A Brief Outline of Polish History (Classic Reprint)

The population was grouped into clans of which the elders were the Chieftains. All individuals, with the ex ception of a few serfs, enjoyed the same rights. At the outset there was no regularly constituted Knighthood. Itwas only later that, under pressure of the German danger, the families formed tribes who, in time of war, chose chiefs or c dukes These were the first to create an armed force (militia, druzyna) which was eventually the means of transforming their temporary authority into permanent power. It was thus the chiefs encroa-ched on the rights of the assemblies which had formerly con trolled them. But this system was too weak and primitive to resist the powerful empire which the Germans had now organized and which enjoyed, moreover, the pro tection of the Church. Both con-cord and discipline were wanting to the Polish tribes, and in consequence, after the time of Charlemagne, the western Slav people passed, one by one, under the yoke of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, or were exterminated. Finally, under Otho the Great, the situation of the Polonians had become critical.

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