Pact of Koszyce

Pact of Koszyce, agreement made between the Polish nobility and their king, Louis I (ruled 1370–82), in which the nobles promised to accept the King’s choice of successor in exchange for a charter that guaranteed their basic rights and privileges.

The last Piast king of Poland, Casimir III the Great (ruled 1333–70), left his throne to his Angevin nephew Louis I, who was already king of Hungary (ruled 1342–82); but because Louis had no sons and was anxious to secure the Polish throne for his own dynasty rather than allow it to revert to remote Piast cousins, he tried to gain the support of the Polish nobility.

In 1373 Louis called representatives from the Polish nobility and clergy to a conference at Koszyce in Hungarian Slovakia near the Polish border to convince them to accept one of his daughters as his heir. When no agreement was reached, he convoked another meeting the following year at which the Poles, despite the opposition of the Archbishop of Gniezno and his followers, consented to recognize a daughter designated by Louis as successor to the throne.

In return Louis granted them a charter that guaranteed their traditional rights and, among other provisions, exempted the nobility from any payment of taxes to the crown, except a minor duty on their lands, without their explicit approval. The charter also assured the nobility that official posts in each Polish province would be filled by nobles from that province. But the nobility broke the pact after Louis’s death by refusing to allow Louis’s chosen heir, Maria, to assume the Polish throne and naming his other daughter, Jadwiga. The nobles also insisted that Jadwiga break her engagement to William of Habsburg and marry Jogaila (Polish Jagiełło), grand duke of Lithuania (later Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland). Nevertheless, subsequent kings of Poland were obliged to confirm and extend the charter granted by Louis, which became the legal basis for the nobles’ privileged status and powerful position in Polish society.