8: The Times of Wladyslaw Jagiello and Sigismund of Luxemburg, the Foundation of the Polish-Lithuanian Union and Queen Jadwiga
<< 7: The New Forces of the Fourteenth Century || 9: The Later Fifteenth Century >>
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.
JAGIELLO AND VYTAUTAS
Fortunately for both Poland and Lithuania, in the following years and for more than a
quarter of a century there was loyal cooperation between King Wladyslaw II and his cousin,
a return—at last—to the friendship which had united their fathers. They both
developed Jadwiga’s heritage and led the united countries to unprecedented successes.
Their cooperation was based upon the Covenant of 1401, which in addition to the settlement
of the internal problems of the federation also provided for a common defense against the
Teutonic Order. That problem, including the recovery of the territories which had been
lost to the Order by Poland and Lithuania, remained the main objective of their foreign
policy.
Still unprepared for a decisive struggle, both countries had to
conclude a peace treaty with the Knights of the Cross in 1404. This was a first
recognition of the Polish-Lithuanian Union by the Order, but otherwise it proved rather
unsatisfactory. Only a small frontier district was restored to the Poles, who had to
redeem it through a payment approved by a formal vote of the regional dietines—a
first appearance of those assemblies that were to be basic for the development of the
Polish Parliament. Samogitia, however, seemed to be definitely abandoned by Lithuania, and
Vytautas turned once more to problems of eastern expansion. He secured the possession of
Smolensk and with Polish assistance conducted three campaigns against his son-in-law,
Vasil of Moscow, with the result that in 1408 the Ugra River was fixed as the frontier
between the two powers.
But the people of Samogitia suffered so much under German rule,
which tried in vain to enforce their conversion, that in 1409 they started an insurrection
which Vytautas could not but support, at least unofficially. When, consequently, the
Teutonic Order threatened to attack Lithuania proper once more, the Poles declared their
full solidarity so that the knights preferred to invade the richer Polish territories, not
without initial success. Both sides now prepared for what was to be the “great
war” of the following year. Carefully planned strategically by the king and the grand
duke, the campaign of 1410 was also preceded by what might be called a flow of propaganda
throughout all Western Christendom, as far as France and England. In reply to the
Order’s charges that Lithuania was not really converted, the Poles tried to explain
that the basic issue was the defense of that new Catholic nation against German
aggression.
Anticipating another invasion, a strong Polish-Lithuanian army
entered Prussia and on July 15th met almost equally strong and better equipped German
forces between Tannenberg and Grunwald. Under the supreme command of Jagiello, and in
spite of a withdrawal of the Lithuanian wing at the beginning of the battle, it ended in a
complete defeat of the Order, whose grand master, Ulrich of Jungingen, was killed in
action with most of his knights. The Order never recovered from that unexpected blow, and
its whole territory seemed open to its former victims.
That great victory, one of the greatest in Polish history, was,
however, poorly utilized. Marienburg, the capital of the Teutonic Knights, was well
defended by Heinrich von Plauen, and when the siege dragged on, while German
reinforcements were approaching from Livonia, Vytautas returned to Lithuania. In spite of
another Polish victory, peace had to be concluded at Torun (Thorn) in 1411 on very
disappointing conditions. Poland’s gains were insignificant, and Samogitia was
restored to Lithuania only for the lifetime of Jagiello and his cousin. That ambiguous
situation, as well as endless controversies regarding the indemnities which the Order
promised to pay in successive instalments, made the peace very precarious from the outset.
Yet the prestige of the Polish-Lithuanian federation was greatly increased, both in the
West, where it was at last realized that a new great power had appeared in the state
system of Catholic Europe, and in the East, where both rulers reviewed their border
regions, making favorable agreements with Russian and Tartar neighbors and solidly
establishing their domination as far as the Black Sea.
Another result of Grunwald was a strengthening of the Union,
evidenced in a new series of charters which were issued at Horodlo in 1413. At this
Polish-Lithuanian convention, which was to be followed by similar meetings whenever
necessary, the permanence of Lithuania’s ties with the crown of Poland was once more
confirmed, but at the same time her autonomy under a separate grand duke, even after the
death of Vytautas, was formally guaranteed. The liberties granted to the Catholic boyars
of Lithuania were extended on the pattern of the Polish constitution, and forty-seven of
their leading families were adopted by so many Polish clans and permitted to use the same
coats of arms in the future. That unusual gesture of symbolic fraternity was in full
agreement with the principles expressed in the introductory statement of the Polish
charter, which emphasized that government and politics ought to be based upon the misterium
caritatis.
