POLONIA TODAY ONLINE ®
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF POLAND
Copyright 1994 - AngloPol Corporation -- Distributed by the Polonia Media Network
Part 3
Crown of the Polish Kingdom
Toward the end of the 13th century the division of the Polish lands into a number of petty duchies became a burden for the majority of social groups. It was a serious obstacle for the Church, as the diocesan borders were not identical with those of the provinces. The division was undermining the prestige of weak provincial princes and of magnates, who were craving for power. It hampered trade and was a barrier to the development of towns. Foreign invasions were a threat to the security of the rural population.
As a result, aspirations to unite Poland were gathering momentum. Even during the peak of the division some elements of unity were preserved--princes of the same Piast dynasty were ruling everywhere except for Pomerania. Polish lands were linked by one Church metropolis. The symbolic signs of Poland's unity, coming from the common past, were preserved, too, in the uninterrupted use of the name of Regnum Poloniae [Kingdom of Poland], as well as in the coronation insignia of 1076, kept at the Krakow Cathedral. The longing for unification was best reflected in the all-Poland cult of St. Stanislaus.
Unification was no easy task to fulfill, as each of the local rulers wanted to be the unitizing savior. The social base of unification was also controversial. Was it to be provided by the inhabitants of one of the major provinces, supporting their prince? Was it to be one of the powerful social groups--knights, clergy or burghers of larger towns?
After several abortive attempts by the Silesian and Little Poland princes, Great Poland's Prince Przemyslaw II won the crown but he was assassinated in 1295. The heritage was contested by Silesian Prince Henry 
of Glogow and Prince of Sieradz, Leczyca and Brzesc, Ladislaus [Wladyslaw] the Short, as well as by the Czech King of the Przemyslid Family, Wenceslaus [Waclaw] II. The latter won control of Little Poland, Great Poland, the Gdansk area of Pomerania and part of Kujawy, and had himself crowned in 1300 as the King of Poland.
The sudden death of Wenceslaus II, and of his son Wenceslaus III, opened up the way to the Polish throne for Ladislaus the Short. He won the Pope's support, armed assistance from Hungary, and united part of the Polish territory. Silesia stayed outside the Polish state, with its princes being vassals to the King of Bohemia, John of Luxembourg. Mazovia [Mazowsze] continued its independence while Gdansk Pomerania was seized by the Teutonic Knights in the years 1308-1309. The loss of Pomerania and of Poland's access to the Baltic Sea were ominous events, as they ushered in a 150-year long period of wars between Poland and the Teutonic Order for the recovery of those territories.
In 1318, a general rally at Sulejow sent a petition to the Pope on behalf of the "monastic orders, chapters, eminent personalities, dukes, counts, barons and towns," asking for the crown for Poland. The Pope wavered in view of the claims put forth by John of Luxembourg to the throne of Poland, but he supported those aspirations. The coronation of Ladislaus the Short and his spouse, Hedwig, was held in Krakow in 1320.
In the 14th century, France, Germany, Flanders, England, Italy and the states of the Iberian Peninsula were in the grip of an economic crisis, of the shocks of the so-called Black Death [epidemic plague] and the 100-year war. For the states of Central-Eastern Europe it was a century of economic, political and cultural development. Those times were of the heyday of the Kingdom of Bohemia, Hungary, the Teutonic State, as well as of an accelerated growth of Poland and Lithuania in economy and politics. The idea of "sovereign kingdom" became dominant in that part of Europe.
During the first few decades of the 14th century, Poland was the weakest of those sovereign kingdoms facing a constant threat from the alliance between the Czechs and Teutonic Knights. Ladislaus the Short, in his struggle to recover Pomerania, took advantage of the Pope's support and of the alliance with Hungary, but neither a court trial before the papal envoys, which he won, nor an armed struggle, brought the desired effect.
