Author Archives: Joel

by Joel | 11 July 2025 · 5:48 am

Electing a King of Poland, 1573

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 210-212:

The interest in the election of 1573 was palpable. This was not only an opportunity to become king of the largest country in Europe. Freed of all dynastic constraints by the death of the last Jagiellon, the nobles of the federative state could elect any ruler they chose. The playing field, thus, was as level as it might ever be. This moment in Polish history represented an unparalleled opportunity for an ambitious royal foreigner to expand, in exponential fashion, his influence in Central and Eastern Europe. Thus, instead of a military campaign, there was a political campaign to be fought. And what a campaign it was! The curiosity factor itself must have been great, given that this was the first election of its kind. To borrow a metaphor from a Polish nobleman who would participate years later in the election process, the period of interregnum was a courtship dance: the Commonwealth the attractive bride, and the candidates from various countries her suitors. Each strove to make a positive impression on the father.

The Rules of the Game

Yet the matter was not that simple. Making a good impression was not entirely under the control of any given suitor, and the choice of ruler was not a personality contest. The foreign candidates for Polish king were not even to enter the territory of the Commonwealth, let alone campaign. Nor could domestic candidates be present at the election field. This was a move introduced by Jan Zamoyski during this first election—a move that resulted in the elimination of conniving magnates from consideration. Envoys would campaign, as it were, on their behalf.

There nonetheless were various ways to make an impression—some within the control of the individual candidate, some beyond. Some candidates in 1573, such as the Habsburgs, were not above trying to buy votes—nor were some nobles above benefiting from this; “wining and dining, and making promises” would become part and parcel of Commonwealth elections. In contrast to past elections elsewhere in Europe, however, it would not suffice to win over the most influential individuals, the senators—each of whom represented powerful interests within the country as a result of the offices held—or even the parliamentarians/members of the estates. Those could be numbered in the dozens—or at most, hundreds. Here (thanks again to Zamoyski, who pushed for the king to be elected viritim [in person]), one had to make an impact on a much larger, fluid assembly comprised for the most part of rank-and-file nobles. These were nobles who cared to exercise the right bestowed on them and help decide who would rule the country, but who may or may not have had much experience in governance outside of the local seymiks.

In a way, the noble collectivity that convened during the interregnum resembled more a whole front porch’s worth of shotgun-wielding relatives than a genteel father. The prospect of an election drew some forty thousand nobles to the environs of Warsaw in April 1573. Astride their steeds, they assembled on and around an enormous field, resembling nothing more than the site of a medieval chivalric tourney. The central field, where the palatine and regional delegates convened, was marked off by a ditch and a stockade fence. The masses of noble electors gathered along its perimeter; information was relayed back and forth between center and periphery, allowing those gathered to hear the various reports on the candidates. A large wooden building stood at the end of the field. Its purpose was to protect from the elements the collected paper results of the electoral process.

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by Joel | 10 July 2025 · 4:58 am

Poland-Lithuania’s Golden Age

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 166-169:

That Poland-Lithuania was able to rein in the natural inclination of monarchs to seek absolute power was partly the result of the country’s unique political heritage and traditions and partly the result of a unique period of efflorescence, one reflected not only in the degree to which Renaissance ideas penetrated the polity but also in the economic well-being that accompanied the Golden Age….

This Golden Age was no misnomer. Not that Polish miners had suddenly discovered a rich vein of gold. The market for gold and silver bullion was dominated by Spain, whose recent penetration of the New World had uncovered vast new supplies of these precious ores. Poland-Lithuania turned out to have ample reserves of a resource that was in great demand elsewhere in the world: grain.

The particular world conjuncture of the late fifteenth century suddenly upped the ante for the grain trade. The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century (which, incidentally, never made its way to Poland) had a significant effect on the economy of the countries in Western Europe, which upon rebounding shifted from agricultural production to animal husbandry. The population increase in the growing cities of the West, combined with the conscious decision to raise sheep for wool instead of planting seeds for grain meant that food was at a premium—a situation reflected in the so-called price revolution, which suddenly made it exceedingly profitable to engage in the export of staple foods.

