Władysław II Jagiełło

Jogaila (; 1 June 1434), later Władysław II Jagiełło ()He is known under a number of names: lt, Jogaila Algirdaitis; pl, Władysław II Jagiełło; be, Jahajła (Ягайла). See also: Names and titles of Władysław II Jagiełło. was Grand Duke of Lithuania (1377–1434) and then King of Poland (1386–1434), first alongside his wife Jadwiga until 1399, and then sole ruler of Poland. Born a pagan, he converted to Catholicism in 1386 and was baptized as Władysław in Kraków, married the young Queen Jadwiga, and was crowned King of Poland as Władysław II Jagiełło. In 1387, he converted Lithuania to Catholicism. His own reign in Poland started in 1399, upon the death of Queen Jadwiga, lasted a further thirty-five years, and laid the foundation for the centuries-long Polish–Lithuanian union. He was a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Poland that bears his name and was previously also known as the Gediminid dynasty in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The dynasty ruled both states until 1572,Anna Jagiellon, the last member of royal Jagiellon family, died in 1596. and became one of the most influential dynasties in late medieval and early modern Europe. During his reign, the Polish-Lithuanian state was the largest state in the Christian world.

Jogaila was the last pagan ruler of medieval Lithuania. After he became King of Poland, as a result of the Union of Krewo, the newly formed Polish-Lithuanian union confronted the growing power of the Teutonic Order. The allied victory at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, followed by the Peace of Thorn, secured the Polish and Lithuanian borders and marked the emergence of the Polish–Lithuanian alliance as a significant force in Europe. The reign of Władysław II Jagiełło extended Polish frontiers and is often considered the beginning of Poland's Golden Age.

Early life

Lithuania

Little is known of Jogaila's early life, and even his year of birth is uncertain. Previously historians assumed he was born in 1352, but some recent research suggests a later date—about 1362. He was a descendant of the Gediminid dynasty and was the son of Algirdas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, and his second wife, Uliana of Tver, who was the daughter of the Rurikid prince Alexander of Tver. His name had a meaning of more courageous and superior than others, he spent most of his early time in Vilnius, at his father's manor.

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania to which Jogaila succeeded as Grand Duke in 1377 was a political entity composed of two leading, but very different nationalities and two political systems: ethnic Lithuania in the north-west and the vast Ruthenian territories of former Kievan Rus', comprising the lands of modern Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of western Russia. At first, Jogaila—like his father—based his rule in the southern and eastern territories of Lithuania, while his uncle, Kęstutis, the Duke of Trakai, continued to rule the north-western region.Some historians have called this system a diarchy (; ). However, Rowell suggests that the nature of this dual rule "...reflects political expediency; it certainly does not meet the formal definition of diarchy as 'rule by two independent authorities'...those two leaders were not equal: the grand duke in Vilnius was supreme" (). Jogaila's succession, however, soon placed this system of dual rule under strain.

At the start of his reign, Jogaila was preoccupied with unrest in the Lithuanian Rus' lands. In 1377–78, Andrei of Polotsk, the eldest son of Algirdas, challenged Jogaila's authority and sought to become Grand Duke. In 1380, Andrei and another brother, Dmitry, sided with Prince Dmitri of Moscow against Jogaila's alliance with emir Mamai, de facto khan of the Golden Horde. Jogaila failed to support Mamai, lingering in the vicinity of the battlefield, which led to Mamai's army's significant defeat at the hands of Prince Dmitri in the Battle of Kulikovo. The Muscovites' Pyrrhic victory over the Golden Horde, in the long term, signified, however, the beginning of a slow climb to power by the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which became within a century the most serious rival and threat to the integrity, well-being and survival of Lithuania. However, in 1380 Muscovy was greatly weakened by tremendous losses suffered during the battle and thus, in the same year, Jogaila was free to begin a struggle for supremacy with Kęstutis.

In the north-west, Lithuania faced constant armed incursions from the Teutonic Knights—founded after 1226 to fight and convert the pagan Baltic tribes of Prussians, Yotvingians and Lithuanians. In 1380, Jogaila concluded the secret Treaty of Dovydiškės, directed against Kęstutis. When Kęstutis discovered the plan, the Lithuanian Civil War began. He seized Vilnius, overthrew Jogaila, and pronounced himself grand duke in his place. In 1382, Jogaila raised an army from his father's vassals and confronted Kęstutis near Trakai. Kęstutis and his son Vytautas entered Jogaila's encampment for negotiations but were tricked and imprisoned in the Kreva Castle, where Kęstutis was found dead, probably murdered, a week later. Vytautas escaped to the Teutonic fortress of Marienburg and was baptised there under the name Wigand.

