Polish tribes

Map showing an approximation location of Polish tribes

Polish tribes - a term used sometimes to describe the tribes of West Slavs that lived in the territories that became Polish from around the mid-7th century to the creation of Polish state by the Piast dynasty. The territory they lived on became a part of the first Polish state created by duke Mieszko I and expanded at the end of the 10th century, enlarged further by king Bolesław I at the beginning of the 11th century.

In about 850 AD a list of peoples was written down by the Bavarian Geographer. Absent on the list are Polans, Pomeranians and Masovians, who were mentioned later by Nestor the Chronicler in his Primary Chronicle (11th/12th century).

The most important Polish tribes are Polans, Masovians, Vistulans, Silesians and Pomeranians.^[1] These five tribes "shared fundamentally common culture and language and were considerably more closely related to one another than were the Germanic tribes."^[2]

1 Name
2 Organization
3 List of Polish tribes
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Name

The name "Poland" is derived from the most important tribe - the Polans. Their name, on the other hand, derives from the word pole - field. It was used also for the eastern Polans that lived in the region of the Dnieper River.

[edit] Organization

The tribes were organized on the basis of kinship groups. A tribe's territory was divided into opoles, which constituted a group of neighboring settlements.

Most members of a particular tribe were yeoman peasants, although a small group of aristocrats (nobiles or potentiores was usually present.

[edit] List of Polish tribes

The following is the list of Polish and other conquered Slavic tribes that constituted the lands of Poland in the early Middle Ages, at the beginning of the Polish state. Some of them have remained a separate ethnicity while others have been assimilated into the culture of Poland.

Polans
Pomeranians
- Pyrzyczanie
- Wolinianie
Goplans
Lędzianie
Masovians
Vistulans
Silesian tribes - These are usually treated as part of Polish tribes^[3] although two tribes among them are sometimes considered as Czech (Moravian) tribes.^[4]

[edit] See also

Lechitic languages and Polish language

[edit] References

^ Raymond Breton, National Survival in Dependent Societies: Social Change in Canada and Poland, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1990, p. 106,ISBN 0-88629-127-5 Google Books
^ John Blacking, Anna Czekanowska, Polish Folk Music: Slavonic Heritage - Polish Tradition - Contemporary Trends, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 3, ISBN 0-521-02797-7 Google Books
^ Jerzy Strzelczyk [in:] The New Cambridge Medieval History, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 521-522 ISBN 0-521-36447-7 Google Books; Robert Machray, The Problem of Upper Silesia, G. Allen & Unwin ltd. 1945, p. 13 Google Books; Paul Wagret, Helga S. B. Harrison, Poland, Nagel, 1964, p. 231. Google Books
^ "Czeski Śląsk" - Montes Tarnovicensis, 05/2008