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====Battle of Grunwald====
====Battle of Grunwald====


[[Image:Grunwald bitwa.jpg|thumb|right|thumb|[[Battle of Grunwald]], 1410. Painting by Jan Matejko]]
[[Image:Grunwald bitwa.jpg|thumb|250px|right|thumb|[[Battle of Grunwald]], 1410. Painting by Jan Matejko]]


When the war resumed in June 1410, Władysław advanced into the Teutonic heartland at the head of an army of about 20,000 mounted nobles, 15,000 armed commoners, and 2,000 professional cavalry mainly hired from Bohemia. After crossing the Vistula over the pontoon bridge at [[Czerwińsk]], his troops met up with those of [[Vytautas]], whose 11,000 light cavalry included Ruthenians and [[Tatars]].<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0295980931&id=LFgB_l4SdHAC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=Jagie%C5%82%C5%82o+Malbork&sig=LfV8OrikMBYKUA53cZ3Uwya5Rf4#PPA16,M1 Stone, 16.]</ref> The Teutonic Order's army numbered about 16,000 cavalry and 5,000 infantry. On [[July 15]], at the [[Battle of Grunwald]],<ref>The battle is also known as the battle of Tannenberg.</ref> after one of the largest and most ferocious battles of the Middle Ages,<ref>Bojtár, ''Foreword to the Past'', 182; Turnbull, ''Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights'', 7.</ref> Władysław won a victory so overwhelming that the Teutonic Order’s army was virtually annihilated, with most of its key commanders killed in combat, including Grand Master [[Ulrich von Jungingen]] and Grand Marshal Friedrich von Wallenrode. Thousands of troops were reported to have been slaughtered on either side.<ref>Stone, 16.</ref>
When the war resumed in June 1410, Władysław advanced into the Teutonic heartland at the head of an army of about 20,000 mounted nobles, 15,000 armed commoners, and 2,000 professional cavalry mainly hired from Bohemia. After crossing the Vistula over the pontoon bridge at [[Czerwińsk]], his troops met up with those of [[Vytautas]], whose 11,000 light cavalry included Ruthenians and [[Tatars]].<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0295980931&id=LFgB_l4SdHAC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=Jagie%C5%82%C5%82o+Malbork&sig=LfV8OrikMBYKUA53cZ3Uwya5Rf4#PPA16,M1 Stone, 16.]</ref> The Teutonic Order's army numbered about 16,000 cavalry and 5,000 infantry. On [[July 15]], at the [[Battle of Grunwald]],<ref>The battle is also known as the battle of Tannenberg.</ref> after one of the largest and most ferocious battles of the Middle Ages,<ref>Bojtár, ''Foreword to the Past'', 182; Turnbull, ''Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights'', 7.</ref> Władysław won a victory so overwhelming that the Teutonic Order’s army was virtually annihilated, with most of its key commanders killed in combat, including Grand Master [[Ulrich von Jungingen]] and Grand Marshal Friedrich von Wallenrode. Thousands of troops were reported to have been slaughtered on either side.<ref>Stone, 16.</ref>


[[Image:Malbork zamek zblizenie.jpg|thumb|right|The Teutonic Order's castle at Marienburg]]
[[Image:Malbork zamek zblizenie.jpg|thumb|250px|right|The Teutonic Order's castle at Marienburg]]


The road to the Teutonic capital [[Marienburg]] now lay open, the city undefended; but for some reason Władysław hesitated to pursue his advantage.<ref>"There can be few other examples in history of a battle so decisively won and a subsequent campaign that so singularly failed to achieve its aims." From the introduction to Stephen Turnbull's ''Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights'', 7.</ref> On July 17, his army began a laboured advance, arriving at Marienburg only on July 25, by which time the new Grand Master, [[Heinrich von Plauen]], had organised a defence of the fortress.<ref name="Stone-17">[http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0295980931&id=LFgB_l4SdHAC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=Jagie%C5%82%C5%82o+Malbork&sig=LfV8OrikMBYKUA53cZ3Uwya5Rf4 Stone, 17.]</ref> The apparent half-heartedness of the ensuing siege, called off by Władysław on September 19, has been ascribed variously to the impregnability of the fortifications, to high casualty figures among the Lithuanians, and to Władysław’s unwillingness to risk further casualties; but a lack of sources precludes a definitive explanation.<ref>[[Paweł Jasienica]], in his monumental ''Polska Jagiellonów,'' suggests Władysław, as a Lithuanian, might have wished to preserve the equilibrium between Lithuania and Poland, the Lithuanians having suffered particularly heavy casualties in the battle. Jasienica, 113-120; Other historians point out that Władysław might have assumed Marienburg was impregnable and therefore seen no advantage in a lengthy siege with no guarantee of success. [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0295980931&id=LFgB_l4SdHAC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=Jagie%C5%82%C5%82o+Malbork&sig=LfV8OrikMBYKUA53cZ3Uwya5Rf4 Stone, 17.]</ref>
The road to the Teutonic capital [[Marienburg]] now lay open, the city undefended; but for some reason Władysław hesitated to pursue his advantage.<ref>"There can be few other examples in history of a battle so decisively won and a subsequent campaign that so singularly failed to achieve its aims." From the introduction to Stephen Turnbull's ''Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights'', 7.</ref> On July 17, his army began a laboured advance, arriving at Marienburg only on July 25, by which time the new Grand Master, [[Heinrich von Plauen]], had organised a defence of the fortress.<ref name="Stone-17">[http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0295980931&id=LFgB_l4SdHAC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=Jagie%C5%82%C5%82o+Malbork&sig=LfV8OrikMBYKUA53cZ3Uwya5Rf4 Stone, 17.]</ref> The apparent half-heartedness of the ensuing siege, called off by Władysław on September 19, has been ascribed variously to the impregnability of the fortifications, to high casualty figures among the Lithuanians, and to Władysław’s unwillingness to risk further casualties; but a lack of sources precludes a definitive explanation.<ref>[[Paweł Jasienica]], in his monumental ''Polska Jagiellonów,'' suggests Władysław, as a Lithuanian, might have wished to preserve the equilibrium between Lithuania and Poland, the Lithuanians having suffered particularly heavy casualties in the battle. Jasienica, 113-120; Other historians point out that Władysław might have assumed Marienburg was impregnable and therefore seen no advantage in a lengthy siege with no guarantee of success. [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0295980931&id=LFgB_l4SdHAC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=Jagie%C5%82%C5%82o+Malbork&sig=LfV8OrikMBYKUA53cZ3Uwya5Rf4 Stone, 17.]</ref>