It so happened that Poland-Lithuania was perfectly poised to take advantage of this situation. Not only did these lands have ample fields of grain. They now could profit in full from exporting their grain surplus via the Baltic. How? Because Poland-Lithuania now had an outlet to the sea. In earlier centuries, the Teutonic Knights had dominated the Baltic Sea coast and, with it, all sea-bound trade. This changed in the mid-fifteenth century when the population of Royal Prussia—including cities such as Gdańsk and Elbląg—opted for Polish rule. One long (thirteen-year) war and peace treaty later, Royal Prussia became part of Poland-Lithuania. After the mid-fifteenth century, the Teutonic Knights had to content themselves with the less fertile and less developed lands to the east; and even those lands, known after 1525 as Ducal Prussia, became a fief of the Crown of Poland.

In exchange for their allegiance, the inhabitants of Royal Prussia were given several important political and economic privileges. These included the right to their own regional parliament (the Prussian estates), municipal self-government for the cities, the right to trade everywhere in the vast country, and exemption from any additional tolls on the Vistula. The region’s incorporation into Poland-Lithuania, thus, had the potential to bring much benefit to the state. Gdańsk merchants could contract for Polish grain, and those supplying the grain had recourse to the growing world market for their staples, the easiest commodity for a large lowland country to produce. The result was that in the sixteenth century Poland became the main supplier of grain to Europe. Each fall, tons of golden grain—oats and rye, wheat and barley—were shipped to markets far and wide. Whereas in the year 1490, around twenty thousand tons of rye were exported, for example, nearly a century later (in 1587), the figure had risen to around seventy-one thousand tons.

Some of the grain went to destinations within the Baltic region—to places such as Lübeck or Copenhagen, Stockholm or Riga. The other (larger) half sailed through the sound. Some of the grain ended up not only in Amsterdam but also in places such as Setubal or Faro in Portugal, or even all the way to the Mediterranean.

Among the greatest consumers of Polish grain were the Dutch. Those mighty world traders hailing from a tiny waterlogged flatland could no longer feed themselves. Gdańsk itself was responsible for half of Amsterdam’s Baltic trade. But the Dutch were hardly the only foreigners present in the port Gdańsk. Germans, Frenchmen, Flemings, Englishmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, all traveled to this Baltic entrepôt in search of what Poland-Lithuania could supply. They found a sea of warehouses bursting with rye, wheat, and other grains as well as fibers (flax and hemp), forest goods (wax, honey, potash, lumber), even salted beef.

All this earned the Gdańsk merchants and their Polish suppliers a pretty penny. In the early years of this increased Baltic trade, a foreigner noted what he observed during the annual two-week long fair in Gdańsk, which began on Saint Dominic’s feast day (August 4). He saw over 400 ships arrive in the port. Yet their holds, albeit awaiting the harvest of grain, were hardly empty. They had brought to the shores of Poland-Lithuania all manner of luxury items: French wines; Spanish olive oil, lemons, preserves, and fruits; silks and other fine cloths; Portuguese spices; English cloth and tin. Reportedly the first eight days of the fair were spent loading the boats of the foreigners with Polish-Lithuanian wares, the next eight with selling luxury items (some clearly of global provenance) to the Poles. Business was booming. By mid-century, the historian Marcin Kromer was reproaching his compatriots in the Kingdom of Poland for being obsessed with luxury and splendor, and for adorning themselves in foreign fabrics and exotic leathers, in silks and purples, silver, gold, pearls, and gemstones.

