Vytautas the Great as shown on Jan Matejko’s oil painting of the Battle of Grunwald
THE FOUNDATION OF THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN UNION AND QUEEN JADWIGA
It is now more and more generally admitted that in the course of European history the real Middle Ages ended toward the end of the fourteenth century and are separated from the modern period, in the proper sense, by two centuries of transition which correspond to the flowering of the Renaissance and of its political conceptions. This is, however, particularly evident in the history of East Central Europe, and here it was the creation and development of the federal system of the Jagellonians which set the pattern of these two hundred years.
It was much more than a union of Poland and Lithuania under the dynasty founded by Jogaila—in Poland called Jagiello—a union which for two more centuries survived the extinction of that royal family in 1572. From the outset it included all Ruthenian lands what now is called White Russia and the Ukraine and such a body politic extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea attracted smaller neighboring territories because of the possibilities of free, autonomous development guaranteed by its structure. On the Baltic shore the Union was gradually enlarged through the inclusion of the German colonial states in Prussia and Livonia either directly or in the form of fiefs. In the Black Sea region, the Danubian principalities, particularly Moldavia, and temporarily the Crimea also, were in the Union’s sphere of influence. And at the height of the power of the Jagellonians, members of that dynasty were kings of Bohemia and of Hungary. The whole of East Central Europe, as far as it was free from the German, Ottoman, and Muscovite empires, was thus united in a political system which protected that freedom.
Even more efficiently, that system promoted the progress and spread of Western culture in East Central Europe, not through German influence, now in decline, but through direct cooperation with the Latin world, which was at the same time a powerful stimulus for the development of individual, national cultures in the various parts of the whole region. As a whole, it was a bulwark of Catholicism, favoring a reunion of the Orthodox population with Rome but without enforcing it, and also being influenced by the conflicting religious trends of the Reformation. These trends, as well as those of the Renaissance, reached precisely as far as the eastern boundaries of the Jagellonian Union. Created by a dynasty, the federation was developed with the growing participation of representatives of the constituent nations and thus promoted a parliamentary form of government in between absolute powers.
When Jogaila, grand duke of Lithuania, was accepted as husband of Queen Jadwiga by her Polish advisers and by her mother, the widow of Louis of Hungary, the whole project seemed to be just one more dynastic combination, as were so many other succession treaties of the same century. But when the young queen herself agreed to give up her Austrian fiancee, it was a sacrifice inspired by her desire thus to convert the last pagan nation in Europe. The conversion not only of Jogaila and his dynasty but also of the Lithuanian people was indeed the first condition which the grand duke had to accept when on August 14, 1385, he signed the Treaty of Krewo with the Polish delegates. Furthermore, he promised to regain the territorial losses of both states—a clear reference to the conquests of the Teutonic Order—and to unite these states by what was called terras suas Lithuaniae et Russiae Coronae Regni Poloniae perpetuo applicare.
That brief but momentous formula is not easy to interpret. A comparison with similar contemporaneous texts indicates that it was decided that the various Lithuanian and Ruthenian duchies, which hitherto had recognized the grand duke’s suzerainty, would now be fiefs of the crown of Poland which Jogaila was to obtain through his marriage. As a matter of fact, immediately after the wedding, which was celebrated in Cracow on February 18, 1386, preceded by Jogaila’s baptism under the Christian name of Wladyslaw and followed by his coronation as king of Poland, the various members of his dynasty, ruling in the constituent parts of his realm, paid formal homage to the crown, the king, and the queen of Poland.
In February, 1387, the king returned to Lithuania where the Catholic faith was now accepted without any difficulty. A bishopric was founded in Vilnius (now called Vilna in Latin and Wilno in Polish), and charters of liberties on the Polish model were granted to the Church and the knighthood of Lithuania. At the same time the queen conducted an expedition into the Halich province. With only one of the Hungarian governors trying to resist, the whole region with Lwow as its capital was restored to Poland without using force and at once received the usual privileges. And it was here that for the first time the homage of a prince of Moldavia was received, followed by a close alliance with Wallachia. While in the north, the last prince of Smolensk became another ally, and the Republic of Novgorod seemed ready to accept one of Jagiello’s brothers as ruling prince.