Revision as of 01:05, 4 February 2007

This article refers to the founder of the Jagiellon dynasty. For other monarchs with similar names see Ladislaus Jagiello or Ladislaus.

Template:Infobox Polish monarch Jogaila, or Władysław II Jagiełło[1] (ca 1351–1434), was a Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland. He ruled in Lithuania from 1377, at first with his uncle, Kęstutis. In 1386 he converted to Christianity, married the eleven-year-old Queen Jadwiga of Poland, and became King of Poland. His reign in Poland lasted a further 48 years and lied fundation for the centuries long Polish-Lithuanian union. He gave his name to the Jagiellon dynasty which ruled both states until 1596 and became one of the most influential dynasties in Europe.[2]

Jogaila was the last pagan ruler of medieval Lithuania, the second to adopt Christianity (after King Of Lithuania Mindaugas), and the first to establish it on a lasting basis, and a holder of the title Didysis Kunigaikštis.[3]As King of Poland, he pursued a policy of close alliances with Lithuania against the Teutonic Order. His overwhelming victory in the battle of Grunwald in 1410, followed by the First Peace of Toruń, secured the Polish and Lithuanian borders and marked the emergence of the Polish-Lithuanian alliance as a major European power. The reign of Władysław II Jagiełło, as he was called after ascending the Polish throne, extended Polish frontiers and is often considered the beginning of Poland's "Golden Age".[4]

Biography

Early life

Lithuania

Little is known of Jogaila's early life. He was a descendant of the Gediminid dynasty of dukes and grand dukes of Lithuania and probably born in Vilnius. His parents were Algirdas, grand duke of Lithuania, and his second wife, Uliana, daughter of Alexander I, grand prince of Tver. Jogaila's father held the title of grand duke of Lithuania and ruled the country with his brother, Kęstutis, the duke of Trakai.[5] The succession of Jogaila on the death of Algirdas in 1377 placed this system of dual rule under strain.[2]

Jogaila at first governed only south and eastern Lithuania, including territories of former Kievan Rus', where Lithuanian overlordship was accepted in return for protection against the Golden Horde.[6] Power struggles were endemic in the area. In 1377-8, for example, Jogaila's own half-brother, the russified Andrew the Hunchback, prince of Polotsk, manoeuvred to secede to Moscow.[7] The Principality of Moscow's threat to Lithuania heightened after Prince Dmitri's defeat of the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380.

Equestrian statue of Wladyslaw II Jagiello, Central Park, New York

When Jogaila turned his attention to the north-west, he was forced to deal with the monastic state of the Teutonic Order—founded after 1226 to fight and convert the pagan Baltic tribes of Prussians, Yotvingians and Lithuanians—which had established itself as a centralised regional power, mounting constant raids against Lithuania, Masovia, and other neighbours. In 1380, Jogaila secretly concluded the Treaty of Dovydiškės with the Order, in which he agreed to the Christianisation of Lithuania in return for the Order's backing against Kęstutis;[2] but Kęstutis discovered the plan, seized Vilnius, overthrew Jogaila, and pronounced himself grand duke in his place.[8]

In 1382, Jogaila raised an army from his father’s vassals and confronted Kęstutis near Trakai. Kęstutis and his son Vytautas, under a promise of safe conduct from Skirgaila, Jogaila’s brother, entered Jogaila's encampment in Vilnius for negotiations but were tricked and imprisoned in the castle of Kreva, where Kęstutis was found dead a week later.[9] Vytautas escaped to the Teutonic fortress of Marienburg and was baptised there under the name Wigand.[8]

Jogaila again entered into talks with the Order, renewing his promises of Christianisation and granting the Knights an area of Samogitia up to the Dubysa river. The Knights, however, pretending to assist both cousins at once, entered Lithuania in summer 1383 and seized most of Samogitia, opening a corridor between Teutonic Prussia and Teutonic Livonia further north. In 1384, Vytautas offered more concessions to the Knights and even took arms with them against Jogaila, but then he switched sides and joined Jogaila in attacking and pillaging several Prussian towns.[10]

