6585845090

265

SHORT NOTES

Joachim Zdrenka, Urzędnicy miejscy Gdańska w latach 1342-1792 i 1807-1814 (Town Officials in Danzig in 1342-1792 and 1807-1814], i: List of Officials; ii: Biographies, Gdańsk 2008, Muzeum Archeologiczne w Gdańsku; 270+408 pp.; indexes of persons, ills., series: Fontes Commentationesąue ad Res Gestas Gedani et Pomeraniae

Joachim Zdrenka’s book is an expanded version of the cdition of lists of Danzig (Gdańsk) officials from the 14th to the 19th century. It comprises mayors, members of the council and of the bench. The second volume contains short biographies of 1320 members of the town authorities. It is based on town books and other archival materials kept in the State Archives in Gdańsk and on manuscripts from the Gdańsk Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The two volumes are an extremely valuable aid for all researchers interested in Danzig and its patriarchate. Zdrenka has succeeded in establishing the names and in compiling short biographies of 95 per cent of all members of the municipal authorities. The biographies give the name, place of birth or baptism, and of the death or burial of each member, data concerning his family, his education and information on his career. Each biography refers to the respective archival sources and literaturę. (MP)

MIDDLE AGES

Marzena Matla-Kozłowska, Pierwsi Przemyślidzi i ich państwo (od X do połowy XI wieku). Ekspansja terytorialna i jej polityczne uwarunkowania [The First Premyslides and Their State (lOth — Mid llth Century): Territorial Expansion and Its Political Conditions], Poznań 2008, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 576+3 pp., 2 maps, 7 tables, 1 genealogical table

The author describes the territorial formation of the Czech State from the begin-ning of the rule of Vratislav I (915), regarded by some scholars as the originator of the Czech policy of territorial expansion, to the death of Bretislav I (1054). She says that because of the necessity of consolidating the Czech Valley politically, conditions for further expansion did not arise until ca 935-40, during the rule of Boleslav I. The Czechs conąuered Moravia, Silesia, Southern Lesser Poland and a part of present-day Slovakia; their frontiers determined the borderline of German expansion in the Elbę region and of Hungarian expansion in the Pan-nonian Valley. In ca 985 the Czechs began to lose the conąuered lands because of an internal conflict between the Premyslides and the Slavnikovich family, the support they extendcd to Henry the Wrangler in Germany, and the growing importance of Poland and Hungary, which were allied with Otto II and Otto III. The possibility of regaining the lost territories appeared when the Polish State was in crisis after 1025, but the Czechs did not make fuli use of it because of the policy pursucd by the emperor Henry III, who sought to keep balance between Poland and the Czech State. (JA)