These successes, which completely changed the map of Europe, were of course a challenge to Poland’s and Lithuania’s old opponents. Moscow tried to create trouble among the Lithuanian princes in her neighborhood, but the main opposition came from the Teutonic Order. Once more it was Vytautas—called Vitold in Latin and Polish sources—who was used as an appropriate instrument. He too had signed the Treaty of Krewo and paid the requested homage, but he was deeply disappointed when the king chose one of his brothers as his lieutenant in the most important part of Lithuania instead of this brilliant and ambitious cousin. Therefore Vytautas escaped for the second time to the Teutonic Knights in the winter of 1389—1390. Hoping also for the support of Moscow, whose grand prince, Vasil I, had married his daughter, he again tried to conquer Lithuania with German assistance. Pretending that the conversion of the country was not really accomplished, the Order continued to organize crusades, even with the participation of French and English knights. But Wilno was defended with Polish help, and after two years of inconclusive fighting, the king succeeded in recalling his cousin. Both were reconciled in the Ostrow Agreement of 1392, which not only restored his patrimony to Vytautas but also entrusted him with the administration of all Lithuanian and Ruthenian lands.
He first united all these provinces under his control, removing the local princes, even those who were brothers of Jagiello, and replacing them with his own governors. Then he started a foreign policy, rich in initiative and versatility but not always in agreement with the general interests of the federation and going beyond the possibilities of Lithuania herself. Chiefly interested in her eastern expansion, he was prepared to appease the Teutonic Order not only at the expense of Poland, which the Knights of the Cross planned to partition through secret negotiations with the Luxemburgs and one of the Silesian princes, but also sacrificing the important Lithuanian province of Samogitia, as he had done before, and giving up promising possibilities of cooperation with the Livonian hierarchy. A separate peace which Vytautas concluded with the Order in 1398, not without hope of becoming an independent king of Lithuania, was to facilitate his interference with Tartar problems. Supporting the adversaries of Tamerlane, he expected to control all Eastern Europe.
Queen Jadwiga, who throughout these critical years had contributed to the peaceful cooperation of all members of the dynasty, was alarmed by Vytautas’ ambition and predicted that his expedition against Tamerlane’s lieutenants would end in failure. Indeed, Vytautas suffered a complete defeat in the battle of the Vorskla, in August 1399, in spite of the support of many Polish knights. He then had to limit himself to the defense of the prewar frontier along the Dnieper River and the Black Sea coast which he had reached in earlier campaigns. A few weeks before, on the 17th of July, the Queen of Poland died, soon after her newborn daughter. The situation was now propitious for a fair solution of the controversial problems regarding the structure of the Polish-Lithuanian Union and the personal role of Vytautas, a solution which Jadwiga had carefully prepared.
In a new agreement made with King Wladyslaw Jagiello at the end of 1400, Vytautas, realizing that Lithuania could not stand alone, accepted the idea that she would remain permanently under the Polish crown but as a restored unit of her various lands. Wherever feudal principalities still existed, they were now recognized as fiefs of the grand duchy, which as a whole would continue to be a fief of the kingdom of Poland, Vytautas acting as grand duke on behalf of the king. In practice such an arrangement guaranteed to Lithuania not only full autonomy but also a development in the direction of full equality. Equally important was the fact that early in 1401 the Union thus amended was confirmed in charters issued by the representatives of both nations, promising each other full support against all enemies. It was no longer a dynastic affair but a real federation.
Such a development was possible because the Lithuanians were making rapid progress not only in the participation in their country’s government but also in the cultural field, benefitting in both respects from their close association with Poland. Here, again, Queen Jadwiga had made a decisive contribution which fully matured only after her death. She was not only encouraging the Christianization of Lithuania and projects of religious union with the Orthodox Ruthenians, but she also wanted to reorganize the University of Cracow, which had declined after the death of its founder, Casimir the Great, and to make it a center of Western cultural influence and missionary activities in the eastern part of the federation. After first founding a college for Lithuanians at the University of Prague, she obtained from Pope Boniface IX, with whom she frequently cooperated, permission to add a school of theology to the University of Cracow. It was as a full studium generale, on the model of the Sorbonne, that this university was reopened in 1400, richly endowed by the will of the queen and soon attracting many Lithuanians, one of whom was its second rector.
Queen Jadwiga was considered a saint by her contemporaries, and even from a secular point of view her achievements and her lasting significance in history can hardly be overrated. Devoted to the idea of peace, she tried to postpone the unavoidable conflict with the Teutonic Order and to arrive at some understanding with the Luxemburg dynasty, not only with Václav of Bohemia, the king of the Romans, but also with Sigismund, from whom she did not reclaim her Hungarian heritage after the death of her sister Mary, his wife. But when she herself died without leaving children, it seemed doubtful whether Jagiello would have any hereditary rights in Poland. He was, indeed, re-elected, but when he later had children by other marriages, the problem of their succession was an additional difficulty in the settlement of the constitutional issues of the federation.
