page_title: Leszek the White
section_title: Assassination
hierarchical_section_title: Leszek the White / Assassination
context_page_description: Leszek the White was Prince of Sandomierz and High Duke of Poland during 1194–1198, 1199, 1206–1210, and 1211–1227. During the early stages of his reign his uncle, Duke Mieszko III the Old, and cousin Władysław III Spindleshanks, from the Greater Polish branch of the royal Piast dynasty, contested Leszek's right to be High Duke.
  Leszek was the third or fourth, but eldest surviving son of Casimir II the Just and his wife Helen of Znojmo.
context_section_description: A meeting of Polish Dukes was organized in the district of Gąsawa on the border of Kujawy and Greater Poland. Held in November 1227, it was attended by Leszek, Władysław Odonic, Henry I the Bearded, and Konrad I of Masovia - for unknown reasons, one of the most interested, Władysław III Spindleshanks, did not attend the meeting. The content of the talks was most likely the conduct of Świętopełk II of Pomerelia. On the morning of 24 November, the princes were attacked while they were bathing. Henry I was seriously wounded, but his life was saved by his faithful knight Peregrinus of Wiesenburg, who covered him with his own body. Leszek managed to escape half-naked on his horse to the nearby village of Marcinkowo, but the assassins caught up to him and killed him. The attackers have been postulated to be men of either Władysław Odonic or Świętopełk II, or  some conspiracy involving both parties. Leszek's body was transported to Kraków and buried in Wawel Cathedral on or before 6 December 1227.
  The death of Leszek the White fundamentally changed the political situation in Poland. Despite his turbulent government, Leszek was the Duke of Kraków universally recognized by all the Polish princes. Świętopełk II  declared himself independent from Polish vassalship upon Leszek's death. Leszek's son Bolesław V was only one year old upon his father's death, and so the rule over Kraków and Lesser Poland was contested between Leszek's brother Konrad I and Władysław III Spindleshanks, who was his heir according to the treaty of mutual inheritance made in 1217. Eventually Duke Henry I the Bearded of Silesia prevailed as High Duke in 1232.
caption: The Death of Leszek the White by Jan Matejko (1880)
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