Poznań: important places
Poznań Cathedral/Fot. Tomasz Kaminski / Agencja Gazeta
Gniezno was the first capital of Poland - this is what children learn at school. Is that certain? The age of the first Piasts is inseparably associated with Wielkopolska - here was the state of the Polans. However, historians think that in those times the concept of a capital didn't really exist. The capital was whichever castle the monarch happened to be staying in at the time. In this way Poznań, as well as Gniezno, deserves the status.
However, according to the chronicles of Jan Długosz, Mieszko I, Bolesław Chrobry, Mieszko II and Kazimierz Odnowiciel were all buried in Poznań. They are said to rest in Poznań Cathedral, but no one knows for sure. Today there is a wonderful Złota Kaplica (the Golden Chapel) with a sarcophagus and shared monument to the Piast monarchs built at the behest of Edward Raczyński in 1840. Between the XIV to the XVIII century the remains of the first king of Poland were stored in a Gothic sarcophagus paid for by Kazimierz Wielki, which was later destroyed as a result of fire and the collapse of the church spire.
Work carried out on Poznań's Ostrów Tumski by professor Hanna Kóčka-Krenz and her team may determine where the wife of Mieszko I, Dobrawa of Bohemia, is buried, with whom the rite of baptism was introduced to Poland. Professor Kóčka-Krenz has found a chapel adjoining the palace of Mieszko I. According to her, Dobrawa, in Polish simply called Dąbrówka, founded the first pre-Roman temple in the land of the Piasts. Somewhere here may also be her grave.
Also the tomb of the king Przemysł II, crowned in 1295 and soon after murdered in Rogoźno, is located in Poznań. This tomb was destroyed, but a plaque in the chapel of St. Stanisław commemorates Przemysł II. It is presumed that Prince Władysław Odonic and his sons Bolesław Pobożny and Przemysł I also rest in the cathedral. Przemysł I granted Poznań city status in 1253. He died four years later, which must have come as a relief to his courtiers. The prince paid penance for the fact that once he had held his brother prisoner - as part of the penance he didn't wash - for two years.