Baptism and marriage

See also: Jadwiga of Poland

Jogaila decided that a way to end conflict with the Teutonic Order would be to convert to Christianity, since the Knights legitimised their continual attacks on Lithuania as crusades against pagans. In fact, the pagan core of the Lithuanian elite was greatly outnumbered by the Orthodox Christians of former Kievan Rus' who lived within the state.[11][12] Jogaila's Russian mother urged him to marry Sofia, the daughter of Prince Dmitri of Moscow;[13] and it might have been more natural for him to convert to Orthodoxy than to Catholicism, would that option have appeased the Teutonic Order, who regarded Orthodox Christians as schismatics and little better than heathens.[8][2]

Combined Polish-Lithuanian coat-of-arms (Polish White Eagle, Lithuanian Vytis)

Jogaila chose therefore to accept a remarkable Polish proposal that he become a Catholic and marry the eleven-year-old Queen Jadwiga of Poland.[14] He was also to be legally adopted by Jadwiga’s mother, Elisabeth of Hungary, so retaining the throne in the event of Jadwiga’s death.[8] On these terms, on 14 August 1385 at the castle of Kreva, Jogaila signed a formal act of union with Poland, undertaking to adopt Christianity, repatriate lands "stolen" from Poland by its neighbours—notably Gdańsk and Eastern Pomerania—and to incorporate Lithuania into Poland.[15] The Union of Krewo has been interpreted both as a far-sighted act and as a desperate gamble.[16]

Jogaila was duly baptised at the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków on 15 February 1386, taking the Christian name Władysław.[17] An official declaration of the baptism was sent to Grand Master Ernst von Zöllner, who had declined an invitation to become the new Christian's godfather, at the Order's capital, Marienburg.[18] The royal baptism triggered the conversion of most of Jogaila’s court and knights, as well as mass baptisms in Lithuanian and Polish rivers.[11] Though the ethnic Lithuanian nobility were the main converts to Catholicism—both paganism and the Orthodox rite remained strong among the peasants—the king’s conversion, combined with the political union, created lasting repercussions for the history of both Lithuania and Poland.[11]

Reception in Poland

Before Władysław’s arrival in Kraków for the wedding, Queen Jadwiga despatched one of her knights, Zawisza the Red, to confirm that her future husband was really a human, as she had heard he was a bear-like creature, cruel and uncivilised.[19] Despite her misgivings, the marriage went ahead on 4 March 1386, two weeks after the baptism ceremonies, and Jogaila was crowned King Władysław. In time, the Poles discovered their new ruler to be a civilised monarch with a high regard for Christian culture, as well as a skilled politician and military commander. An athletic man, with small, restless, black eyes and big ears,[20] Władysław dressed modestly and was said to be an unusually clean person, who washed and shaved every day, never touched alcohol, and drank only pure water.[19][21] His pleasures included listening to Ruthenian fiddlers and hunting.[22] Some medieval chroniclers attributed such model behaviour to Wladyslaw's conversion.[23]

Ruler of Lithuania and Poland

Jadwiga's sarcophagus, Wawel Cathedral

Władysław and Jadwiga reigned as co-monarchs; and though Jadwiga probably had little real power, she took an active part in Poland's political and cultural life. In 1387, she led two successful military expeditions to Red Ruthenia, recovered lands her father had transferred from Poland to Hungary, and secured the homage of Petru I, Voivode of Moldavia.[24] In 1390, she also personally opened negotiations with the Teutonic Order. Most political responsibilities, however, fell to Władysław, with Jadwiga attending to the cultural and charitable activities for which she is still revered.[24]

Soon after Władysław's accession to the Polish throne, Lithuania began adopting Polish legal traditions. Władysław granted Vilnius a city charter like that of Kraków, modelled on the Magdeburg Law; and the following year Vytautas issued a privilege to a Jewish commune of Trakai on almost the same terms as privileges issued to the Jews of Poland in the reigns of Boleslaus the Pious and Casimir the Great.[25] Władysław’s policy of unifying the two legal systems was partial and uneven at first but achieved a lasting influence.[24][26]

Challenges
Vytautas

Władysław’s baptism entirely failed to end the crusade of the Teutonic Knights, who claimed his conversion was a sham, perhaps even a heresy, and renewed their incursions on the pretext that pagans remained in Lithuania.[8][27] From now on, however, the Order found it harder to sustain the fiction of a crusade and faced the creeping threat to its existence posed by a genuinely Christian Lithuania.[28][29]

If anything, Władysław and Jadwiga’s policy of Catholicising Lithuania served to antagonise rather than disarm their Teutonic rivals. They sponsored the creation of the diocese of Vilnius under bishop Andrzej Wasilko, the former confessor of Elisabeth of Hungary. The bishopric, which included Samogitia, then largely controlled by the Teutonic Order, was subordinated to the see of Gniezno and not to that of Teutonic Königsberg.[8] The decision may not have improved Władysław's relations with the Order, but it served to introduce closer ties between Lithuania and Poland, enabling the Polish church to freely assist its Lithuanian counterpart.[11]