His son and successor, Casimir [Kazimierz] the Great (1333-1370), one of the most outstanding Polish rulers, made peace with the Teutonic Knights (1343), giving away Pomerania as "an eternal alms" to them. That enabled him to recover other lands which were held by the Order. He also made John of Luxembourg renounce his claim to the Polish crown, acknowledging, however, the subjugation of Silesia to the King of Bohemia. As a result. he ensured peace to Poland and could preoccupy himself with reforming the state.
The king lent support to the settlement drive, creating new villages and towns. He also promoted trade and issued statutes regulating the extraction of salt, lead, silver and iron in Poland. He carried out a monetary reform and consolidated the state treasury. The existing common law was codified and standardized. The administration of justice was reformed and consolidated. Those holding high offices, such as chancellor, treasurer and chamberlain, were included in the Royal Council set up by the king as an organ of central power.
In 1364, the King Casimir the Great founded the first Polish university, the Krakow Academy. The king earmarked huge sums for the construction of a network of castles to stand guard at Poland's borders and for reforming the army. The royal authority, however strong, was limited by the law, whose guarantor and executor was the king himself. Those were estate laws, separate for each social group, i.e., different for knights, clergy, townspeople and peasants. The balance between the social classes and the king's position as arbiter favored the strengthening of the royal power, as in other feudal monarchies of medieval Europe.
European political culture and the experience of Angevin Hungary provided a term defining the Polish state: the Corona Regni Poloniae [the Crown of the Polish Kingdom]. The legal construction behind that term amounted to separation of the person of the ruler from the state (the crown). The state thus ceased to be the patrimony of the ruler and became a separate entity in terms of the political-legal system, with indivisibility to be its feature. The new term corresponded not only to the internal political situation of the state monarchy, but to the external policy and situation of Poland, as well.
From the turn of the 14th century the political program of the Regnum Poloniae consisted primarily of the unification of the Polish lands. Its realization was only partly successful. After the local dynasty of the Rurykhovichs died out in Halicz Ruthenia, the Duchy was taken over by Casimir the Great (1344, 1366). It had never been part of the historical Polish Kingdom. It was included into the new form of the state--into the Crown of the Polish Kingdom.
Toward the end of Casimir the Great's rule, the state territory amounted to some 240,000 sq. kms., with a population of about two million. Thus, the number of people per square kilometer increased from about four in the 10th-11th centuries to almost 8.5 during his rule. Some one million people speaking Polish and belonging to Polish culture lived outside the Crown of the Polish Kingdom in the 14th century--in Silesia, Pomerania, Mazovia--and there were Germans, Ruthenians and Jews within the Polish state.
The successful rule of Casimir the Great was burdened with a personal and dynastic failure; despite having been married a couple of times the king had no lawful son. Therefore, conflicts over the succession could threaten the integrity of the Kingdom. The handing over of power to any of the numerous Piasts in Silesia or Mazovia was out of the question, because of the lack of prestige of those princes. So, Casimir concluded a treaty with Louis Angevin, the King of Hungary, a grandson of Ladislaus the Short on the distaff side. The latter ascended the Polish throne (1370-1382).
Louis the Hungarian had no son either and he curried favor with Polish knights to recognize one of his daughters as his heiress. As a result he granted privileges to the knights, called the Kosice Privilege (1374), exempting them from paying taxes, save for two groszy per lan [a unit of cultivated land] of peasant farmland. He thus started a series of privileges that were granted to the knights by successive rulers of Poland in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Part 4
Union with Lithuania
and 15th Century Development
In 1384, Hedwig, an 11-year-old daughter of Louis the Hungarian, was called to Poland by the knights and representatives of towns and ascended the Polish throne. The group of Krakow magnates who were ruling Poland chose to give her hand to the pagan ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Jagiello. There was one string attached, however--Lithuanians had to become Christian and become part of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom. The Union was concluded at Krewo in 1385. One year later, Jagiello was baptized in Krakow, assuming the name of Ladislaus, and the assembly of Polish knights elected him King of Poland.
After the death of Hedwig in 1399, Jagiello's right to the throne was confirmed by the Royal Council. That sealed the elective character of the throne in the Crown of the Polish Kingdom.
