Wczesnośredniowieczna zapinka podkowiasta z Koprzywnicy, woj. świętokrzyskie. Przyczynek do badań nad kontaktami Ziemi Sandomierskiej z Europą Wschodnią w XI w.

Zapinka podkowiasta znaleziona w Koprzywnicy potwierdza nie tylko istnienie bliskich kontaktów handlowych, kulturowych i politycznych Ziemi Sandomierskiej z Europą Wschodnią we wczesnym średniowieczu, poświadczonych również źródłami o innym charakterze (por. Florek 2019), ale wydaje się również stanowić kolejną przesłankę, wskazującą na udział przybyszy z terenów średniowiecznej Rusi w organizacji struktur państwa piastowskiego na jego terenie w XI w.

In the 1990s, a horseshoe-shaped fibula, made of copper and probably originally silver-plated, was accidentally discovered in the area of Koprzywnica. The fibula has a body in the form of an open ring with non-touching ends, with a flat pin mounted on it. The body, made of thick wire with a circular cross-section, was twisted multiple times around its axis. At the perpendicularly bent ends of the body (relative to its plane) there are two flat, round discs decorated with incised lines forming quadrangles with two diagonals, and with punched circles in the corners and in the centres of the quadrangles. The pin, cut from thick sheet metal, is flat, relatively narrow, and rectangular in cross-section, only widening at the part wound around the body. It is decorated with ornamentation consisting of incised lines as well as punched dots, circles, and short dashes. Horseshoe-shaped fibulae, made of iron, copper and its alloys, lead-tin alloys, or silver, were particularly popular in the Early Middle Ages among Baltic and Finno-Ugric peoples living on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea and in the areas of northeastern Rus’ and Scandinavia. They are much rarer in the territory of Western Slavs. The number of published items coming from present-day Polish lands (excluding areas that were part of the Rurikids’ state in the Middle Ages) does not exceed 100. The fibula found in Koprzywnica shows many specific features: large size, twisted body ending with flat discs set parallel to its plane, rich decoration of the discs and the pin. Among the finds from Polish lands, including those that belonged to Rus’ in the Middle Ages, there are no direct analogies. Due to the way the body arms are finished, the fibula is most similar to the horseshoe-shaped fibulae with nailshaped ends (in the shape of a nail head) known from the Veliky Novgorod area and its surroundings. There, the twisting (multiple turning) of the body and a similar method of decorating the body ends and the pin are often found. Almost identical to the specimen from Koprzywnica is, for example, a fibula discovered in the village of Rabititsy (Рабитицы), located south of St. Petersburg. Taking into account the presented analogies, the fibula from Koprzywnica should most probably be considered a product originating from the Early Medieval Slavic-Baltic-Finnic borderland in the area of Veliky Novgorod and dated to the 11th century. From the territory of the historic Medieval Sandomierz Land, 15 horseshoe-shaped fibulae are currently known. They were discovered: in cemeteries in Końskie, Końskie district; Sandomierz (2 items); Radom (2 items); and Wiślica (2 items); as well as settlements at Czwartek in Lublin, Wzgórze Staromiejskie in Sandomierz, Koprzywnica (Sandomierz district), Zawichost-Trójca (Sandomierz district, 2 items), Brzezie (Opatów district), Wojnowice (Ostrowiec district), and at the hillfort in Szczaworyż (Busko district). Apart from the items from Koprzywnica, and from settlements at Wzgórze Staromiejskie in Sandomierz and in Wojnowice, all the others represent the most common and long-lasting type with rolled (loop-shaped) ends of the body. Although horseshoe-shaped fibulae in the area of the Sandomierz Land could theoretically have appeared as early as the 9th century (Szczaworyż, possibly Lublin-Czwartek), it seems that they (at least the majority of them) originate from the end of the 10th century and the 11th century, that is, from the period immediately following the incorporation of these lands into the Piast state, which is believed to have occurred around 970 AD. Assuming, as it has been increasingly emphasized in recent scholarship, that horseshoe-shaped fibulae were a foreign element to West Slavic outfit, they should be viewed as items that came to the Sandomierz Land along with people who arrived from areas where such fibulae were used and popular, that is, from northeastern Europe, most likely from the part that was included in early medieval Rus’. In both graves from Sandomierz, dated to the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries where horseshoe-shaped fibulae were found, they were accompanied by items with clear East European analogues or even originated from those areas. The potential East European (early medieval Rus’) origin of one of the deceased, in whose grave a horseshoe fibula was found, is also indicated by the results of specialist analyses of the skeletal remains. The presence of newcomers from Eastern Europe in the vicinity of Sandomierz at the end of the 10th century and in the 11th century, as well as later, in the 12th century, is confirmed by finds belonging to a range of other categories of artefacts: ornaments, outfit elements, military items, and objects related to trade. These could have been merchants arriving from those areas or - what seems more likely in the light of the discoveries in Sandomierz, Daromin, and Ruszcza Płaszczyzna – armed men, members of the ducal retinue of the first two historical Piasts (Mieszko and his son Bolesław), or persons organizing and subsequently exercising local authority on their behalf. It cannot be excluded that there were also newcomers from Rus’ supporting Casimir the Restorer in the restitution of his rule after the crisis of the Piast monarchy in the 1030s.