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by Joel | 9 July 2025 · 7:17 am

Pierwszy Poniedziałek Pażdziernika

Lately I’ve been not just reading more Polish history, but also trying to learn enough of the language to survive this coming academic year in Poland, where Ms. Far Outlier will be working to enrich English language-learning resources at schools there, while I learn enough Polish to handle shopping, navigating public transportation, and exchanging pleasantries with neighbors. Polish is a challenge for someone whose only serious contact with Slavic languages has been via Slavic loanwords in Romanian, like a citi ‘to read’ (cf. Polish czytać) and a iubi ‘to love’ (cf. Polish lubić). But I enjoy language-learning at any age!

The title to this post encapsulates one area of difficulty for speakers of Standard Average European languages who wish to master Polish: there are few reliable cognates even in days of the week (only Sobota) and months of the year (only Marzec and Mai), and the cardinal and ordinal numbers have many inflectional irregularities. Here are glosses for the title of this post.

Pierwszy poniedziałek pażdziernika = First Monday of-October

I installed Microsoft’s Polish keyboard and used the Polish Programmer’s variant to type the text below. It allows the righthand Alt key in combination with standard letters to generate characters with diacritics. Wikipedia explains:

Nowadays nearly all PCs in Poland have standard US keyboards and use the AltGr method to enter Polish diacritics. This keyboard mapping is referred to as the Polish programmers’ layout (klawiatura polska programisty) or simply Polish layout.

Here’s a version of the Lord’s Prayer in Polish. The syntax is pretty predictable from other European languages but the orthographic and inflectional systems are rather more challenging. The English glosses are my own.

Ojcze nasz, któryś jest w niebie,
Father our, which art in heaven,

święć się imię Twoye,
be.holy Reflexive name Thy

Przyjdź królestwo Twoye, bądź wolą Twoyą,
Come kingdom Thy, be.done will Thy

jako w niebie tak i na ziemi.
as in heaven so also on earth.

Chleba naszego powszedniego daj nam dzisiaj.
Bread our daily give us today.

I odpuść nam nasze winy,
And forgive us our guilts

jako i my odpuszczamy naszym winowajcom.
as also we forgive our culprits.

I nie wódź nas na pokuszenie,
And not lead us into temptation,

ale nas zbaw ode złego.
but us lead from evil.

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by Joel | 8 July 2025 · 5:49 am

Polish Vernacular Printing Begins

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 150-151:

With the Renaissance and the increasing numbers of educated Poles came a demand for publications not only in Latin but also in the vernacular.

This was a period when the publishing industry was taking off in this part of Europe. Paper mills in Poland-Lithuania dated from the end of the fifteenth century, and the first printing press was set up in Kraków in 1474, by the Bavarian Kasper Straube. Naturally, Latin books were the first to come off the press, only later to be followed by Polish-language books. The first Polish-language book to be typeset (of course, much earlier there were manuscripts laboriously written out by hand), was the popular Paradise of Souls, which appeared in 1513. It is interesting to note that a Cyrillic-alphabet book was printed in Kraków even prior to that, in 1491, and the first Hungarian-language book was printed in the same city, in 1533. The first Polish grammar book did not come out, however, until 1568.

The sixteenth century proved the Golden Age insofar as the development of writing in the vernacular was concerned. Behind the move to turn Polish into a fully developed literary language was Mikołaj Rey (1505–1569). His famous ditty proclaimed to the world (or certainly, at least, to the Polish-speaking world): iż Polacy nie gęsi, iż swój język mają (that Poles are not geese, that they have their own language). Rey himself had not received a strong classical education, which may explain why he opted to write exclusively in Polish. Still, he penned many works, especially polemical ones, with juicy anecdote and ribald humor.

Rey helped to pave the way for the preeminent poet of the Polish Renaissance, Jan Kochanowski (1530–1584). Unlike Rey, Kochanowski was well educated and more than just conversant in Latin, yet he switched to writing in Polish sometime around 1560, while serving as secretary to King Zygmunt August. Clearly well connected, Kochanowski wrote, among other things, a play for the wedding of Chancellor Jan Zamoyski in 1577. A pure Renaissance drama, The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys boasted a message of pacifism as well as the elegant Polish for which Kochanowski was to become known. He did a magnificent job of translating the biblical Psalms, published in 1579. But Kochanowski will forever be remembered as a loving and doting father—in particular of his daughter Ursula, who died at the tender age of two. Heartbroken, Kochanowski wrote a moving series of nineteen poems lamenting her death, aptly called Laments (Polish: Treny).