Another application of these principles was the joint action of
all parts of the federation at the Council of Constance which opened one year later. It
was decided to submit the whole controversy with the Teutonic Order to that international
assembly through a well-chosen delegation which also participated in the main religious
discussions of the council. The Polish delegates were led by the Archbishop of Gniezno,
henceforth Primate of Poland. The prominent theologian Paulus Vladimiri, rector of the
University of Cracow, which closely cooperated with that of Paris, played a particularly
significant part. In his treatises on papal and imperial power he developed before the
council almost revolutionary ideas on national self-determination and religious tolerance,
also recalling the traditional doctrine of the church in matters of war and peace. In the
application of those principles he defended the rights of the Lithuanians against German
imperialism, but he was immediately answered by a German Dominican, John Falkenberg, who
on the instructions of the Teutonic Order branded the King of Poland as a pagan tyrant
whom true Christians had the right and even the duty to put to death.
In connection with the problem of tyrannicidium, also
raised in the dispute between France and Burgundy, that debate attracted the attention of
the whole council but of course could not contribute to any solution of the
Polish-Prussian conflict. The Poles did not even succeed in having Falkenberg’s
doctrine condemned as heretical, but they created a great impression when a special
delegation from Samogitia confirmed both the charges against the Teutonic Order and the
fact that Jagiello and Vytautas were peacefully Christianizing that last pagan stronghold
which German pressure had failed to convert. Scarcely less impressive was the appearance
at Constance of the Metropolitan of Kiev, a Bulgarian recently elected under the influence
of Vytautas, who in his address before Pope Martin V declared that he was ready for
religious union with Rome. It seemed that soon after the end of the Western
schism—the council’s greatest success—the old Eastern schism could also be
healed, thanks to the initiative of the Polish-Lithuanian federation which included so
many Orthodox Ruthenians, who were also represented at Constance by numerous delegates.
After establishing diplomatic relations with France and England
and making an alliance with Eric of Denmark, the ruler of all Scandinavian countries
federated in the Union of Kalmar, the King of Poland and his cousin were in a better
position to resume the struggle against the Teutonic Knights, which neither imperial nor
papal arbitration could appease. After two abortive campaigns, the war of 1422 was ended
by the Melno Treaty which slightly improved the Polish frontier and definitely attributed
Samogitia to Lithuania. At the same time Jagiello and Vytautas, at the request of the
moderate wing of the Hussites who wanted one of them to accept the royal crown of Bohemia,
were interfering with the internal troubles of that Slavic neighbor country which was
included in the German Empire. They had to proceed very carefully, however, in order to
avoid any appearance of supporting heretical revolutionaries whose reconciliation with the
Catholic church proved impossible. There was, indeed, among the Poles a certain sympathy
with the Hussite movement, but it was opposed by the majority which in 1424 concluded a
confederation in defense of Catholicism and found a prominent leader in the Bishop of
Cracow, Zbigniew Olesnicki, whose influence was growing in the later part of
Jagiello’s reign.
The aging king had just contracted a fourth marriage with a
Lithuanian princess who at last gave him the long-expected sons. They had, however, no
hereditary rights to the Polish crown, which became elective, although in practice
everybody wanted Jagiello’s highly successful rule to be continued by his
descendants. But the nobility made the formal recognition of the succession of one of the
young princes, dependent on a confirmation and extension of the rights and privileges
which the king had granted in a series of constitutional charters. These rights included,
among others, the neminem captivabimus, i.e., the promise that nobody would be put
in prison without trial.
