History of Poland in The Middle Ages - Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

The first waves of Slavic migration settled the area of the upper Vistula River and elsewhere in the lands of present-day southeastern Poland and southern Masovia, coming from the upper and middle regions of the Dnieper River. Results of a genetic study by researchers from Gdańsk Medical University "support hypothesis placing the earliest known homeland of Slavs in the middle Dnieper basin". The West Slavs came primarily from the more western early Slavic branch called the Sclaveni by the Byzantine historian Jordanes in Getica, the eastern branch being the Antes. The Slavs had first migrated into Poland in the second half of the 5th century, some half century after these territories had been vacated by Germanic tribes (after a period during which settlements were absent or rare).. According to the references given in this and Poland in the Early Middle Ages article, many scholars now believe that the Slavic tribes had not been present in Poland before the earliest medieval period, though the opposite view, predominant in Polish prehistory and protohistory in the past, is still represented.

From there, over the 6th century, the new population dispersed north and west. The Slavs lived mostly by cultivating crops but also engaged in hunting and gathering. Their migrations took place while Eastern and Central Europe were being invaded from the east by waves of peoples and armies such as the Huns, Avars and Magyars.

A number of West Slavic Polish tribes formed small states, beginning in the 8th century, some of which later coalesced into larger states. Among these tribes were the Vistulans (Wiślanie) in southern Poland, with Kraków and Wiślica as their main centers (major fortified centers were built in their country in the 9th century), but later the tribe(s) referred to as the Polans (Polanie—literally, "people of the fields") would prove of decisive historic importance. At the end of the 9th century Vistulans were part of the Great Moravia, according to some theories.

The tribal states built many gords – fortified structures with earthen and wooden walls and embankments – from the 7th century onward. Some of these were developed and inhabited; others featured a large empty space and may have served primarily as refuges in times of trouble. The Polans settled the plains around Giecz, Poznań and Gniezno that would become the early center of Poland and lent their name to the country. They went through a period of accelerated building of gord-type fortified settlements and of territorial expansion, beginning in the first half of the 10th century, and the Polish state developed from their tribal polities in the second half of the 10th century.