In 1390, Władysław's rule in Lithuania faced a revived challenge from Vytautas, who made another bid for power, provoking a civil war.[2] On 4 September 1390, the joint forces of Vytautas and the Teutonic Grand Master, Konrad von Wallenrode, lay siege to Vilnius, which was held by Władysław’s regent Skirgaila with combined Polish, Lithuanian and Ruthenian troops.[2][30] Although the Knights, "with all their powder shot away", lifted the siege of the castle after a month, they reduced much of the outer city to ruins.[31] This bloody conflict was eventually brought to a temporary halt in 1392 with the secret Treaty of Ostrów, by which Władysław handed over the government of Lithuania to his cousin in exchange for peace: Vytautas was to rule Lithuania as a grand duke until his death, under the overlordship of a supreme prince or duke in the person of the Polish monarch.[32] Vytautas accepted his new status but continued to demand Lithuania's complete separation from Poland.[33][24]

Lithuania and Poland, ca.1400.

This protracted period of war between the Lithuanians and the Teutonic Knights was ended on 12 October 1398 by the treaty of Sallinwerder, named after the islet in the Neman River where it was signed. Lithuania agreed to cede Samogitia and assist the Teutonic Order in a campaign to seize Pskov, while the Order agreed to assist Lithuania in a campaign to seize Novgorod.[24] Shortly afterwards, Vytautas was crowned as a king by local nobles; but the following year his forces and those of his ally, Khan Tokhtamysh of the White Horde, were crushed by the Timurids at the Battle of the Vorskla River, ending his imperial ambitions in the east and obliging him to submit to Władysław’s protection once more.[2][33]

King of Poland

On 22 June 1399, Jadwiga gave birth to a daughter, baptised Elżbieta Bonifacja; but within a month both mother and baby were dead from birth complications, leaving the fifty-year-old king sole ruler of Poland and without an heir. Jadwiga's death, and with it the extinction of the Angevin line, undermined Władysław's right to the throne; and as a result old conflicts between the nobility of Lesser Poland, generally sympathetic to Władysław, and the gentry of Greater Poland began to surface. In 1402, Władysław answered the rumblings against his rule by marrying Anna of Celje, a grand-daughter of Casimir III of Poland, a political match which re-legitimised his monarchy.

The Union of Vilnius and Radom of 1401 confirmed Vytautas's status as grand duke under Władysław's overlordship, while assuring the title of grand duke to the heirs of Władysław rather than those of Vytautas: should Władysław die without heirs, the Lithuanian boyars were to elect a new monarch.[34][35] Since no heir had yet been produced by either monarch, the act's implications were unforeseeable, but it forged bonds between the Polish and Lithuanian nobility and a permanent defensive alliance between the two states, strengthening Lithuania's hand for a new war against the Teutonic Order in which Poland officially took no part.[28][33] While the document left the liberties of the Polish nobles untouched, it granted increased power to the boyars of Lithuania, whose grand dukes had till then been unencumbered by checks and balances of the sort attached to the Polish monarchy. The Union of Vilnius and Radom therefore earned Władysław support in Lithuania at the expense of Vytautas.[24]

In late 1401, the new war against the Order overstretched the resources of the Lithuanians, who found themselves fighting on two fronts after uprisings in the eastern provinces. Another of Władysław’s brothers, the malcontent Švitrigaila, chose this moment to stir up revolts behind the lines and declare himself grand duke.[27] On 31 January 1402, he presented himself in Marienburg, where he won the backing of the Knights with concessions similar to those made by Jogaila and Vytautas during earlier leadership contests in the Grand Duchy.[34].

Defeat

Władysław II Jagiełło's royal seal

The war ended in defeat for Władysław. On 22 May 1404 in the Treaty of Raciąż, he acceded to most of the Order’s demands, including the formal cession of Samogitia, and agreed to support the Order's designs on Pskov; in return, Konrad von Jungingen undertook to sell Poland the disputed Dobrzyń Land and the town of Złotoryja, once pawned to the Order by Władysław Opolski, and to support Vytautas in a revived attempt on Novgorod.[34] Both sides had practical reasons for signing the treaty at that point: the Order needed time to fortify its newly aquired lands, the Poles and Lithuanians to deal with territorial challenges in the east and in Silesia.

Also in 1404, Władysław held talks at Vratislav with Wenceslas IV of Bohemia, who offered to return Silesia to Poland if Władysław would support him in his power struggle within the Holy Roman Empire.[36] Władysław turned the deal down with the agreement of both Polish and Silesian nobles, unwilling to burden himself with new military commitments in the west.[37]

Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War

Main articles: Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War and Battle of Grunwald

In December 1408, Władysław and Vytautas held strategic talks at Nowogródek, where they decided to foment a revolt against Teutonic rule in Samogitia to draw German forces away from Pomerelia. Władysław promised to repay Vytautas for his support by restoring Samogitia to Lithuania in any future peace treaty.[38] The uprising, which began in May 1409, at first provoked little reaction from the Knights, who had not yet consolidated their rule in Samogitia by building castles; but by June their diplomats were busy lobbying Władysław’s court at Oborniki, warning his nobles against Polish involvement in a war between Lithuania and the Order.[39] Władysław, however, bypassed his nobles and informed new Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen that if the Knights acted to suppress Samogitia, Poland would intervene. This stung the Order into issuing a declaration of war against Poland on August 6, which Władysław received on August 14 in Nowy Korczyn.[39]

