id author title date pages extension mime words sentences flesch summary cache txt en-wikipedia-org-2279 History of Poland - Wikipedia .html text/html 30263 2761 64 However, it was the West Slavic Lechites, the closest ancestors of ethnic Poles, who established permanent settlements in the Polish lands during the Early Middle Ages.[1] The Lechitic Western Polans, a tribe whose name means "people living in open fields", dominated the region, and gave Poland which lies in the North-Central European Plain its name. 992–1025), established a Polish Church structure, pursued territorial conquests and was officially crowned the first king of Poland in 1025, near the end of his life.[9] Bolesław also sought to spread Christianity to parts of eastern Europe that remained pagan, but suffered a setback when his greatest missionary, Adalbert of Prague, was killed in Prussia in 997.[9] During the Congress of Gniezno in the year 1000, Holy Roman Emperor Otto III recognized the Archbishopric of Gniezno,[9] an institution crucial for the continuing existence of the sovereign Polish state.[9] During the reign of Otto's successor, Holy Roman Emperor Henry II, Bolesław fought prolonged wars with the Kingdom of Germany between 1002 and 1018.[9][12] ./cache/en-wikipedia-org-2279.html ./txt/en-wikipedia-org-2279.txt