Final agreement between the king and the nation was not reached
before 1430, and then in the midst of a conflict with Vytautas. After thirty years of
cooperation, this disagreement now threatened the very foundations of the whole political
system. In the preceding years the ambitious Grand Duke of Lithuania, frequently
participating in the solution of Polish problems also, had profited from the union of both
countries in order to extend his influence in all Eastern Europe. Under his efficient
rule, even the danger of Tartar invasions had been reduced, a friendly Khan had been
established in the Crimea, and the control of the coast of the Black Sea had been made
complete. Furthermore, when Vasil I of Moscow died in 1425, his minor son, Vasil II, was
placed under the tutorship of his maternal grandfather, Vytautas, who thus included even
Muscovite Russia in his sphere of influence. Occasional expeditions against Pskov and
Novgorod created a similar situation with regard to these two republics, each of which
tried to maintain an independent position between Lithuania, Moscow, and the German
Knights of Livonia.
The power of Vytautas reached its climax when in 1429, in his
city of Lutsk in Volhynia, he acted as host to a congress in which not only the King of
Poland but also Sigismund of Luxemburg, king of the Romans, of Hungary, and Bohemia,
participated, along with representatives of many other countries of Western and Eastern
Europe. Similar to an earlier meeting held in Cracow in 1424, this congress was supposed
to review the whole political situation of East Central Europe, and the presence of a
papal legate also permitted inclusion of the religious problems. But it was precisely one
of these problems, the Hussite revolution in Bohemia, which Sigismund did not want to have
touched by the Polish-Lithuanian federation, now the leading power in the whole region and
his and Germany’s most dangerous rival. He therefore raised an unexpected question
which was to disrupt that federation. He suggested that Vytautas be made an independent
king of Lithuania.
The grand duke realized the danger of that diplomatic move
better than Jagiello, who at first favored it for dynastic reasons. But offended by the
protest of the Poles, Vytautas was inclined to accept the royal crown offered by
Sigismund, who himself was not yet crowned as Holy Roman Emperor. A compromise solution
which would have made Vytautas a king under the auspices not of Sigismund but of the pope
was being considered when Lithuania’s greatest leader died in 1430, leaving open the
controversial problems of Polish-Lithuanian relations which were involved in the whole
issue.
THE EASTERN POLICY OF SIGISMUND OF LUXEMBURG
Sigismund’s action during and after the Congress of Lutsk was nothing but the
climax of his eastern policy, which from the beginning opposed to the Polish-Lithuanian
Union the old idea of the control of all East Central Europe by a German dynasty ruling
the empire.
Between the two sons of Emperor Charles IV, who one after the
other succeeded him as kings of the Romans and of Bohemia, Venceslas (Václav) and
Sigismund represented two different policies. The elder, who had received a Czech name,
rather identified himself with his Bohemian kingdom which he governed from 1378 until his
death in 1419. Even here his achievements can hardly be compared with those of his father,
and in Germany he was a complete failure. He never obtained the imperial crown, was
deposed by the electors in 1400, and after a schism in the empire parallel to that in the
church, was replaced in 1410 by his younger brother.
Sigismund had first been made margrave of Brandenburg by his
father, and he had been engaged to Mary, one of the daughters of Louis of Hungary. They
were supposed to rule Poland after Louis’ death, and although Mary was elected Queen
of Hungary in 1382, her German fiancee did not give up hope of also becoming King of
Poland. Disappointed in this respect, he never forgave his happier rival Jagiello, and
this was one of the reasons why, in contradistinction to Venceslas who temporarily was
even allied with Poland, Sigismund, in spite of repeated rapprochements, actually remained
hostile to that country as long as he lived.
In Hungary, too, Sigismund was from the outset opposed as a
German. Only after several years of civil war, in which the Anjou candidate, Charles of
Naples, as well as Mary’s mother were murdered, was the margrave of Brandenburg
recognized as king in 1387. During the fifty years of his reign in Hungary, Sigismund was
seriously interested in the defense of that country against the Turkish onslaught. The
crusade which he organized in 1396, in cooperation with Burgundy and with the support of
knights from Germany and other lands, ended in the defeat at Nicopolis and failed to check
the Turkish advance in the Balkans. Nevertheless the crusading idea remained part of
Sigismund’s imperial ambitions, although even later, when he really was at the head
of the empire, his attempts in that direction were handicapped by his persistent hostility
against Venice, whose participation would have been indispensable, and by so many other
problems which absorbed Sigismund’s versatility.