There followed Poland's first war for 77 years. The castles guarding the northern border were in such bad condition that the Knights easily captured those at Złotoryja, Dobrzyń and Bobrowniki, the capital of Dobrzyń Land, while German burghers invited them into Bydgoszcz. Władysław arrived on the scene in late September, retook Bydgoszcz within a week, and signed a ceasefire on October 8. During the winter, the two armies prepared for a major confrontation. Władysław installed a strategic supply depot at Płock in Masovia and had a pontoon bridge constructed and transported north down the Vistula.[40]

Meanwhile, both sides unleashed diplomatic offensives. The Knights despatched letters to the monarchs of Europe, preaching their usual crusade against the heathens;[41] Władysław countered with his own letters to the monarchs, accusing the Order of planning to conquer the whole world.[42] Such appeals successfully recruited many foreign knights to each side. Wenceslas IV of Bohemia signed a defensive treaty with the Poles against the Teutonic Order; his brother, Sigismund of Luxembourg, allied himself with the Order and declared war against Poland on July 12, though his Hungarian vassals refused his call to arms.[43][44]

Battle of Grunwald

Battle of Grunwald, 1410. Painting by Jan Matejko

When the war resumed in June 1410, Władysław advanced into the Teutonic heartland at the head of an army of about 20,000 mounted nobles, 15,000 armed commoners, and 2,000 professional cavalry mainly hired from Bohemia. After crossing the Vistula over the pontoon bridge at Czerwińsk, his troops met up with those of Vytautas, whose 11,000 light cavalry included Ruthenians and Tatars.[45] The Teutonic Order's army numbered about 16,000 cavalry and 5,000 infantry. On July 15, at the Battle of Grunwald,[46] after one of the largest and most ferocious battles of the Middle Ages,[47] Władysław won a victory so overwhelming that the Teutonic Order’s army was virtually annihilated, with most of its key commanders killed in combat, including Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen and Grand Marshal Friedrich von Wallenrode. Thousands of troops were reported to have been slaughtered on either side.[48]

The Teutonic Order's castle at Marienburg

The road to the Teutonic capital Marienburg now lay open, the city undefended; but for some reason Władysław hesitated to pursue his advantage.[49] On July 17, his army began a laboured advance, arriving at Marienburg only on July 25, by which time the new Grand Master, Heinrich von Plauen, had organised a defence of the fortress.[50] The apparent half-heartedness of the ensuing siege, called off by Władysław on September 19, has been ascribed variously to the impregnability of the fortifications, to high casualty figures among the Lithuanians, and to Władysław’s unwillingness to risk further casualties; but a lack of sources precludes a definitive explanation.[51]

Final Years

Dissent

Polish and Lithuanian conflict with Prussia, 1377-1435.

The war ended in 1411 with the Peace of Toruń, in which neither Poland nor Lithuania drove home their negotiating advantage to the full, much to the discontent of the Polish nobles. Poland regained Dobrzyń Land, Lithuania regained Samogitia, and Masovia regained a small territory beyond the Wkra river. Most of the Teutonic Order’s territory, however, including towns which had surrendered, remained intact. Władysław then proceeded to release many high-ranking Teutonic Knights and officials for apparently modest ransoms.[52] This failure to exploit the victory to his nobles' satisfaction provoked growing opposition to Władysław's regime after Toruń, further fuelled by the granting of Podolia, disputed between Poland and Lithuania, to Vytautas, and by the king's two-year absence in Lithuania.[53]

A lingering Polish distrust of Władysław, who never became fluent in Polish, was expressed later in the century by the chronicler and historian Jan Długosz:

He loved his country Lithuania and his family and brothers so much that without hesitation he brought to the Polish kingdom all kinds of wars and troubles. The crown’s riches and all it carried he donated towards the enrichment and protection of Lithuania.[54]

In an effort to outflank his critics, Władysław promoted the leader of the opposing faction, bishop Mikołaj Trąba, to the archbishopric of Gniezno in autumn 1411 and replaced him in Kraków with Wojciech Jastrzębiec, a supporter of Vytautas.[53] He also sought to create more allies in Lithuania. In 1413, in the Union of Horodło, signed on October 2, he decreed that the status of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was "tied to our Kingdom of Poland permanently and irreversibly" and granted the Catholic nobles of Lithuania privileges equal to those of the Polish szlachta. The act included a clause prohibiting the Polish nobles from electing a monarch without the consent of the Lithuanian nobles, and the Lithuanian nobles from electing a grand duke without the consent of the Polish monarch.[55]

Last Conflicts

In 1414, a sporadic new war broke out, known as "the war of starvation" from the Knights’ scorched-earth tactics of burning fields and mills; but both the Knights and the Lithuanians were too exhausted from the previous war to risk a major battle, and the fighting petered out in the autumn.[53] Hostilities did not flare up again until 1419, during the Council of Constance, when they were called off at the papal legate's insistence.[53]

