of churches, monasteries, military forts as well as waterway infrastructure. He also introduced the first Polish monetary unit, the grzywna, divided into 240 denarii, and minted his own coinage. Early life Bolesław was born in 966 or 967, the first child of Mieszko I of Poland and his wife, the Bohemian princess Dobrawa. His Epitaph, which was written in the middle of the , emphasised that Bolesław had been born to a "faithless" father and a "true-believing" mother, suggesting that he was born before his father's baptism. Bolesław was baptised shortly after his birth. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Boleslaus I, Duke of Bohemia. Not much is known about Bolesław's childhood. His Epitaph recorded that he underwent the traditional hair-cutting ceremony at the age of seven and a lock of his hair was sent to Rome. The latter act suggests that Mieszko wanted to place his son under the protection of the Holy See. Historian Tadeusz Manteuffel says that Bolesław needed that protection because his father had sent him to the court of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor in token of his allegiance to the emperor. However, historian Marek Kazimierz Barański notes that the claim that Bolesław was sent as a hostage to the imperial court is disputed. Bolesław's mother, Dobrawa, died in 977; his widowed father married Oda of Haldensleben who had already been a nun. Around that time, Bolesław became the ruler of Lesser Poland, through it is not exactly clear in what circumstances. Jerzy Strzelczyk says that Bolesław received Lesser Poland from his father; Tadeusz Manteuffel states that he seized the province from his father with the local lords' support; and Henryk Łowmiański writes that his uncle, Boleslav II of Bohemia, granted the region to him. Accession and consolidation Mieszko I died on 25 May 992. The contemporaneous Thietmar of Merseburg recorded that Mieszko left "his kingdom to be divided among many claimants", but Bolesław unified the country "with fox-like cunning" and expelled his stepmother and half-brothers from Poland. Two Polish lords Odilien and Przibiwoj, who had supported her and her sons, were blinded on Bolesław's order. Historian Przemysław Wiszewski says that Bolesław had already taken control of the whole of Poland by 992; Pleszczyński writes that this only happened in the last months of 995. Bolesław's first coins were issued around 995. One of them bore the inscription Vencievlavus, showing that he regarded his