Ruthenian-Polish matrimonial relations in the context of the inter-dynastic policy of the house of Rurik in the 11th–14th centuries: selective statistical data

Abstract

The directions of matrimonial policy in the Middle Ages, its activity and effectiveness were determined not only by the authority of the individual dynasties in their relations, but also by the resilience of these families. Frequently, their future and stability depended on the successful strategy of marriages with close and distant neighbours. The dynasties, known in historiography as the Rurikids and the Piasts, were among the oldest royal families in European history, according to the duration of their presence on the thrones. The descendants of Vladimir the Great, who was baptized at the Christianization of Kievan Rus', occupied the Muscovian lands until 1610. The Piasts kept the separate lands of Silesia for a longer period of time – until 1675. The peculiar genealogical firmness of both dynasties can be explained by the success of bilateral matrimonial connections during the most active time of the 11th–14th centuries. Due to mutual marriages, it was possible not only to form favorable sporadic alliances of a military and political nature, but also to influence the bilateral migration processes, as well as the cultural and confessional interferences. Before the death of the last representatives of the Romanovich dynasty "by the sword", Lev and Andriy in 1323, the representative of the Masovian branch of the Piasts Bolesław, had the right "by maternal line" to occupy the ir vacant throne. After Bolesław’s tragic poisoning, in the spring of 1340, the Piasts from the Lesser Poland, for example, the King of Poland, Kazimierz III (and his successors from all further dynasties in this country during the 14th–18th centuries) became the temporary successors of the Kingdom of Rus’ (Regnum Russiae) heritage, distinctly, until the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was dismantled between 1772-1795. Some statistical data proposed in the article allow a better understanding of the logic and continuity of the matrimonial policy and, generally, of the bilateral relations between the neighbouring dynasties