The Council of Constance proved a turning point in the Teutonic crusades, as it did for several European conflicts. The Polish envoys, among them Mikołaj Trąba, Zawisza Czarny, and Paweł Włodkowic, lobbied for an end to the forced conversion of heathens and to the Order’s aggression against Lithuania and Poland.[56] In 1415, they produced Samogitian witnesses, who pointed out their preference for being "baptised with water and not with blood". As a result, the council, though scandalised by Włodkowic's questioning of the monastic state's legitimacy, denied the Order's request for a further crusade and instead entrusted the conversion of the Samogitians to Poland-Lithuania.[57]

The diplomatic context at Constance included the revolt of the Bohemian Hussites, who looked upon Poland as an ally in their wars against Sigismund, the emperor elect and new king of Bohemia. In 1420, Sigismund decreed that all lands in dispute between Poland and the Knights be granted in perpetuity to the Order, including Pomerelia, Dobrzyń Land, Pomerania, and Samogitia. It was an empty threat, since he enjoyed no jurisdiction over Poland, but it was taken as a warning to Władysław, who had himself been offered the Bohemian crown after the death of King Wenceslas of Bohemia in 1419, not to meddle in Bohemian affairs.[58][59]

In 1422, Władysław fought one last war, known as the Gollub War, against the Teutonic Order, defeating them in under two months before the Order’s imperial reinforcements had time to arrive. The resulting Treaty of Lake Melno ended the Knights' claims to Samogitia once and for all and defined a permanent border between Prussia and Lithuania.[60] The terms of this treaty have, however, been seen as turning a Polish victory into defeat, thanks to Władysław's renunciation of Polish claims to Pomerania, Pomerelia, and Chełmno Land, for which he received only the town of Nieszawa in return.[61] The Treaty of Lake Melno closed a chapter in the Knights' wars with Lithuania but did little to settle their long-term issues with Poland.

Though the cooperation between Poland and Lithuania had squeezed the Teutonic Order's influence in the region, cracks in the union after the death of Vytautas in 1430 offered the Knights a revived opportunity for diplomatic interference. Władysław's decision to appoint his brother Švitrigaila as grand duke of Lithuania backfired when Švitrigaila, with the support of the Teutonic Order and dissatisfied Rus' nobles,[62] rebelled against Polish overlordship in Lithuania. Władysław was obliged to replace him with Vytautas's brother Žygimantas, whom he ordered to restore the union by force. The armed struggle over the Lithuanian succession was to stutter on for years after Władysław's death.[63]

Succession

Tomb effigy of Władysław II Jagiello, Wawel Cathedral

Władysław's second wife, Anna of Celje, had died in 1416, leaving a daughter, Jadwiga. In 1417, Władysław married Elisabeth of Pilica, who died in 1420 without bearing him a child, and two years later, Sophia of Halshany, who rewarded him with not one but two surviving sons. The death in 1431 of Princess Jadwiga, the last heir of Piast blood, released Władysław to make his sons by Sophia of Halshany his heirs, though he had to sweeten the Polish nobles with concessions to ensure their agreement, since the monarchy was elective. Władysław finally died in 1434, in his eighties, leaving Poland to his elder son, Władysław III, and Lithuania to his younger, Casimir, both still minors at the time.

Jan Długosz left this description of Władysław's last moments:

Suddenly, after the mild spring, it became very cold, as if another winter had arrived, destroying the spring crops, the flowers, and the bursting tree buds with the frost. The king, oblivious to the bitter cold, went out into the woods as was his habit, a remnant of his pagan days, to listen to the nightingale and to rejoice in her sweet songs…but he caught cold and…was taken ill. Finally, fully conscious…he fell asleep in the arms of the clergy.[64]

Family tree

Main article: Family relations of Władysław II of Poland
Family tree of Władysław II[65]
Gediminas
b. ca. 1275
d. 1341 		Jewna
b. ca. 1280
d. 1344 		Alexander I of Tver
b. 1301
d. 22 X 1339 		Anastasia of Halych
         
     
  Algirdas
b. ca. 1296
d. maj 1377 		Uliana Alexandrovna of Tver
b. ca. 1330
d. 1392
     
   
1
Jadwiga I of Poland
b. 1374
d. 17 VII 1399
OO   18 II 1386 		2
Anna of Celje
b. 1380/81
d. 21 I 1416
OO   29 I 1402 		Władysław II Jagiełło
b. ca. 1362
d. 1 VI 1434 		3
Elżbieta Pilecka
b. 1372
d. 12 V 1420
OO   2 V 1417 		4
Sophia of Halsany
b. ca. 1405
d. 21 IX 1461
OO   7 II 1422
                   
   1    2    4    4    4
Elżbieta Bonifacja
 b. 22 VI 1399
 d. 13 VII 1399
  		Jadwiga
 b. 8 IV 1408
 d. 8 XII 1431
  		Władysław III
 b. 31 X 1424
 d. 10 XI 1444
  		Kazimierz
 b. 16 V 1426
 d. 2 III 1427
  		Kazimierz IV
 b. 30 XI 1427
 d. 7 VI 1492
 

