The Translation of Adalbert's Relics

JAN 01 1039 · 12:00

Břetislav I in the Romanesque Znojmo rotunda fresco cycle (1134), the duke who carried Adalbert's bones home. Place: Gniezno, then the Saint Vitus rotunda at Prague Castle Figures: Břetislav I, duke of Bohemia · Severus, bishop of Prague · Mieszko II Lambert of Poland (lately deceased) · the body of Saint Adalbert, contested Poland is in collapse. Mieszko II is dead, the pagan reaction has burned monasteries, and the Czech duke Břetislav I sees his moment. In the summer of 1039 he marches north, sacks Poznań, takes Gniezno, and goes straight to the archbishop's church to collect the relics of Saint Adalbert. Bishop Severus stands beside him. The Czech party fasts for three days first, to be worthy of the body they are about to seize. Cosmas, who is delighted to tell this story eighty years later, does not call it a theft. He calls it a translation. They take Adalbert. They also take the bodies of the Five Martyred Brothers (Italian and Polish hermits killed in 1003), the relics of Adalbert's half-brother Gaudentius, and a great deal of ecclesiastical plate. The reliquaries are loaded onto wagons. The party turns home.