Last summer, I visited Poland with my parents and brother for the first time in five years to see extended family. My brother always insists that we visit a castle when we’re on holiday, and so we all ended up at Castle Czersk, an hour’s drive outside Warsaw, one faithful afternoon. My research is mostly concerned with early medieval England (~410-1066) and its reception; as far as I knew, there were no significant ties with between England and Poland during this time. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the castle prided itself on harboring a famous burial: that of Magnus Godwinson, son of Harold Godwinson, who famously died in battle against William the Conqueror. This made me wonder: were there perhaps more ties between early medieval England and Poland than I thought?

Magnus, buried near Warsaw?

After Harold Godwinson’s death, his children fled England, and they ended up all over Europe, though where exactly is not always clear. A compelling theory concerning Magnus Godwinson’s fate appeared 27 years ago: he may have gone to Poland. From 1965-67, the grounds of Castle Czersk, located in the region of Mazovia, were excavated, uncovering a great number of burials. The most peculiar of these was burial 609, which held a man who had been laid to rest with “a sword, 2 bronze bowls, a wooden bucket covered with an ornamented sheet, a spearhead and a gold ring” (Rauhutowa 1969: 195). Who could this man have been?

Perhaps Magnus Godwinson. This theory was first proposed in 1997 by Tomasz Jurek, who identified Godwinson as a figure from a twelfth-century Polish chronicle (190-92). In his Gesta principum Polonorum, Gallus Anonymus described komes [count] Magnus, who ruled over Mazovia, as being a disgraced prince. Magnus Godwinson certainly fits the bill in that regard: his father had been king for a short while before being killed in the Battle of Hastings, and William the Conqueror’s subsequent takeover of England forced Godwinson’s children to flee the country, Magnus among them.

Another argument supporting this theory is, delightfully, related to dragons. During this period, dragons were rarely presented positively; except in England, that is (Górczyk 2010). Harold Godwinson was said to have flown the banner of a dragon at the battle of Hastings (Jones 2019: 140), which is also depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. Many years later, a green dragon appeared in the coat of arms of Mazovia. This has led some to believe that Magnus is to thank for the introduction of this new symbol (Górczyk 2009).

Most recently, Dariusz Piwowarczyk was interviewed by the Daily Mail on the identity of the Czersk skeleton. In the article, he calls for new DNA testing of the remains, as previous rounds of tests had not produced conclusive results of the man’s origins. Unfortunately, new testing may prove difficult, as the remains have not been stored adequately to prevent the genetic material from deteriorating (Dowell 2024).

And so, there is still no definitive answer to where Magnus ended up, though the possibility that he ended up in Poland is tantalizing. Whatever the case, there are other individuals who represent a connection between early medieval England and Poland.

Cnut the Great’s Polish Mother

In 1013, Sweyn Forkbeard conquered England, becoming the first Danish king of the region. He died suddenly the following year, and the deposed king Æthelred drove out his son Cnut, who would have been next in line. Two years later, Cnut managed to fight his way back to the English throne. Less well-known is the fact that Cnut’s mother was a Polish princess, and that this fact may have helped him reconquer England.

Cnut’s mother is attested in several chronicles, some more trustworthy than others. Perhaps most reliably, Sweyn’s wife is mentioned by Thietmar of Merseburg, whose chronicle dates from around the early eleventh century. While Thietmar does not provide a name for this elusive woman, he does give some biographical information: she was the sister of King Bolesław I, the first Christian king of Poland, and had already been married before to a Swedish king (Bolton 2017: 32). She gave birth to two sons, one of whom was Cnut, and a daughter. Her efforts do not seem to have been enough to keep her husband happy, as according to Thietmar, Sweyn divorced his wife and sent her back to Poland at some point; her children remained in Denmark (Bolton 2017: 34-35). Fortunately, Cnut managed to see her again during his lifetime: after his father’s death, he and his brother Harald went to Poland and took their mother back to Denmark, according to the Encomium Emmae Reginae, which was written in honor of Cnut’s wife Emma of Normandy when the king was still alive (Hare 2000: 268).

Unfortunately, we don’t know the name of Cnut’s mother. It has been hypothesized that her name was Świętosława, but that is unlikely. This name was extrapolated from the Liber Vitae of the New Minster at Winchester, which lists a “Santslave” as Cnut’s sister (Hare 2000: 265). The theory was that this was a butchered version of the Polish name Świętosława, and that Cnut’s mother named her daughter after herself. However, it was considered taboo to name a child after a family member who was still alive in Scandinavian tradition, and the father of “Santslave” was Scandinavian (a.k.a. Sweyn Forkbeard). It is more likely that she named her child after a family member who had passed on (Prinke 2004: 101).

The extent of Cnut’s mother’s personal influence on her son remains unclear. Whatever the case, Cnut’s ties to Poland came in handy during his (second) conquest of England: his maternal uncle may have provided him with soldiers (Gilbert 28).