One of them was the rivalry with Poland, which was conducted in
close contact with the Teutonic Order. After years of intrigues, which even as early as
1392 included a first plan for partitioning Poland, the King of Hungary declared war upon
her in the critical moments of 1410, and after Grunwald he wanted to act as mediator
between Jagiello, Vytautas, and the Knights of the Cross. A congress held in Buda in 1412
was a first not unsuccessful step in that direction, but at the Council of Constance,
where the new king of the Romans hoped to be the arbiter of all Christendom, the Polish
opposition to the idea of imperial supremacy shocked him deeply and influenced his
position in all Eastern affairs during the following years.
At the same council his role in the tragic fate of John Hus,
the Czech reformer to whom he had given a safe conduct and who was nevertheless burned at
the stake, had an even greater bearing on the whole further development of
Sigismund’s policy. In the preceding years it was mainly his brother Venceslas who
had to deal with the reform movement in Bohemia, which had been prepared by lively
discussion in the second part of the fourteenth century, encouraged and radicalized by the
impact of Wycliffe’s doctrines, and combined with Czech resentment against the
ever-growing German influence in their country. Under the leadership of John Hus, an
inspiring preacher, the movement made steady progress in the first years of the fifteenth
century, and the wavering attitude of both King Venceslas and the ecclesiastical
authorities made the situation even more confused.
The trial of the religious reformer, whom the Czechs also
regarded as a national leader, followed the next year, 1416, by the similar fate of one of
his disciples, also condemned to death at Constance, raised a storm of indignation in
Bohemia. When Venceslas, who tried in vain to appease it, suddenly died in 1419 and was
succeeded, as formerly in Germany, by his brother Sigismund, the Hussites refused to
recognize as king the man whom they held responsible for the martyrdom of their master.
Moreover, all anti-German elements in Bohemia joined the opposition movement, seeing in
Sigismund a symbol of German predominance and of Bohemia’s ties with the empire. And
finally the radical wing of the Hussites put forward a bold program of social reforms.
In the purely religious field, too, the Hussites were divided.
The moderates would have been satisfied with concessions which did not touch upon dogmatic
problems, particularly the privilege of holy communion under both species for the
laity—hence their designation as Utraquists or Calixtins. Others went
further than Hus himself, and even further than Wycliffe, in their attacks against the
Catholic church and its basic teachings and in their utopian request for the official
punishment of all sins. That division, doctrinal and social, had its repercussions on
Czech policy. A tremendous majority was in agreement as to the desire to get rid of
Sigismund of Luxemburg. But while the moderates and those chiefly directed by motives of
nationalism wanted to replace him by a member of the Polish-Lithuanian dynasty, the
extremists only created trouble for the viceroy whom Vytautas sent to Prague, and started
a revolution which was at once religious, national, and social.
Sigismund was particularly afraid of a solution which would
connect Bohemia with the Polish-Lithuanian federation to the detriment of his dynasty and
possibly also of the empire. Furthermore, for reasons of prestige, he wished to crush the
rebellion of his subjects himself. But the radical Hussites, called Taborites, since a
mountain named Tabor was their strategic center, found a remarkable military leader in the
person of John Zizka. Even after he was killed in action in 1424, his followers, who
called themselves “orphans,” continued their desperate fight against the king
and his Catholic, German, and aristocratic supporters under other chiefs. Of these, Prokop
the Bald became particularly famous.
The Hussite wars, ceasing to be an internal revolution in
Bohemia, upset the situation in all Central Europe because, on the one hand, the Czechs
were making raids far into the neighboring countries, and on the other hand, Sigismund
organized a series of “crusades” which, instead of being directed against the
Turks, were supposed to destroy the Hussite movement. In spite of the participation of
many other German princes, these crusades, one after the other, ended in humiliating
defeats and the Taborites became a real military power.
Even Catholic Poland made use of them as auxiliary forces in
her struggle against “the whole German nation,” which was one of the
consequences of Sigismund’s shrewd initiative at Lutsk. For after the death of
Vytautas, the Polish-Lithuanian conflict continued under his successor Svitrigaila
(Swidrygiello), a brother of Jagiello who was made grand duke without the constitutional
agreement of the Poles. He not only resumed his predecessor’s relations with
Sigismund, but also, contrary to Lithuania’s real interest, made an alliance with the
Teutonic Order which, breaking the peace, invaded Poland. The Poles and their Lithuanian
partisans opposed another grand duke to Svitrigaila, a brother of Vytautas, called
Sigismund, like the Luxemburg, and in addition to the civil war in Bohemia there was now a
civil war in Lithuania also, and German powers were interfering with both of them.