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by Joel | 7 July 2025 · 6:10 am

Mazovia (with Warsaw) Joins Poland

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 146-149:

Zygmunt’s reign did bring many positive developments, however. One important accomplishment was the ultimate incorporation of Mazovia (with its ducal capital of Warsaw) into the Crown of Poland. Regardless how odd this may seem to contemporary readers, Warsaw—despite its central location and later claims to fame—was not yet fully a part of the realm. Since the fourteenth century, Mazovia had been a fief of Poland, controlled by a branch of the old Piast princely dynasty. Bit by bit, the Crown of Poland had acquired pieces of that territory; yet it was only after the death of the last Mazovian prince, Janusz III, in 1526 that the process of incorporation was completed.

For a Polish province, Mazovia was in many ways atypical. The duchy had long eschewed battle with the Teutonic Knights to its immediate north and even maintained good trade relations with them. As of the late fourteenth century, Mazovians had played an important role in facilitating the trade of timber and naval stores coming to Baltic ports via the Narew, Bug, and Vistula Rivers. The duchy likewise assisted the transit trade of furs, wax, and honey from Lithuania as well as cattle from Volhynia. After 1500, Mazovians expanded their activities to include the grain trade. As for the social composition of the duchy, it boasted a preponderance of nobles—certainly vis-à-vis Poland-Lithuania as a whole. Some 20 percent of the population claimed a noble patent—quite a large number, though to be sure most of these were impoverished soldier-nobles. Warsaw had a provincial feel, although in the sixteenth century it was beginning its ascent, in part thanks to trade.

[It sounds as if Poland may have acquired its own equivalents of the Prussian Junker class when it incorporated Masovia into the Crown of Poland.–J.]

Although King Zygmunt managed to incorporate the remaining pieces of Mazovia into the Crown, he was less successful in pressing state and dynastic interests in the region of the Baltic Sea, this despite a very real occasion to do so. For a war fought against the Teutonic Order in 1519–1521 brought the Knights to their knees—literally. One of the most famous images in Polish history dates from 1525, the so-called Prussian Homage. A triumphant view of this grand event was painted in 1882 by the nineteenth-century Polish artist Jan Matejko, whose colorful brushstrokes lavishly rendered the scene of the former grand master of the Teutonic Knights, Albrecht von Hohenzollern, kneeling before the Polish king and publicly swearing his fealty.

Yet such a rosy view of the event—although attractive to Matejko’s contemporaries, who took especial pleasure in seeing Prussians bowing down before the Poles, even if only in the deep historical past—was misleading. Much more could have been achieved than simply having Albrecht von Hohenzollern kneel before the Polish king (who was, after all, his uncle) and resign himself to the status of subordinate. What could have marked the end of Prussia as an independent entity—had Zygmunt pursued the fight further—instead gave little Prussia a new lease on life. Recall that part of Prussia had already been incorporated into the Crown by Zygmunt’s father. This was the so-called Royal Prussia, which had sought to break away from the hold of the Teutonic Knights and turned to the Polish king for help.

What went wrong, then? Although it was a Polish fief, in this moment Prussia was permitted to undergo a notable change. No longer to be run by the Teutonic Knights, it was transformed by Albrecht von Hohenzollern-Ansbach (the aforementioned nephew of Zygmunt) into a secular state. Henceforth the last grand master of the Teutonic Order would be known as Duke of Prussia, and his successors would have hereditary rights in the lands formerly held by the Order. Not only that: the Prussia of Albrecht von Hohenzollern simultaneously embraced the views promulgated by Martin Luther, who by nailing his ninety-five theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg in 1517 initiated a movement that would forever change the face of Christian Europe. This was the Protestant Reformation. Close to Martin Luther himself, Albrecht became—with Zygmunt’s permission—the first territorial Lutheran ruler and Prussia became the first Protestant state in Europe.

