Book 4 is a contemporary's account of the fight for the senior throne of Kraków. For the years around 1200 it tells of the young Leszek the White and Konrad of Masovia under their mother Helena, the old duke Mieszko of Greater Poland's repeated seizures of Kraków, the Kraków magnates led by the palatine Mikołaj and Bishop Fulko, and Leszek's dealings with Roman of Galicia. Highly rhetorical, written for the Kraków party, and the only Polish narrative of 1200.
About this source
- Title
- Chronica Polonorum
- Author
- Wincenty Kadłubek
- Author's dates
- about 1150 to 1223; provost of Sandomierz, bishop of Kraków 1208 to 1218
- Written
- about 1190 to 1208
- Language
- Latin
- Covers
- legendary origins to 1202
- Kind
- Chronicle
Monumenta Poloniae Historica vols 1 and 4 are on the Internet Archive but vol. 2 was not found there. A Polish translation on Wikisource was not verified in this task. No English translation exists.
Where to read it
Editions
- A. Bielowski (ed.), Magistri Vincentii Chronicon Polonorum, Monumenta Poloniae Historica 2 (Lwów 1872); no free copy of volume 2 located (not freely online)
- M. Plezia (ed.), Magistri Vincentii dicti Kadłubek Chronica Polonorum, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, nova series 11 (Kraków 1994); not free (not freely online)
- Excerpts in MGH Scriptores 29 (Hanover 1892), Ex rerum Polonicarum scriptoribus saec. XII et XIII
Translations
- B. Kürbis (trans.), Mistrz Wincenty (tzw. Kadłubek), Kronika polska (Wrocław 1992), Polish; not free (not freely online)