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Alexander Jagiellon

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Alexander I Jagiellon
Engraving of Alexander, 1521
Grand Duke of Lithuania
Reign30 July 1492 – 19 August 1506
Coronation30 July 1492 in Vilnius Cathedral
PredecessorCasimir IV Jagiellon
SuccessorSigismund I the Old
King of Poland
Reign12 December 1501 – 19 August 1506
Coronation12 December 1501 in Wawel Cathedral
PredecessorJohn I Albert
SuccessorSigismund I the Old
Born(1461-08-05)5 August 1461
Kraków, Poland
Died19 August 1506(1506-08-19) (aged 45)
Vilnius, Lithuania
Burial
Vilnius Cathedral, Vilnius,
Lithuania (1506)
SpouseHelena of Moscow
DynastyJagiellon
FatherCasimir IV Jagiellon
MotherElisabeth Habsburg of Hungary
SignatureAlexander I Jagiellon's signature

Alexander I Jagiellon (Template:Lang-pl; Template:Lang-lt) (5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506) of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland.[1] He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jagiellon. He was elected Grand Duke of Lithuania on the death of his father (1492), and King of Poland on the death of his brother John I Albert (1501).

Biography

Coat of Arms of Alexander I Jagiellon
Coat of Arms of Alexander I Jagiellon

Alexander was born as son of the King Casimir IV Jagiellon of Poland and Elisabeth Habsburg of Hungary, daughter of the King Albert of Hungary. Alexander's shortage of funds immediately made him subservient to the Polish Senate and nobility (szlachta), who deprived him of control of the mint (then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue for the Polish kings), curtailed his prerogatives, and generally endeavored to reduce him to a subordinate position. For want of funds, Alexander was unable to resist the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights or prevent Grand Duke of Muscovy Ivan III from ravaging Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the Tatars. The most the Grand Duke of Lithuania could do was to garrison Smolensk and other strongholds and employ his wife Helena, the Tsar's daughter, to mediate a truce between his father-in-law and himself after the disastrous Battle of Vedrosha (1500). In the terms of the truce, Lithuania had to surrender about a third of its territory to the nascent expansionist Russian state.

During his reign, Poland suffered much humiliation at the hands of her subject principality, Moldavia. Only the death of Stephen, the great hospodar of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her own on the Danube River; while the liberality of Pope Julius II, who issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favor of Poland and granted Alexander Peter's Pence and other financial help, enabled him to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic Order.

Alexander Jagellon never felt at home in Poland, and bestowed his favor principally upon his fellow Lithuanians, the most notable of whom was the wealthy Lithuanian magnate Michael Glinski, who justified his master's confidence by his great victory over the Tatars at Kleck (5 August 1506), news of which was brought to Alexander on his deathbed in Vilnius. There is some evidence that he had at least one son, leading to a surviving Jagiellonian branch, although this is not conclusive.[2]

It is important to note that Alexander was the last known ruler of the Gediminids dynasty to have maintained the family's ancestral Lithuanian language.[citation needed] From his death, Polish became the sole language of the family, thus fully Polonising the Jagiello family.

In 1931, during the refurbishment of Vilnius Cathedral, the forgotten sarcophagus of Alexander was discovered, and has since been put on display.

Ancestors

Family of Alexander Jagiellon
16. Gediminas of Lithuania
8. Algirdas, King of Lithuania
17. Jewna of Polotsk
4. Vladislaus II, King of Poland
18. Alexander I, Grand Prince of Tver
9. Uliana Alexandrovna of Tver
19. Anastasia Yuryevna of Halych
2. Casimir IV, King of Poland
20. Ivan Olgimuntovich, Prince of Halshany
10. Andrew, Prince of Halshany
21. Agrippina
5. Sophia of Halshany
22. Dimitri of Drutsk (possibly Demetrius I Starshy)
11. Alexandra Dimitrijevna Drutskoy
1. Alexander, King of Poland
24. Albert III, Duke of Austria
12. Albert IV, Duke of Austria
25. Beatrice of Hohenzollern-Nuremberg
6. Albert II of Germany
26. Albert I, Duke of Bavaria
13. Johanna Sophia of Bavaria
27. Margaret of Brieg
3. Elizabeth of Austria
28. Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
14. Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
29. Elizabeth of Pomerania
7. Elisabeth of Bohemia
30. Hermann II of Celje
15. Barbara of Celje
31. Anna, Countess of Schaunberg

See also

References

Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

  1. ^ Jerzy Jan Lerski, Piotr Wróbel, Richard J. Kozicki (1996). Historical dictionary of Poland, 966–1945. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-26007-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ http://ciekawostkihistoryczne.pl/2011/12/28/krolewska-poradnia-malzenska-aleksander-jagiellonczyk-i-helena-moskiewska/
  3. ^ Wawel Castle. History of the Royal Residence.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexander of Poland.
Preceded by Grand Duke of Lithuania
1492–1506 		Succeeded by
Preceded by King of Poland
1501–1506
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