Along with all the other problems which threatened the peace of
Europe, both issues were brought before the new ecumenical council which was inaugurated
at Basle in 1431. The position of the council was, however, even more difficult than that
of the Council of Constance because almost from the outset there was a conflict between
the council and Pope Eugene IV in matters of ecclesiastical organization and reform.
Therefore all those who wanted the support of the church for their political objectives,
including Sigismund of Luxemburg who at last, in 1433, obtained the imperial crown from
the Pope, were in turn applying to Basle and to the Roman Curia and playing off the
council and the Pope against each other. It was only during the short periods of agreement
with Eugene IV that the Council of Basle could make constructive contributions to the
solution of the problems of the day, including those of East Central Europe.
The most important of these contributions was a negotiated
peace with the moderate wing of the Hussites. Cardinal Cesarini, who had himself earlier
conducted one of the futile crusades against them, now, as president of the Council of
Basle, showed the same spirit of moderation which later made him abandon the radical
opposition party at the council and remain loyal to the Holy See. After years of
discussion with a Czech delegation which came to Basle, and through representatives of the
council sent to Bohemia, the so-called Compactata were concluded at Basle in 1433
and approved at Prague the next year. They were based upon the four “articles”
prepared at Prague as a minimum program of the Czech reform movement. These requests,
including indeed the privilege of the chalice for all receiving communion, did not affect
the Catholic doctrine and therefore could be approved by the church. They did not
completely satisfy either side and in the future they were subject to controversial
interpretations. In Bohemia the compromise was accepted only after the crushing defeat of
the radical Hussites by the moderates in the battle of Lipany in 1434. But eventually
peace was restored, Bohemia was officially reconciled with the church, and even Sigismund
of Luxemburg was recognized as king.
There remained, of course, an internal tension on religious as
well as on national grounds, and the Hussite tradition was to affect the whole further
development of the Czech people. But without much personal contribution Sigismund at last
achieved his aim of uniting the crowns of the Roman Empire, of Bohemia, and Hungary,
although Hungary remained outside the empire as in the past. In any case, a large section
of East Central Europe, together with West Central Europe, now seemed to be under German
leadership, and when the Luxemburg Emperor died in 1437 without leaving a son, he decided
to bequeath his three crowns to his son-in-law, Albrecht of Austria, who had married
Sigismund’s daughter Elizabeth. The political system created by the last Luxemburg
would thus also include the Austrian lands of the Habsburgs, and under another German
dynasty the whole Danubian region would be united and more or less intimately connected
with the empire.
Albrecht was indeed elected in Germany, starting the
practically uninterrupted line of Habsburg rulers of the empire. He also obtained the
Hungarian succession without difficulty, and only in Bohemia did he have to face a strong
opposition which again put forward a member of the Jagellonian dynasty as a national
anti-German candidate. This was possible because in the meantime the renewed war between
Poland and the Teutonic Order, as well as the civil war in Lithuania, both at least
indirectly provoked by the Luxemburg s eastern policy, had ended in 1435 in a victory of
the Jagellonian political conception. The Peace of Brzesc forced the Knights of the Cross
to give up their anti-Polish policy, though they again lost only a very little of their
territory. A few months earlier, in the battle on the Swieta River, Svitrigaila and his
German allies from Livonia were decisively defeated by his rival who had confirmed the
union with Poland and received Polish support.
All that happened, however, after the death of the old King,
Wladyslaw II Jagiello in 1434. His son, Wladyslaw III, the new King of Poland, was a
minor, and the predominating influence of Bishop Zbigniew Olesnicki was challenged by a
strong opposition party, while in the Lithuanian grand duchy Svitrigaila was still
supported in most of the Ruthenian provinces. Under such conditions it proved impossible
to promote the candidature of the new king s younger brother Casimir to the throne of
Bohemia—a project which Olesnicki never favored, fearing Hussite influence —and
on the contrary, Albrecht of Habsburg was able to resume his father-in-law’s idea of
playing off Lithuania against Poland.
<< 7: The New Forces of the Fourteenth Century || 9: The Later Fifteenth Century >>