That this should occur without bloodshed or upheaval was in part due to Zygmunt the Old’s willingness to approve this amazing transformation of the former arch-Catholic polity—in part to keep Ducal Prussia from moving into the orbit of the Holy Roman Empire. To be sure, in the Treaty of Kraków of 1525—the first European treaty between a Catholic and a Protestant state—Zygmunt and Albrecht agreed that Ducal Prussia would come fully under Polish control on the extinction of Albrecht of Hohenzollern’s line. That only a generation later a different king would, in a pinch, exchange his hereditary rights to succession for military assistance is but one of the fateful missteps that would haunt Polish history for centuries to come, even if it could not be foreseen in 1525.

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by Joel | 6 July 2025 · 5:33 am

How Italy Became Włochy in Polish

Mikołaj Gliński explains in CULTURE.PL #language & literature:

As it turns out, the word Włochy is descended from the Proto-Germanic word *walhaz (itself derived from the name of the Italian tribe Volsci) which was a term for speakers of various Romance languages living in post-Roman Empire areas with whom Germanic peoples came into contact. By extension, it could also refer to foreigners in general (compare the contemporary Dutch word Waals ‘Walloon’, and the English word Welsh).

In Polish, the word, or actually one of its variants, namely Wołochy, was at first used to refer to the Romanised tribes of the Balkans (compare Vallachia [and Vlachs]). It was only later that the name, now as Włochy, was transferred to another, more Southern people, namely the Italians.

The same word root włochy also appears in another Polish word, namely włoszczyzna (‘mirepoix’). The word denotes a mix of vegetables used for cooking a flavour base for soups. This handy bundle, which usually includes carrots, parsley, celery and leek, is even today sold in most grocery shops throughout Poland.

Curious for more Polish idiosyncratic geography? Countries like Włochy, Niemcy and Węgry feature in this guide.

I was sure the Polish name for Italy had something to do with their name for other Romance-speaking remnants of the Roman Empire. Glad to see supporting evidence.

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by Joel | 5 July 2025 · 4:58 am

Poland’s Italian Queen

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 145-146:

Much of this spread of Western ideas, art, and architectural styles took place during the reign of the last two Jagiellonian monarchs. The first of these was Zygmunt I (1506–1548). Although not the youngest of Kazimierz Jagiellończyk’s sons (Fryderyk, the cardinal, was younger than he was), Zygmunt was the youngest sibling to ascend to the throne. It is somewhat paradoxical, thus, that he is referred to as Zygmunt the Old—a sobriquet that reflected the longevity of his rule as well as his life, not to mention the fact that his son and heir was his namesake. Whereas his predecessor (and elder brother Alexander) took as his bride the daughter of a Muscovite grand duke, Zygmunt first turned his sights southward and married a Transylvanian Zapolya. (This, after all, was the brother who had hoped to rule nearby Moldavia.) This did not mean, however, that the king was embroiled in the battle with the Ottomans. Rather, he made peace with these fearsome neighbors, thus putting an end to any sort of Jagiellonian imperial overstretch in the south. After his first wife died, the nearly fifty-year-old Zygmunt was persuaded to look westward for a bride. Bona Sforza of Milan became queen of Poland in 1518.

