The rule of Jagiełło

The Polish clergy played a major role in the long process of Christianization—the bishopric of Wilno (Lithuanian: Vilnius) was set up in 1387—and Polish knights assisted Lithuania in its military campaigns; nevertheless, the Lithuanians were determined not to tolerate Polish interference, landowners, or troops. It was obvious that a simple incorporation of Lithuania into Poland was not possible. Jagiełło’s cousin Vytautas (Polish: Witold), who eventually controlled the various duchies that constituted the Lithuanian state before its union with Poland, assumed the title of grand duke and made Lithuania a virtually independent state. He even aimed at a royal crown for himself. The defeat he suffered at the hands of the Tatars at Vorskla River in 1399, however, destroyed his plans. The union with Poland was renegotiated on the basis of partnership of two sovereign states under the reign of Władysław II, king and supreme duke.

The continuing struggles with the Teutonic Knights seeking to master eastern Lithuanian Samogitia (Polish: Żmudź)—on the pretext of Christianizing its inhabitants—led to the great war in which Poland and Lithuania joined forces. The result was a crushing defeat of the Knights at Tannenberg (Grunwald) in 1410. The victory had no immediate sequel, for the Knights ceded only Samogitia (temporarily), but it marked the beginning of their decline; the Prussian nobles and towns secretly opposed the ruthless rule of the Teutonic Order. Polish tolerance was manifest at the Council of Constance (1414–18), where the prominent theologian and rector of Kraków University Paweł Włodkowic (Paulus Vladimiri) denounced the Knights’ policy of conversion by the sword and maintained that the pagans also had their rights. Similarly, the Poles were sympathetic to Jan Hus of Bohemia, who was condemned as a heretic by the council, and lent discreet support to his followers, the Hussites, in their struggles against the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy.

Because of his concerns over dynastic succession, Władysław II, who had no children with Jadwiga, granted new privileges to the szlachta (all those of noble rank). Called neminem captivabimus (comparable to habeas corpus), the measure guarded against arbitrary arrest or confiscation of property and distinguished between the executive and the judiciary. The Polish example also began to affect the internal evolution of magnate-dominated Lithuania. The lesser boyars, envious of the position of their Polish counterparts, favoured closer unity. At the Union of Horodło in 1413, Polish nobles offered their coats of arms to a number of Lithuanians as a gesture of solidarity.

Only Władysław’s fourth wife, Sophia Holszańska, bore him male children. One of their sons, Władysław III Warneńczyk, ruled Poland (1434–44) under the regency of the powerful Zbigniew Cardinal Oleśnicki; the other son, Casimir, was the grand duke of Lithuania. Largely because of Oleśnicki, Władysław III was elected king of Hungary, became active in crusades against the Turks, and, after initial victories, died at the Battle of Varna in 1444. Casimir subsequently became the ruler of both Poland and Lithuania.

Casimir IV

The long and brilliant reign of Casimir IV Jagiellonian (1447–92) corresponded to the age of “new monarchies” in western Europe. By the 15th century Poland had narrowed the distance separating it from western Europe and become a significant factor in international relations. The demand for raw materials and semifinished goods stimulated trade (producing a positive balance) and contributed to the growth of crafts and mining. Townspeople in Poland proper constituted about 20 percent of the population—roughly the European average. Divisions between the nobles, the burghers, and the peasants were still somewhat fluid. Coexistence of the ruler and the estates was relatively smooth and stable.

Cultural progress was striking, with the reconstituted and enlarged University of Kraków playing a major role. Humanist trends found a promoter at Kraków in the Italian scholar Filippo de Buonacorsi, known as Callimachus. From the pen of Jan Długosz came the first major history of Poland.

Casimir’s foreign policy centred on the conflict with the Teutonic Knights and succession in Hungary and Bohemia. When the rebellious Prussian towns and nobility turned to Casimir, he decreed an incorporation of the Knights’ state into Poland (1454). Unable to decisively defeat the Teutonic Order during the Thirteen Years’ War (1454–66), he had to sign the compromise Treaty of Toruń in 1466. Gdańsk Pomerania, renamed Royal Prussia and endowed with far-reaching autonomy, became Polish once again. This opened the route to the Baltic. The other territories (most of the future East Prussia), with the capital at Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia), remained with the Knights, albeit as a Polish fief.

Casimir’s dependence on the noble levies in wartime enabled the szlachta to extract new concessions. They culminated in the Privilege of Nieszawa (1454), which gave the provincial diets (sejmiki) the right to declare the levies and raise new taxes. In 1493–96 a bicameral general diet (Sejm) marked the beginning of Polish parliamentarism. The representatives of the sejmiki formed the lower house, while the king’s appointees constituted the senate.

The question of succession in Bohemia and Hungary was resolved toward the end of the 15th century when one of Casimir’s sons, Vladislas II, was elected to the throne of Bohemia in 1471 and Hungary in 1490. His other sons John I Albert and Alexander succeeded each other in Poland and Lithuania from 1492 to 1506. A Jagiellonian bloc had come into existence, but its effectiveness was marred by the fact that the four countries were guided by divergent interests and faced different problems.