Poland and Lithuania concluded the Union in light of the perils posed to both states by the expansion of the Teutonic Order.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a very large and internally differentiated state. Very few Lithuanians inhabited the northern and western areas of the state. To the east and south laid the lands of the Ruthenian princes, which Lithuania had conquered, having repelled the Mongols. The population of Ruthenians (inhabitants of Slavonic descent professing Orthodox Christianity) was more numerous, with their language and culture dominating even at the court of the grand Lithuanian dukes.
The baptism of the Grand Duke and the nobility in Western Christianity helped maintain the identity of the Lithuanian ethnic element. ln addition, the Polish Church gained enormous opportunities for missionary work, providing the clergy with prestige, gratification and importance in the Catholic Church.
The Union was substantiated by economic and social reasons: the aspiration of merchants toward developing far-ranging trade; the Polish magnates sought expansion by settling the Ruthenian lands; Lithuanian princes and boyars sought to bring Polish political patterns to Lithuania.
Quickly after the Union of Krewo and baptism of Lithuania, it turned out, however, that the incorporation [the text of the Union used the Latin term applicare] of such a different state organism into the Crown of the Polish Kingdom was impossible. Lithuania had its own system of government, laws and social structures. Witold, the cousin of Ladislaus Jagiello became the embodiment of this separate Lithuanian identity and the king invested Witold with power in Lithuania in 1392.
In 1401 in Vilnius and in 1413 in Horodlo the Polish-Lithuanian Union was transformed so as to enable Lithuania's identity to find its legal expression.
Poland and Lithuania, united by the Union, commanded at the turn of the 15th century a territory of upwards of 1.1 million sq. km., the land being inhabited by various ethnic groups and religions: Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Ruthenians, Jews, Armenians, and Tartars, professing Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, Judaic and Muslim religions. That great diversity, despite the dominance of Catholicism, compelled the rulers to be completely tolerant and guarantee rights to all inhabitants, irrespective of their descent or religion.
The lasting significance of the Union lay in the fact of the inclusion of a new member, Lithuania, into the sphere of European and Christian culture. The Union was an act of enormous importance for both states and societies. Though some of the principles were modified in the 15th and 16th centuries, it endured to the end of the 18th century, for 400 years.
The baptism of Lithuania and the union with Poland deprived the Teutonic Order of all reasons for its expansion, and even for its existence. But the Teutonic state was powerful, excellently organized rich and commanding an excellent army, a network of castles and an efficient system of government. It also enjoyed prestige in Christian Europe.
The seizure of Gdansk-Pomerania was an incessant source of conflict between the Order and Poland. It became particularly painful towards the end of the 14th century, when the growing trade in Polish grain rafted on the Vistula to Gdansk, went against the
political barrier.
The Teutonic Knights resolved to preempt the growth of strength of Poland and Lithuania by starting a war against both states in 1409. The decisive battle took place on July 15, 1410, at Grunwald. The 30,000-strong Polish-Lithuanian army, marching on the opponent's Capital City of Malbork, clashed with the 20,000-man army of the Teutonic Order. The technological edge was on the Teutonic side. They even used field artillery for the first time in this part of Europe. The day-long fierce battle ended in a complete defeat of the Teutonic Knights and the death of the Grand Master.
Nevertheless Malbork was not taken. The Order was helped by the intervention of the ruler of Germany, Bohemia and Hungary, Sigismund of Luxembourg. That being the situation, the Peace of Torun, 1411, was not commensurate with the Polish-Lithuanian military success, so it did not bring any solution to the conflict. On the other hand, however, the strength of the Teutonic Order was broken.
The diplomatic strife between the Order and Poland and Lithuania continued at the Council of Constance (1414-1418). A professor of Krakow University, Pawel Wiodkowic, delivered there a treatise condemning war and violence as a means to convert pagans. Such views ran counter to the prevailing contemporary opinion, but were borne out by the effective Christianization of Lithuania by Poland.