The Milanese princess facilitated the Poles’ embrace of major culinary as well as cultural contributions, provided by her Italian contacts and retinue—from Renaissance architectural ideas through to the introduction of Italian vegetables. Even today, the bouquet garni that goes into soup—comprised of carrots, parsnips, onions, celery root, leeks, parsley—is referred to in Polish as włoszczyzna (meaning “something Italian,” Włochy being the term for Italy). Yet she did much more than that. Brought up in the heady world of Italian politics, Bona not only bore her husband the requisite children (including a son and heir); she also proved tenacious in her efforts to strengthen both her husband’s position within his kingdom and that of the dynasty. Her perceived interference in the politics of Poland-Lithuania, naturally, was not appreciated by the rank-and-file Polish nobility, who thought her husband allied too closely with the state’s powerful magnates. An increasingly vociferous movement for the “Execution of the Laws” (by which they meant the implementation of previously enacted legislation that would benefit the lesser nobility) shows that rank-and-file nobles feared the rise of absolutism in the country.

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by Joel | 4 July 2025 · 5:42 am

The Jagiellonian Moment, c. 1500

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 116-120:

Kazimierz IV Jagiellon married Elizabeth, the daughter of Albrecht Habsburg and granddaughter of Sigismund of Luxemburg. She produced for him an abundance of heirs: six sons and five daughters. This situation was enviable in a world where dynasties so often died out but also challenging, in that all this royal blood cried out for distinguished posts. And indeed: the royal pair strove to find places for their children to rule, capitalizing on the still prevalent medieval idea that royal bloodlines were important. All their children were brought up for exalted positions, and many of them would rule on one throne or another (sometimes on several at once). They were given an excellent education under none other than Jan Długosz, former secretary to Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki and Kraków canon. His greatest and certainly most durable claim to fame came from his twelve-book Latin-language history of Poland, Annales seu Cronicae Regni Poloniae (Annals or Chronicles of the Kingdom of Poland), which covered the history of the country up to 1480. In addition to royal heads of state, the pupils of the royal tutor Długosz included a future cardinal (Kazimierz’s son Fryderyk) as well as a future saint (his namesake, Kazimierz).

…

A longer period ensued before the same Jagiellon gained control over the Hungarian throne. In Hungary, it was the Transylvanian-born Matthias Corvinus (son of János Hunyadi) who was chosen king in 1458, doubtless in part due to the memory of his father’s military prowess, which he seemed to have inherited. Better known by a nickname taken from the raven (Latin: corvus) on his escutcheon, Corvinus was the first commoner to ascend to the Hungarian throne, and he was an outstanding ruler. He made inroads into what had been Poděbrady’s holdings, annexing Moravia and Silesia as well as the Lusatias. At one point the Hungarian king even occupied Vienna, the Habsburgs’ capital, which he retained control of until his death in the spring of 1490. Władysław followed these developments closely. To strengthen his position as a candidate for the throne, that autumn the Jagiellon secretly married Corvinus’s widow, and she sought to have him gain power in Hungary. Although it may seem paradoxical, there was opposition from Władysław’s own father, who wanted to seat another son, Jan Olbracht, on the Hungarian throne. The men even fought two wars over the succession (so much for family unity). Yet, once the Habsburgs got involved, the tide turned against Jan Olbracht. To keep Hungary and Bohemia safely in Jagiellonian hands, Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk threw his weight behind his eldest son, already seated on the Bohemian throne.

…

Although in Hungary he was officially hailed as King Ulászló II, Władysław came to be known there as King Bene—this, apparently, from always answering “very well” (bene) to whatever was asked of him. Among other things, in 1514 he allowed the Hungarian nobles to establish the so-called Tripartitum, a new codification of Hungarian law that gave them increased power over their peasants. Yet the Jagiellon was indeed the true ruler of the two countries, though he reconfigured them somewhat, restoring Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia to the kingdom of Bohemia (they had come under Hungarian control under Matthias Corvinus). He also notably restored Vienna and eastern Austria, which had been occupied by Corvinus, to the Habsburgs—a move that, while keeping Habsburgs from conniving to unseat him, would nonetheless strengthen a future rival to Jagiellonian rule. Władysław lived until 1516, to be succeeded on both thrones by his son Louis (Czech: Ludvik; Hungarian: Lajos). In this way, Jagiellons came to control both the Bohemian Crown of Saint Wenceslas and the Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen.

