The emergence in the mid-tenth century of the east central European polity that would eventually become known as Piast Poland did not take place in a vacuum, but traditional scholarship sometimes treated it as an isolated phenomenon. More recent work has moved, however, to an appreciation and understanding of the various relations Piast rule had with its neighbors. This volume, based in a 2012 conference at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, extends this comparative framework to treat, as its title indicates, the international commercial, dynastic, and clerical networks within which Piast power developed and contributed to its rise.

After a brief introduction by the editors, the first part of this book takes up commercial and especially monetary matters. Christoph Kilger examines Arabian coinage finds within the territory of the Piast state. He shows, among other things, that access to silver coinage was an important factor in the emergence of early urban centers in the region and that this helped form structures and outlooks that influenced the economic and political processes of later elites. In his contribution, Marek Jankowiak seeks to determine who was responsible for the import of silver drachmas into what became the Polish lands. He connects this with the trade in slaves from the Baltic region. Furthermore, he suggests that this route to the Volga Bulgars and other Islamic centers was not merely one that went through the eventual Piast lands, but that there was an active involvement of Piast elites, helping to strengthen their eventual territorial control. Peter Ilisch's focus is upon an analysis of finds of coins from the German lands in Pomerania, Mazovia, and Great Poland dating to ca. 980–1050. His central point is to show the transition from mints within the empire to the development of early mints in the Piast lands. His contribution nicely compliments that by Dariusz Adamczyk, which begins by looking at the network of Saxon coinage in the later eleventh century as it related to the socio-economic foundations of the Gniezno-based rulers of this period. He then turns to look at early Piast mints, before concluding with a treatment of why, by the end of this period, Saxon influences had largely been replaced by an endogenous monetary economy. The articles in this section effectively provide an understanding of the rise of a Piast economy within a larger international framework.

The approach of each of the five contributions dedicated to dynastic networks goes beyond straightforward genealogical approaches to marriages with neighboring families that characterized much earlier scholarship. These articles analyze the more complex issues of the social construction of relationships as elements of elite policy and the embryonic emergence of noble families in the Piast lands. In his examination of marital relations of the Piasts with the German lands, Norbert Kersken shows the range of dynastic ties and argues that these were intended not only to improve or stabilize relations between the contracting partners but also to have impact in other arenas in which the partners were engaged. He also suggests that dynastic relations were only part of larger, much more complicated, sets of relationships that need to be contextualized from both the German and the Piast sides. Joanna Sobiesiak treats dynastic marriages with Bohemia, emphasizing the larger political issues that underlay relations with the Přemyslids, with special attention to the role of wives who influenced their spouses. She also notes that these marital ties were played out against a background of much broader Piast cultural interests. Jakub Morawiec traces contacts with Scandinavian dynasties, pointing out that dynastic concerns were often related to territorial issues, especially with respect to Pomerania. Dániel Bagi focuses upon genealogical relations between the Piasts and the Árpáds in Hungary, suggesting that in the eleventh and early twelfth century these were not well developed and that the tradition of Polish-Hungarian friendship was founded upon “fictive” relations elaborated only later. Finally, in this section, Dariusz Dąbrowski analyzes marriages between the Piasts and the several branches of the Rurikid family in Rus′. He sees both positive and negative goals reflected in these. Sometimes the Piasts sought to obtain their own goals; at other times, they aimed at ensuring disadvantages to enemies of both the contracting sides.

The section devoted to clerical networks focuses chiefly upon influences from abroad in the Piast lands. The author of each article labors under the burden that the documentary evidence for treating these matters is extremely limited for this early period. Anna Adamska, whose work on medieval literacy is well known, examines the growth of the ducal and royal chancery, looking at the models used, the course of development, the clerical personnel involved, especially those in the royal chapel who exercised important administrative and fiscal functions, and from where they came. Marzena Matla focuses upon ecclesiastical contacts and the beginnings of historical writing in Piast Poland, engaging in the continuing debate about the now lost early annals upon which later extant writings are based. Along with Adamska, she deals with questions of written culture in Poland. Dariusz Sikorski's contribution on the role and origin of foreign clergy in the early Piast periods, closely related to the issues treated in the first two articles in this section, shows clearly that without these external influences the growth of a native Polish church would not have been possible. Krzysztof Skwierczyński treats many of the same themes in his analysis of Poland's intellectual indebtedness to foreign contacts; he nicely complements and extends the insights of Matla and Sikorski.

As a whole, these articles enrich and deepen our understanding of the connections that early Piast Poland had with other parts of medieval Europe. While some of the treatment in them is necessarily political, there is also much more than that. The economic, social, and cultural considerations in them are important elements in the contribution this volume makes. Once again, the German Historical Institute in Warsaw has provided for the non-Polish reading audience an important and welcome conference volume.