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shrines from other territories, known only from scarce mentions, which deformed the overall picture of the issue.

It seems appropriate to start the survey of the sources from the generał characteristics of temples in the context of the cult. Indispensable for that is the text of Helmold (I, 84), whose description of the cult places of the Abodrites can be extended at least to Northern Polabia and Pomerania. He wrote: “The Slavs have multiple modes of idolatry, as not all of them practise the same superstitions. Some erect strange statues in temples, as for instance the effigy in Plon which is named Podaga, other deities inhabit forests and groves, for example Prove, the god of Oldenburg. Those are not represented in any effigies. Many gods are carved with two, three or even morę heads.” According to Thietmar’s (VI, 25) description of pagan beliefs of the Lutizen “there are as many temples in this country as regions, and as many demonie idols are worshiped by the pagans, among them the above mentioned stronghold [Radogość] is considered as superior.” The temples were connected with the territorial structure and clearly organized in a hierarchy, which is confirmed by Saxo Grammaticus (XIV, p. 826), who wrote about the cult of Sventovit in Rugen that apart from Arcona “this deity had other temples in various places, which were ruled with almost equal dignity, but lesser power of the priests.” These data are very important. The exist-ence of temples does not exclude existence of other types of sanctuaries. The above quotes show that in the 10th-12th c. the north-western Slavs had “the effigies of gods,” inseparable from temples, but probably situated not only in them as well as holy forests and groves. The temples, however, attracted the attention of chroniclers and the relations about them outnumber the mentions concerning all other kinds of sanctuaries in total.

Some mentions about temples come from other Slavonic territories. The Bohemian legend Oportes nos fratres (ch. 1) from the mid 1 lth c. says that introducing Christianity prince Spitygniew “destroyed many temples of idols” (Pekaf, 1906, p. 389). Also Christianus refers to Czech temples (ch. 6: Pekaf, 1906, p. 57-58). In Ruthenia The life of prince Vladimir form the llthc, praises the ruler for destroying the temples and offering places and smashing the idols (Mansikka, 1922, p. 57-58). Unfortunately, the texts lack any details (Łowmiański, 1979, p. 206), and based neither on them nor on any other written sources can we point to any real tempie of deflnite location in Bohemia or Ruthenia (with one questionable exception in case of Kiev).

Information about Połand is even morę scarce. The earliest sources relate the Christianization of the country, but do not mention the liquidation of pagan cult places, except of Thietmar’s story (VII, 72) about bishop Rain-bem destroying the temples in Pomerania, which, however, belongs to the history of a region quite loosely connected with the Piast State. The conclusion that the cult centre in Ślęża Mountain did not function any morę at the time of Bolesław Chrobry*s (Boleslaus the Brave) war with the Ger-mans can be deduced only from the use of past tense in Thietmar’s relation (VII, 59). The first mention about a Polish pagan tempie comes from Długosz, who wrote about the tempie of Nyja in Gniezno (Annales, II, vol. 1, 1964, p. 107). He was also the first to describe how prince Mieszko I demolished the temples and pagan idols in Poland (Annales, II, vol. 1, 1964, p. 177-178, 194-195). Other ćhroniclers (Miechowita, Kromer, M. Bielski, J. Bielski) copied the information from him, but we do not know what basis for his detailed relation he had, which arouses the suspicion that it may be just his own invention.

Studies over Slavonic temples originated from the scrutiny of the written sources and it is appropriate to start from them. Unfortunately, nonę of the depicted shrines has been found by archaeologists, so it is impossible to point at any excavations which would support any of written relations. This significant discrepancy between historical and archaeological data is de-creased by the fact that many important construction elements of the excavated temples correspond to their descriptions in chronicles. The image of Slavonic temples emerging from archaeologists* reports does not contra-dict the chroniclers’ vision. Many unclear fragments of the written sources can be explained thanks to the excavations. The written sources, however, do not allow to go back in the reconstruction of the image of temples beyond the late lOth c. Only the semi-legendary relation of al-Masudi {Golden Meadows, IV, 66: FHRS, 1931, p. 97-99) mentions them earlier, but its reliability is highly questionable (Lewicki, 1949, p. 337).