But this was only the near realm of Central Europe. All five daughters of Kazimierz Jagiellończyk fared well in the marriage game also. They demonstrated the potential impact of the Jagiellonian dynasty on the German-speaking world. Jadwiga married George the Rich, prince of Bavaria. Another daughter, Barbara, wed another George the Bearded, duke of Saxony. Two other sisters, Anna and Elżbieta, married the dukes of Pomerania and Legnica (German: Liegnitz), respectively; each of these husbands (Bogislaw X and Friedrich II) would be given the sobriquet of Great. Their other sister, Zofia, was the wife of Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Ansbach, elector of Brandenburg. Zofia would give birth to Albrecht von Hohenzollern-Ansbach, who (as we shall see) would be last in the long line of grand masters of the Teutonic Order on the Baltic Sea coast.

All this left the Jagiellons seemingly in a strong position. Men from the dynasty came to control all of East-Central Europe: from Hungary and Bohemia through Poland and Lithuania, putting them in a position to rule over vast territories and peoples. Kazimierz IV Jagiellon ruled Poland and Lithuania, while his son Władysław had ascended to the Crowns of Saint Wenceslas and Saint Stephen—that is, Bohemia and Hungary, respectively. Jagiellons would rule uninterruptedly over these four political entities for some thirty-six years: from 1490 to 1526, their power extended from the Baltic to the Adriatic and nearly all the way to the Black Sea.

That the Jagiellonian Moment in Central and Eastern Europe is so little known has to do with both the nature of Jagiellonian rule and the times in which they lived. With the exception of Lithuania, the countries they ruled—Poland, Bohemia, Hungary—were elective monarchies with relatively powerful, noble-dominated parliaments. In these countries, what was wanted was not an absolute monarch but, rather, someone who would work with the existing parliamentary bodies.

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by Joel | 3 July 2025 · 5:56 am

Poland and Lithuania Unite

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 105-107:

In 1411 a peace between the Polish-Lithuanian state and the Teutonic Order was finally achieved at Toruń. At that time, Jagiełło managed only to secure Žemaitija for Lithuania and Dobrzyń for Poland. Thus, ultimately, Lithuania benefited much more than did the Crown of Poland—somewhat paradoxical in a state that purportedly was dominated by the Polish half. While Lithuania regained all that it sought, the Poles remained unsatisfied. Notably, however, these were the territories that the Order had refused to give Poland-Lithuania to keep the peace only a year earlier. Still, this left many formerly Polish lands along the Baltic coast in the hands of the Teutonic Order, including the important towns of Gdańsk and Toruń. And the Crown of Poland still had no outlet to the sea.

However, in a way, the Battle of Grunwald [= the First Battle of Tannenberg in what is now named Stębark] did have an important outcome for Poland-Lithuania. The joint fight against a common enemy brought the subjects of the two halves of the state closer together, proving to Poles and Lithuanians alike that they had mutual interests. Together, they could accomplish much, even if separately each (especially Lithuania) was weak.

Within a couple of years, Poles and Lithuanians took another step on the road to becoming closer. This was in the so-called Union of Horodło, signed in the Volhynian town of that name in 1413. What had previously been a personal union cemented solely by the person of Jagiełło would now have a solid dynastic connection. To be sure, the position of grand duke in Lithuania would be hereditary (Vytautas agreed to be dux [no modifier], under Jagiełło), while the king of Poland would be elected. But the latter—that is, Jagiełło’s successor—would come from the Lithuanian dynasty, to be elected upon consultation of Vytautas and the Lithuanian boyars.