See also

Notes

  1. ^ He is known under a number of names: Lithuanian: Jogaila Algirdaitis; Polish: Władysław II Jagiełło; Belarusian: Jahajła (Ягайла). For the sake of simplicity this article uses the Lithuanian form Jogaila for the early period of his life and the Polish form Władysław for the period following his accession to the Polish throne. (See also: Jogaila (Władysław II Jagiello): names and titles).
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Bojtár, 180–186.
  3. ^ Translated as high king (perceived as king over lesser rulers) in modern Lithuanian studies, and in other works either as grand duke or grand prince, kunigaikštis is a cognate of king, and didysis magnifies it. See Rowell, 65-69,] for the nature of didysis kunigaikštis in practice.
  4. ^ "Wladyslaw II Jagiello". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006.
  5. ^ The nature of this dual rule (as also practised between Jogaila and Kęstutis and later between Jogaila and Vytautas) "...reflects political expediency; it certainly does not meet the formal definition of diarchy as 'rule by two independent authorities'...those two leaders were not equal: the grand duke in Vilnius was supreme". Rowell, 68.]
  6. ^ The former Russian principalities Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, Kiev, Volhynia, Podlasie, and Podolia retained the local laws and privileges which they had enjoyed before coming under Lithuanian supremacy. Every new grand duke of Lithuania confirmed these privileges and promised not to submit the native populations to the Lithuanian court. Dvornik, 342.
  7. ^ Lukowski and Zawadzki, 40.
  8. ^ a b c d e f The New Cambridge Medieval History, 709-712. Cite error: The named reference "Jones" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ Whether Kęstutis died of natural causes or was murdered is debated by historians, some of whom believe that Jogaila had Kęstutis killed. "Jogaila murdered the stubborn uncle in a quarrel at the end of 1382." Endre Bojtár, 181. "Jogaila himself had come to power in 1382 with the murder of his uncle Kestutis." Lukowski and Zawadzki, p 34. , Vytautas, during his second Prussian refuge of 1390, was recorded as saying: "Jogaila captured our father and killed him; he also killed our mother and imprisoned me". Quoted by Mickunaite, 157, from a Teutonic chancellery document titled dis ist witoldes sache wedir jagaln und skirgaln.
  10. ^ Mickunaite, 157.
  11. ^ a b c d Kłoczowski, 54-57.
  12. ^ Kosman, Drogi zaniku pogaństwa u Bałtów, 22.
  13. ^ The historian John Meyendorff suggests that Jogaila may already have been an Orthodox Christian: "In 1377, Olgerd of Lithuania died, leaving the Grand Principality to his son Jagiello, an Orthodox Christian...". Byzantium and the Rise of Russia, 205; Dmitri, however, made it a condition of the marriage that Jogaila "should be baptized in the Orthodox faith and that he should proclaim his Christianity to all men". Document quoted by Dvornik, 221.
  14. ^ "The decision by the barons of Malopolska to offer the throne to a pagan ruler was one of the most remarkable in the annals of medieval Europe." Lukowski and Zawadzki, 34. Jadwiga had actually been crowned king of Poland (rex poloni), because the Polish political system made no provision for a queen regnant. Stone, 8.
  15. ^ "The term used for 'incorporate' in 1385—applicare—has given rise to much acrimonious discussion between Polish and Lithuanian historians, but the Poles had no doubt of what it meant at the time." Lukowski and Zawadzki, 34.
  16. ^ "The decision to enter into a union...reflects the exceptional far-sightedness of the political elites ruling both countries." Kłoczowski, 55."The union with Poland and the acceptance of Latin Christianity were a desperate gamble by Jogaila to avert a seemingly inevitable subjugation." Lukowski and Zawadzki, 38.
  17. ^ A Slavic name that roughly translates as the one who rules the fame or the one who praises power, Władysław is often Latinised into either Wladislaus or Ladislaus. The choice evoked both Władysław I of Poland, the Elbow-high, who unified the kingdom a century before, and Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary, a king who sided with the pope against the emperor Henry IV and Christianised Transylvania. The New Cambridge Medieval History, 709-712.
  18. ^ Lukowski and Zawadzki, 33-45; Stone, 16.
  19. ^ a b Kosman, Jagiełło królem Polski: z dziejów unii Polski i Litwy, 79.
  20. ^ Physiognomical details provided by the chronicler Jan Długosz. Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 23.
  21. ^ "Wherever he traveled, he always carried a razor, scissors, brushes, and an ivory comb. He shaved his beard daily, and to the surprise of all the Poles, he even bathed every day." M.Kuczynski, quoted by Vanda Sruogienė-Sruoga, Jogaila (1350–1434)
  22. ^ And according to mid-fifteenth-century chronicler Jan Długosz, his pleasures further included the exercise of a prodigious sex drive, "not only in permitted ways but also in forbidden ones". Quoted by Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 23.
  23. ^ Stone, 8.
  24. ^ a b c d e f Jasienica, 80-146.
  25. ^ By the time of the Union of Lublin in 1569, there was not much difference between the administrative and judicial systems in force in Lithuania and Poland. Dvornik, 344.
  26. ^ a b Housley, 354.
  27. ^ a b Sedlar, 388.
  28. ^ Turnbull, Crusader Castles of the Teuton Knights (2), 22.
