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[[File:Pieczęć Leszka I Białego.jpg|thumb|left|200px|A seal of Lestek the White]]
Just like the king of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men has his power supported by the faith of the Seven, so did Polish dukes coöperate with the Catholic Church to strenghten strengthen their power. And as the popes at the time were really looking forward to freeing the Holy Land from the Saracens, the dukes could help their chances to win the Cracovian throne by participating (or at least by promising to participate) in a crusade. The crusade movement had been only moderately popular in Poland until then, but we know for instance that Henry, one of Lestek's uncles, did go on one, if not two crusades. Did Henry encourage his nephew to take the cross with tales of his overseas exploits? Unlikely, as he had died 20 years before Lestek was born.
What's more, the image of the crusade movement suffered in Lestek's lifetime after the Fourth Crusade had failed to even reach Palestine and settled on plundering the perfectly Christian Constantinople instead. This was followed by a Children's Crusade, which just as bad an idea as it sounds. But when Pope Innocent III announced a new crusade in 1215, Lestek resolved enroll anyway. Innocent promised a plenary (full) indulgence to anyone who would join the crusade himself or send an armed delegate and a partial indulgence for financial support. Taking the cross also gave you a kind of immunity, as any attack on a crusader was punishable by excommunication. The pope's protégé in Poland, Archbishop Henry Ketlich of Gnezno, had little trouble inducing a team of young Polish dukes to make a crusader's vow. The team consisted of Lestek and his brother Conrad, as well as their cousins, Casimir of Opole and Vladislav Spitter. Together they formed a coalition of junior dukes put together by Ketlich to wrest control of all Poland from the elder generation of Wrymouth's descendants.
After this lengthy introduction, we come back to our anecdote at last. Did Pope Innocent III grant Lestek a dispensation from his crusader's vow? Unlikely, as Innocent was already dead by the time the crusade started. But the new pope, Honorius III, did not forget about Lestek's vow and started to remind him that excommunication awaited not only those who attacked a crusader, but also those who failed to follow through on their obligation to take the cross. Lestek needed to come up with some excuse.
The letter in which Lestek allegedly explained to the pope that he could not travel to Palestine as that place lacked beer, without which he could not live, has not survided survived to our times. What has survived is a letter dated April 1221 from Honorius III to two Polish clergymen – Bishop Lawrence of Vratislav and Provost Peter of Glogov. And in this letter the pope does mention the excuses that Lestek had made to justify his no-show on the crusade.
{{cytat
[[File:leszek bez piwa.jpg|thumb|250px|"What do you mean, no beer?"]]
So it's true! It's this one brief mention in the papal letter that made future historians label Lestek as a lazy, obese drunk. Especially that "having changed habit into nature" souns sounds very much like a nice euphemism for "being an alcoholic". But there's a few things here that don't look right...
First of all, what kind of alcoholism makes you drink beer and mead, but stay away from wine? Secondly, how come the pope bought an excuse so flimsy? And does ''corporis gravedine gravis'' really mean "heavy in his body"? This Latin fragment could be also translated as "being full of catarrh" or "suffering from a heavy cold". Anyway, I suspect that Lestek was trying to excuse his failure to join the crusade with some grave illness, and the necessity to replace wine and water in his diet with beer and mead was not necessarily his personal preference, but a medical prescription. Yes, I know, neither a cold nor being overweight would let me get away with not showing up to work, but perhaps medieval attitudes to sick leaves were more relaxed?
{{cytat
| Being a neighbour to the Prussians, he may easily enter their land with a large force and not only defend the neophitesneophytes, but also convert other pagans with his effort and diligence.
| źródło = ''ibid''.
| oryg = {{...}} cum vicinus Prutenie, facile potest eam intrate cum multitudine bellatorum, non solum defensurus neophitos, verum eciam alias paganos suo studio et dilligentia faciente domino conversurus {{...}}
It would seem that Lestek's plan was doomed to fail. Even Jon Snow's attitude towards the wildlings was never this liberal and he was still killed for siding with the enemy. And as a matter of fact – it did fail! In the years 1222–1223, Lestek, along with Conrad, Henry the Bearded and Swantopolk, Lestek's representative in Pomerania, twice travelled into Prussian territory and twice did they return with nothing. After the second failed mission, the dukes decided that for now, they would just set up something akin to the Night's Watch – a line of strongholds manned by knights from all parts of the kingdom to keep the wild— I mean, the Prussians at bay. The pope agreed to treat this force as a crusade and thus hold Lestek's and Conrad's vows fulfilled.
The three major differences between these Polish wathmen watchmen and the Night's Watch is that the former didn't require chastity vows, they didn't have a giant ice wall at their disposal and they didn't last eight thousand years, but only... less than two. One night the Prussians attacked one of the strongholds; some of the knights died defending it, while others ran for their lives. Back in the capital, this led to a civil war between House Odrovonsh, whose sons had died in the battle, and House Griffin, whose members were decried as cravens and traitors. The Griffins escaped (again) to Silesia, where they talked Henry the Bearded into capturing Cracow while Lestek was away and claiming the title of high duke for himself. Lestek retook Cracow only a week later, but while the dukes were duking it out, the neglected watch entirely collapsed.
[[File:The death of Leszek the White.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Lestek's death as painted by Jan Matejko in 1880]]
A year after Lestek's untimely death, but possibly on still on his orders, a Dominican friar of House Odrovonsh set out from Cracow on a mission to Kiev. Better known as [[Saint Hyacinth of Pierogi|Saint Hyacinth]], he is believed to be the one who brought the first recipe for pierogi on his way back to Poland.
A short time before that, Conrad concluded that his brother's peaceful approach towards the Prussians was going nowhere and it would be better to hire the Teutonic Knights to do the job of converting his pagan neighbours. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time; how could he know he had just caused Poland a series of problems that would only end in 1945? For the time being, it just meant less trouble with the Prussians. It would only be the next generation of Polish dukes that had to face an invasion so terrifying, the Prussian raids would seem like a mild nuisance in comparison. Even the combined forces of the Teutonic Knights and the sons of Lestek and Henry the Bearded were unable to stop the hosts led by the Night King— I mean, Baidar, grandson of Gengis Genghis Khan (who, incidentally, had died the same year as Lestek). Apart from fire and destruction, did these Mongol-Tatar hordes also bring recipes for tartar sauce and steak tartare? That's a topic for another post.
{{Przypisy|Notes}}