One of the most interesting provisions of the tripartite document called for a special union of (Catholic) Lithuanian and Polish nobility and clergy. Some fifty years after their conversion to Roman Catholicism, forty-seven Lithuanian noble families were embraced by and included in Polish heraldic clans. In this way, the palatine of Kraków, for example, accepted into his Leliwa clan the palatine of Vilnius. The Polish castellan of Sącz would be united with the Lithuanian castellan of Trakai (Polish: Troki). The numerous Półkozic clan embraced a Lithuanian noble family, while the protoplast [progenitor] of the Lithuanian Radvila family (better known under their Polonized name, Radziwiłł) became part of the Sulima clan. In essence, a joint Polish-Lithuanian noble estate was established. Henceforth, there would be a single nation for the united state.

The Preamble to the Union of Horodło gives evidence of the lofty principles undergirding the union: “Whosoever is unsupported by the mystery of Love, shall not achieve the Grace of salvation. . . . For by Love, laws are made, kingdoms governed, cities ordered, and the state of the commonweal is brought to its proper goal.” The love between the Poles and Lithuanians would truly have a familial (clan) basis now. Yet the union was not complete. It did not include the Orthodox nobility—for the most part, Ruthenes. They were, in a way, second-class citizens—something that would not bode well for the future.

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by Joel | 2 July 2025 · 6:11 am

Dilemmas of Pagan Lithuania

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 88-90:

The pagan Lithuanians had managed to conquer the western Ruthenian territories (roughly today’s Belarus and Ukraine) at the time of these lands’ greatest weakness. In a relatively short space of time, they made huge advances. Lithuania gained control over Polatsk in 1307, over Minsk in 1340, over Smolensk (a mere 230 miles from Moscow) in 1356, and even over the far-distant Kyiv—the former, great capital of Kyivan Rus’—in 1363.

This tremendous expansion was in part facilitated by the protoplast [= progenitor] of the great Lithuanian dynasty, Gediminas (1315–1341). He was ably assisted by his numerous sons, the most important Kestutis and Algirdas. While Kestutis’s presence could be felt in the Polish southeast in 1376, it was Algirdas who earlier defeated the Golden Horde at Syni Vody (Blue Waters; Polish: Sine Wody) and gained control over Kyiv. The two formed a sort of diarchy—a kind of dual rule that would be inherited by their sons, Jogaila (Algirdas’s favorite son) and Vytautas.

In the process of conquering this large swath of Eastern Europe, the Lithuanian Gediminid dynasty inherited a sizable population that was Slavic and Orthodox—a population that outnumbered the Lithuanians themselves eight to one. The Lithuanians figured mainly as rulers and elites. Most of the East Slavic inhabitants—most notably, the boyars (nobles) of Ruthenia to the south—were members of the Orthodox faith. In other words, they were Christians, but not followers of the Church of Rome.

The pagan Lithuanians within this large multiethnic entity were the nobles and villagers of the north—that is, residing in the core Lithuanian territories, before the decline of Rus’ allowed the Lithuanians to gain control of a good chunk of the Ruthenian lands. This was a small but not insignificant population, especially as it included members of the ruling family, such as the future king of Poland. This expanded Lithuanian state was a completely decentralized entity, with descendants of Gediminas ruling over various sections of the state (and often quarreling among themselves).

Although Lithuanians ruled, the rapid expansion of the state left the initial population, which had yet to establish a written language, with real challenges. How could they rule over Christian, and lettered, peoples? In part this imbalance was ameliorated by the Lithuanians availing themselves of a ready-made state language—the language of the conquered Ruthenes. Intermarriage with Ruthenian princes led to the spread of Ruthenian culture within the Grand Duchy. Many Gediminids became converts to Orthodoxy and otherwise found the culture of the conquered Slavs to be attractive. Some went so far as to ally themselves with the Muscovite state to the east. This most certainly was true of the numerous sons of Algirdas and his first wife, Maria, all of whom embraced Orthodoxy and ruled in the eastern section of the Grand Duchy. (Their half-brother Jogaila long remained a pagan, as did the other children of Algirdas and his second wife, Juliana of Tver—this notwithstanding her Orthodox provenance.)