  29. ^ The Teutonic forces consisted largely of volunteers and mercenaries from western Europe, notably from France, the German states, and England. Jasienica, 83–84.
  30. ^ The phrase "with all their powder shot away" is quoted by Stephen Turnbull from the chronicler Wigand of Marburg; Turnbull also mentions that Henry Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV of England, took part in the siege of Vilnius. Turnbull, Crusader Castles of the Teutonic Knights (2), 53-4.
  31. ^ Władysław would adopt the higher title dux supremus, with Vytautas styled magnus dux. The New Cambridge Medieval History, 732. Skirgaila was moved from the duchy of Trakai to become prince of Kiev. Stone, 10.]
  32. ^ a b c Dvornik, 222-225.
  33. ^ a b c Paweł Jasienica, 103-105.
  34. ^ Stone, 11.
  35. ^ The imperial electors had deposed Wenceslaus as King of the Romans four years earlier. The New Cambridge Medieval History, 348.
  36. ^ "Śląsk w polityce Piastów (Silesia within the policies of the Piasts)". Polska Piastów. 2005. Retrieved 2006-08-09.
  37. ^ Karwasińska, 21.
  38. ^ a b Jasienica, 106-107.
  39. ^ Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 32-33.
  40. ^ French chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet's perspective on the conflict reveals how ingrained was the crusading view of events: "The King of Poland, who was a great enemy of the Grand Master of Prussia and had just recently pretended to become a Christian in order to win the Polish crown, came with his Poles to the aid of the Saracens". Quoted by Delbrück, The Barbarian Invasions, 526; For their part, the Polish envoys protested that the Knights "take from us milk and wool, suck our blood, and devour the meat from our bones." Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 20.
  41. ^ Władysław’s letter is preserved in several copies, as cited by Jasienica, p 108.
  42. ^ Jasienica, 110.
  43. ^ Sigismund had secretly advised the Order that by employing "heathens or schismatics" the Poles and Lithuanians would provide "a just and reasonable cause" for hostility. Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 21.
  44. ^ Stone, 16.
  45. ^ The battle is also known as the battle of Tannenberg.
  46. ^ Bojtár, Foreword to the Past, 182; Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 7.
  47. ^ Stone, 16.
  48. ^ "There can be few other examples in history of a battle so decisively won and a subsequent campaign that so singularly failed to achieve its aims." From the introduction to Stephen Turnbull's Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 7.
  49. ^ Stone, 17.
  50. ^ Paweł Jasienica, in his monumental Polska Jagiellonów, suggests Władysław, as a Lithuanian, might have wished to preserve the equilibrium between Lithuania and Poland, the Lithuanians having suffered particularly heavy casualties in the battle. Jasienica, 113-120; Other historians point out that Władysław might have assumed Marienburg was impregnable and therefore seen no advantage in a lengthy siege with no guarantee of success. Stone, 17.
  51. ^ The cumulative expense of the ransoms, however, proved a drain on the Order's resources."The defeat at Grunwald cost the Order vast sums in ransom money." The New Cambridge Medieval History, 364. The Order never recovered its strength after Grunwald: in an effort to meet their expenses, the Knights introduced riot-provoking taxes and debased their currency, but by 1419, 20% of Order land had been deserted—in southern Pomerelia more than 50% of landholdings lay abandoned and in the Schwetz (Świecie) 80%. Stone, 17.
  52. ^ a b c d Jasienica, 121-124.
  53. ^ Długosz also delivered the following verdict on Władysław: "He was so far removed from the bloodshed that he forgave even the chief offenders, and to the conquered he was always merciful…His unsensible generosity harmed the country more than did those who were stingy and greedy for wealth". Vanda Sruogienė-Sruoga, Jogaila (1350–1434)
  54. ^ Stone, 11; Dvornik, 342-3; New Cambridge Medieval History, 775-6.
  55. ^ Pawel Wlodkowic’s Tractatus de potestate papae et imperatoris respectu infidelium (Treatise on the Power of the Pope and the Emperor Over the Infidels) condemned the Teutonic Order for its wars of conquest and the extermination of native non-Christian peoples in Prussia and Lithuania, likened Władysław to the apostles for the Christianisation of Lithuania, and proposed that pagan and Christian nations live together in peace. Kłoczowski, 73.
  56. ^ Housley, 351-361.
  57. ^ Jasienica, 128-130.
  58. ^ Rogalski, 161-166.
  59. ^ Lithuania was given the province of Samogitia, with the port of Palanga, but the city of Klaipeda was left to the Order. Stone, 11. This border remained largely unchanged for roughly 500 years, until 1920.
  60. ^ Jasienica, 130.
  61. ^ This reflected a "mobilisation of Rus' identity" during the 1430s. Plokhy, 98.
  62. ^ Stone, 11.; Plokhy, 98.
  63. ^ Vanda Sruogienė-Sruoga, Jogaila (1350–1434)
  64. ^ Ryszard Jurzak, Władysław II Jagiełło, in Genealogy, (2006). Retrieved 2006-09-27.

References

Preceded by Grand Duke of Lithuania
1377–1381 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Grand Duke of Lithuania
1382–1386 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
none
 Supreme Prince of Lithuania
1386–1434 		Succeeded by
none
Preceded by King of Poland
1386–1434 		Succeeded by

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