aspects 70 . Anyway, it should be noted that the connections between the enemies of pre-Poland with particular directions of the world was not expressed by the chronicler explicitly, but it was alluded by referring to the pre-knowledge of the receivers of the chronicle. The whole concept belonged to those elements of the sophisticated Wincentine vision, which weren't understood by later readers and continuators of his work, or at least were not directly reflected in the later chronicles, along with the double or triple geo-and ethnonymy or the idea to interweave the historiographic narrative with extensive moralising fragments. The wars against Alexander and Ceasar and the failure of the candidate who asked Wanda's hand in marriage became an integral part of the Polish historical memory, whereas the defeat of King Canute is not reflected in it at all. Obviously, the 'Danish islands' occupied too little space in the eastwards oriented imaginative geography of the Polish elites of the late Middle Ages, and their historical awareness might have been too big so as not to see the anachronism of the whole situation. Even in the Chronicle of Greater Poland, where the motif of the affiliation of the Baltic region to the imaginative empire of the ancient Lechites appeared in a very extensive form, it was constructed in a way completely different and independent from the one which is to be found in Kadłubek's chronicle 71 .
The majority of Wincenty's later remarks about Pomerania and the Pomeranians were more or less literally quotes taken from Gallus. They concern the Pomeranian fights of Władysław Herman and Bolesław Krzywousty 72 . The im- 70  The whole narrative of Gallus about Pomerania was reduced, and the crusade elements were weakened. All the Wincentine references to the crusade tradition were made in a different, eastern and north-eastern (Prussian) context 76 . At the same time the Pomeranians were presented in a more negative way, with all the available epithets, which served to describe barbarians and pagans, e.g. the Slavs in the Frankish/Saxon/German writing 77 . For most part of the narrative the chronicler used the forms of Pomerania and Maritima interchangeably, with the tendency to use the second form to accentuate the events of greatest importance to him, related mainly with the Polish expansion 78 . There are visible traces that Kadłubek differentiated the meanings of the Pomerania's both names in the information about the matrimonial policy of Mieszko Stary in the context of the contemporary political changes. Among the relatives of the Prince two persons were mentioned: Dux Boguslaus Maritime gener eius, and nameless Dux Pomoranie socer alterius 79 . Bogusław I, the West Po-meranian Duke was described in the same way in another place in the chronicle 80 . It is possible that Kadłubek distinguished in that way a bigger and more important Pomeranian Duchy and one of the smaller powers in Pomerania, which cannot be identified better. Neither is it possible to decide whether it was a stylistic device, a result of an evolution of the author's views, or an attempt to grasp the political changes in the described area, while in the chronicler's milieu the names of the existing political structures had not been consolidated yet. In addition, Wincenty distinguished Gdańsk Pomerania or Pomeralia, described as Gdanensi[s] marchia 81 . But on that basis it is not possible to claim that in his mental geography the area in question was not part of the imaginative Pomerania, because the use of the expression 'Gdańsk March' must have served to underline a closer dependence of that territory on the power of the Piast Princes, and the word 'march' should not be rather understood literally, as an administrative borderland unit of a special type, analogous to the Carolingian or Ottonian Marches 82 .
The times of Master Wincenty mark the end of a certain period not only in the history of Poland, the definitive end of the so called second Piast state and a transition to the period of the complete fragmentation, but also in the history of Pomerania, where its western part gradually broke links with Poland and where the division between its eastern and western parts, ruled by separate dynasties, was strengthened. The fact that the chronicler clearly discerned Gdańsk Pomerania, from the whole Baltic region, constitutes an announcement of the changes in the way of conceptualisation of that region, which took place in the 13 th -15 th centuries. The centre of gravity in the Polish imaginative geography clearly moved to the areas on the lower Vistula, treated as a part of the Polish Kingdom, whereas the areas situated west of it lost their importance. They were conceptualised as a separate country, which, however, created simultaneously a wider community with Poland based on the common ancestors and the historical dependence on the Polish/Lechite ancient rulers. The internal divisions in the area south of the Baltic were noticed and recognised in the late medieval Poland; and they were considered to be eternal, which was rather typical for the geographical and historical imagery of the time.