A new factor in the Polish-Teutonic conflict after the war of 1409-1411 was provided by the attitude of the Order's subjects, particularly of the knights and townspeople of Gdansk-Pomerania and Chelmno province. Those social groups set up a representation--the so-called Prussian Union--calling for political changes and observance of estate laws instituted by the Order. The Order, however, was unable to carry out such a change.
In 1454, having been threatened with the death penalty, the leaders of the Prussian Union asked Poland for assistance. King Casimir the Jagiellon (1447-1492) declared the incorporation of Pomerania and Prussia into Poland. The 13-Year War broke out. It ended in the Peace of Torun in 1466. Poland regained Gdansk-Pomerania, Malbork and Elblag, the Chelmno province, as well as Warmia. For their merits in the war against the Order, cities of those regions were granted numerous rights, with Pomerania gaining territorial self-government. The rest of the Order's lands, the so-called Teutonic Prussia, became a fiefdom of Poland.
The social and political system of 15th century Poland ensured benefits to all social estates. Gradually, however, following the grant of numerous privileges to knights, the balance changed in favor of one social group. To win privileges, knights were able to take advantage of the elective nature of the Polish throne and their participation in wars. The most significant privileges were: the right to the immunity of knightly fees (1422) and the right to personal immunity [neminem captivabimus nisi iure victum] (1430-1433) by which confiscation and imprisonment could take place only in case of a court ruling. There were other privileges, too: the right to buy the offices of the heads of hamlets (1423); the Nieszawa privilege, stipulating that the king shall not institute new taxes nor shall he call up levy of the gentry for a war without the consent of local Sejms (1454); the privilege tying peasants to their villages, enabling voivodes [provinces] to fix prices for goods from towns and exempting knights from customs duties for their own goods (1496).
The limitation of the rights of townspeople and peasants to the benefit of the gentry (and of the clergy related to them by family bonds) gradually changed Poland's regime, which was taking place without opposition from lower social estates or strife between social groups. Perhaps the general increase in well-being and the absence of social tension, as well as the open avenues to social advancement for the most outstanding burghers and peasants mitigated the conflicts. Moreover. the knights (the gentry) cooperated on the national level in their struggle for the privileges, while the strivings of towns and villages were scattered and uncoordinated.
The development of the state and society, apart from military successes and economic advancement, was also promoted by the steady development of culture, especially visible at the court of Queen Hedwig and the Polish rulers, the Krakow Academy and bishops' courts.
The 15th century saw the climax of the development of Polish Gothic, mirrored in architecture, sculpture and painting. Among the finest works of art were those by Wit Stwosz, a sculptor of Krakow and Nuremberg, especially noted for his altar in St. Mary's Church in Krakow and the tombstone of Casimir the Jagiellon. In painting, initially influenced by the Bohemian school, there appeared the Nowy-Sacz-Krakow school. The chief accomplishment in literature was the excellent chronicle by Jan Dlugosz, a Krakow canon and teacher of royal children, written in Latin. A number of literary works of great value appeared in Polish, testifying to the development of the Polish language. The readership of those works included a relatively numerous group of educated people.
The number of parochial schools amounted to a few thousand. Some of them offered more than the teaching of reading, writing and church singing. The Krakow Academy's enrollment during the 15th century went up to over 17,000 students, some 12,000 from the Crown.
The first printing shop was established in Krakow in 1473. The last few decades of the 15th century saw the growing influence on Poland of the Renaissance culture.
The successful development of Poland in the 15th century, military victories, development of the economy and culture, strengthened the dynasty of the Jagiellons. In the latter part of the 15th century they were gaining the upper hand in the competition against the Luxemburgers and the Habsburgs.
Following the short-lived dynastic union of Poland and Hungary (1440-1444), Casimir the Jagiellon's son, Ladislaus, sat on the Czech throne in 1471 and on the Hungarian in 1490. So, at the turn of 16th century, Poland and Lithuania, as well as Bohemia and Hungary, were under the rule of the two lines of the Jagiellonian dynasty. In addition, part of Mazovia, still continuing its independence, and Teutonic Prussia, were fiefdoms of Poland. The nation's influence went as far as Moldavia.
