Bolesław Chrobry i Karol Wielki - legitymizacja między kultem a imitacją

Seventy years ago, Stanislaw Kętrzyński put forward a hypothesis about the existence of the cult of Charlemagne during the reign of Bolesław the Brave. Mediated by Otto III’s program renovatio imperii, the cult supposedly left a trace in a few sources from the period and in several later ones, when it became more of a legend. This paper is the fi rst attempt to confront this hypothesis with the latest research on the sources used by Kętrzyński (notably the chronicle of Adémar de Chabannes). Some new sources are also analysed. The paper discusses a deliberately legitimising role of the imitation of Charles by Bolesław the Brave, both during the life of Otto III and after his death, and the reception of the legitimacy. In a separate part, the paper looks at the methods of the domestic and external Christianization used by Bolesław and their Carolingian patterns.