PRZEGLĄD HISTORYCZNY, TOM CXI, 2020, ZESZ. 3, ISSN 0033–2186 RADOSŁAW KOTECKI Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz Faculty of History ORCID: 0000-0002-6757-9358 Bishops and the Legitimisation of War in Piast Poland until the Early Thirteenth Century* Keywords: sacralisation of war, bishops and war, episcopal military service, rituals of war, holy war Słowa kluczowe: sakralizacja wojny, biskupi a wojna, wojskowa służba biskupów, rytuały wojny, święta wojna The last few years have been a period of remarkable dynamism in research on the relationships between the clergy and war in high medieval Latin Europe. In just over a decade, a number of published works on the involvement of churchmen in warfare have significantly enriched our understanding of this widespread subject. 1 What seems to be particularly important in this is the change of research models hitherto focused on the militarily active Reichsbischöfe or legal framework of cler- ical armsbearing. This was possible thanks to a shift of attention to cultural aspects of the clergy’s presence in military affairs together with the Church’s religious duty to the monarchy and political communities. This modification of perspectives makes it clear that the clergy’s activities relating to warfare had a multifaceted and strongly cultural character in the Middle Ages. This also applies to military service, to which territorial and national Churches were obliged within the administrative systems of particular monarchies. In addition to the legal requirements imposing the obligation to create an armed force and to support the military potential of the state, nowadays importance is also attached to the requirement for the Church and the clergy to maintain loyalty to the monarchy. However, this is not only about loyalty dictated by the principle of servitium regis or service with regalia, but also about the more complex idea of loyalty to one’s com- munity combined with a readiness to support it in the face of war threats. Obviously, * This essay was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland, grant no. 2014/15/B/HS3/02284. 1 For a multi-perspective analysis of the clerical engagement in military affairs, see Between Sword and Prayer 2018. Other recent works include KEUPP 2006; TESSERA 2007; BARTHÉLEMY 2009; HAAS 2012; NAKASHIAN 2016; GERRARD 2016; WEBB 2016; LINCOLN 2017; GÜBELE 2018, pp. 119–148.