Wulfstan’s Travels: Funerary Rituals

There is one more link between early medieval England and Poland I want to discuss here. The creator of the Old English Orosius, a translation of a Latin text from the fifth century, added two travelogues to the original text. One of these was by a man named Wulfstan, who is said to have visited the Viking port Truso via the Vistula river (Polish Wisła). On his travels Wulfstan had heard stories about a people called the Este; he would go on to relate these stories at the court of King Alfred of Wessex (848-899). The funerary rituals of this people were certainly unique:

There is a custom among the Este that after a man’s death he lies indoors uncremated among his relatives and friends for a month, sometimes two. The kings and other high-ranking men remain uncremated sometimes for half a year – the more wealth they have the longer they lie above ground in their houses (trans. Christine Fell 1984: 23-24).

Naturally, we should take this account with a grain of salt. It is unclear whether this Wulfstan really existed, as he may have simply been a figure used to frame the stories told by sailors in the Baltic region (Urbańczyk 2009: 43). Whether Wulfstan existed or not, the brief account of the Este and their funerary practices does betray an interest in the lives of those near and beyond the Vistula, even before the days of Cnut the Great and Magnus Godwinson.

Conclusion

In short, we may never know for sure whether Magnus Godwinson was buried in Czersk. Nevertheless, other early medieval connections between England and Poland did exist. Early medieval England was not isolated, but connected to many regions, including what is now Poland. There may be more fertile ground to till in the study of this relationship.

I am grateful to my mother, Kasia Klare-Salwin, for helping me track down a piece of information for this blog post.

Bibliography and Further Reading

• Bolton, Timothy. Cnut the Great. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. doi:10.12987/9780300226256.
• Bomba, Radosław. “Wojciech Górczyk – Ślady recepcji legend arturiańskich w heraldyce Piastów czerskich i kronikach polskich.”
• Dowell, Stuart. “Did the son of tragic King Harold flee to Poland? Historian says skeleton found in 1966 belongs to Magnus - and claims he became a Polish nobleman after William the Conqueror defeated his father in 1066.” Daily Mail Online, 25 October 2024. Accessed 6 November 2024. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13996769/King-Harold-William-Conqueror-son-Poland.html
• Fell, Christine (trans.). Two voyagers at the court of King Alfred: the ventures of Ohthere and Wulfstan, together with the Description of northern Europe from the Old English Orosius, edited by Niels Lund. York, England: Sessions, 1984.
• Gilbert, Joshua. “Mercenaries, Warlords and Kings 1009-1018: The Danish Conquest of England.” Medieval Warfare 2, no. 1 (2012): 27–33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48578629.
• Górczyk, Wolciech. “Smok i miecz w heraldyce Piastów a król Artur.” Histmag.org, 22 January 2009. Accessed 6 November 2024. https://histmag.org/Smok-i-miecz-w-heraldyce-Piastow-a-krol-Artur-2468.
• Górczyk, Wolciech. “Ślady recepcji legend arturiańskich w heraldyce Piastów czerskich i kronikach polskich.” Kultura i Historia 17 (2010).
• Hare, Michael. “Cnut and Lotharingia: Two Notes.” Anglo-Saxon England 29 (2000): 261–78.
• Hines, John, Karen Louise Jolly, and Britton Elliott Brooks. “Wulfstan in Truso: Old English Text, Baltic Archaeology, and World History.” In Global Perspectives on Early Medieval England: 115–36. Boydell & Brewer, 2022.
• “History.” Zamek Czersk. Accessed 6 November 2024. https://zamekczersk.pl/en/history_1109.
• Jones, Robert W. “Heraldry and Heralds.” Chapter. In A Companion to Chivalry, edited by Robert W. Jones and Peter Coss, 139–58. Boydell & Brewer, 2019.
• Jurek, Tomasz. “Kim był komes wrocławski Magnus?*” In Venerabiles Nobiles et Honesti : Studia z dziejów społeczeństwa Polski średniowiecznej, edited by Danuta Murawska, 181-192. Toruń: Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 1997.
• Mason, Emma. The House of Godwine: The History of a Dynasty. London: Hambledon and London, 2004.
• Prinke, Rafał T. “Świętosława, Sygryda, Gunhilda. Tożsamość córki Mieszka I i jej skandynawskie związki.” Roczniki Historyczne 70 (2004): 81-110.
• Rauhutowa, Jadwiga. “Prace wykopaliskowe w Czersku, po. piaseczno, w latach 1965 – 1967.” Sprawozdania Archeologiczne 21 (1969): 181-195.
• Urbańczyk, Przemysław. "On the reliability of Wulfstan’s report." Wulfstan’s Voyage. The Baltic Sea Region in the Early Viking Age as Seen from Shipboard (Maritime Culture of the North 2) (2009): 43-47.