This is a fun one. You would think with collecting postage stamps, we could only go back in history to 1840 and the first stamp. Every now and then a country puts out a stamp that goes way back, when Royalty was cruel or brave or even haughty and when a King gets religious, so does his whole country, because he said so, and because his wife told him to say so. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Dobrawa was a foreign Duchess that married a long ago King. Not someone you would think Poland would choose to particularly remember. As the stamp shows, she has a book for you. A Good Book. The country read the Book and some still do. When they do they should remember Dobrawa.
Todays stamp is issue A875, a 25 Zloty stamp issued by Poland on December 4th, 1986. It was a two stamp issue the other showing Dobrawa’s husband, King Mieszko I. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.
In the 960s AD Poland was still a Pagan country ruled by King Mieszko I. Nearby Germany was ruled by Kaiser Otto the Great who had recently added the title of Holy Roman Emperor. Otto was expansionary both based on patriotism but with the added duty of Christian conversion animating. Polish King Mieszko felt threatened and so sought out allies. He found a ready ally in Bohemia that was then a Dukedom ruled by Boleslav the Cruel. He may have been cruel but that does not mean he did not feel the same threat from the Holy Roman Germany. Bohemia was already Christian. To cement the alliance between Bohemia and Poland, Boleslav offered for Mieszko to pick a wife from his two daughters and Mieszko picked the older one Dobrawa.
Dobrawa arrived in Poland with a large entourage. Among them was Jordan, an Italian Missionary Bishop that reported directly to the Pope. Dobrawa then made it a condition for marriage that Mieszko be Baptized. Mieszko agreed and Jordan both performed the Baptism and officiated the wedding. He was then named the first Bishop of Poland with a base in Poznan. Dobrawa was then the Patron of several of the early Catholic churches in Poland. The union was successful. The Polish alliance with Bohemia outlasted all of them. There were also two children, another Boleslav, this one the Brave who succeeded the Polish Throne, and Segrid the Haughty. Segrid managed to marry, hopefully in different periods both the Kings of Sweden and Denmark. Perhaps Segrid was haughty by I nominate the additional honorific of Hottie.
We know these stories because of the work of the chronicler Cosmas of Prague. 150 years later he wrote the definitive history of the Bohemian people. He inspired a group of followers called Cosmas followers that updated his works as history went along. There are modern historians that dispute details of Cosmas. They say that it is just Catholic iconography that liked to emphasize the role of woman in the conversion of Pagans. Party Poopers.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the the Brave, the Great and even the Cruel and the Haughty among us. That is a lot of toasting, I may need a bigger bottle. Come again on Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.