Jogaila formulated the Treaty of Dubysa, which rewarded the Knights for their aid in defeating Kęstutis and Vytautas by promising Christianisation and granting them Samogitia west of the Dubysa river. However, when Jogaila failed to ratify the treaty, the Knights invaded Lithuania in the summer of 1383. In 1384, Jogaila reconciled with Vytautas promising to return his patrimony in Trakai. Vytautas then turned against the Knights, attacking and looting several Prussian castles.

It is known that Jogaila, being ethnic Lithuanian by the man's line, himself knew and spoke in the Lithuanian language with Vytautas, his cousin from the Gediminids dynasty. Also, during the Christianization of Samogitia, none of the clergy, who came to Samogitia with Jogaila, were able to communicate with the natives, therefore Jogaila himself taught the Samogitians about the Catholicism, thus he was able to communicate in the Samogitian dialect of the Lithuanian language. According to the Teutonic Order's testimonial, he could not read nor write, and had to listen to others reading for him.

Baptism and marriage

Jogaila's Russian mother Uliana of Tver urged him to marry Sofia, daughter of Prince Dmitri of Moscow, who required him first to convert to Orthodoxy.The historian John Meyendorff suggests Jogaila may have already been an Orthodox Christian: "In 1377, Olgerd of Lithuania died, leaving the Grand Principality to his son Jagiello, an Orthodox Christian..." (). Dmitri, however, made it a condition of the marriage that Jogaila "should be baptized in the Orthodox faith and that he should proclaim his Christianity to all men" (). That option, however, was unlikely to halt the crusades against Lithuania by the Teutonic Knights, who regarded Orthodox Christians as schismatics and little better than heathens. Jogaila chose therefore to accept a Polish proposal to become a Catholic and marry the eleven-year-old Queen Jadwiga of Poland.Jadwiga had actually been crowned king of Poland (), because the Polish political system made no provision for a queen regnant (). The nobles of Lesser Poland made this offer to Jogaila for many reasons. They wanted to neutralize the dangers posed by Lithuania itself and to secure the fertile territories of Galicia–Volhynia. The Polish nobles saw the offer as an opportunity for increasing their privileges and avoiding Austrian influence, brought by Jadwiga's previous fiancé William, Duke of Austria.

On 14 August 1385 in Kreva Castle, Jogaila confirmed his prenuptial promises in the Union of Krewo (Union of Kreva). The promises included the adoption of Christianity, repatriation of lands "stolen" from Poland by its neighbours, and ''terras suas Lithuaniae et Russiae Coronae Regni Poloniae perpetuo applicare'', a clause interpreted by historians to mean anything from a personal union between Lithuania and Poland to a complete incorporation of Lithuania into Poland. The agreement at Kreva has been described both as far-sighted and as a desperate gamble.It "reflects the exceptional far-sightedness of the political elites ruling both countries" (). It was "a desperate gamble by Jogaila to avert a seemingly inevitable subjugation" ()

Jogaila was duly baptised at the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków on 15 February 1386 and from then on formally used the name Władysław or Latin versions of it.A Slavic name that roughly translates as ''glorious rule'', Władysław is often Latinised into either Wladislaus or Ladislaus. The choice evoked both Władysław I of Poland, the Elbow-high, who was Queen Jadwiga's great-grandfather and unified the kingdom in 1320, and Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary, a king who sided with the pope against the emperor Henry IV and Christianised Transylvania (). The marriage took place three days later, and on 4 March 1386 Jogaila was crowned King Władysław by archbishop Bodzanta. He was also to be legally adopted by Jadwiga's mother, Elizabeth of Bosnia, so retaining the throne in the event of Jadwiga's death. He was the first Lithuanian to be crowned as the King of Poland. The royal baptism triggered the conversion of most of Jogaila's court and noblemen, as well as mass baptisms in Lithuanian rivers, a beginning of the final Christianization of Lithuania. Though the ethnic Lithuanian nobility were the main converts to Catholicism—both paganism and the Orthodox rite remained strong among the peasants—the king's conversion and its political implications created lasting repercussions for the history of both Lithuania and Poland. On 22 February 1387, he banned Catholics from marriages with Orthodox, and demanded those Orthodox who previously married with the Catholics to convert to Catholicism.

Ruler of Lithuania and Poland

Accession

Władysław II Jagiello and Jadwiga reigned as co-monarchs; and though Jadwiga probably had little real power, she took an active part in Poland's political and cultural life. In 1387, she led two successful military expeditions to Red Ruthenia, recovered lands her father, Louis I of Hungary, had transferred from Poland to Hungary, and secured the homage of Voivode Petru I of Moldavia. In 1390, she also personally opened negotiations with the Teutonic Order. Most political responsibilities, however, fell to Jagiello, with Jadwiga attending to the cultural and charitable activities for which she is still revered.

Soon after Jagiello's accession to the Polish throne, Jagiello granted Vilnius a city charter like that of Kraków, modeled on the Magdeburg Law; and Vytautas issued a privilege to a Jewish commune of Trakai on almost the same terms as privileges issued to the Jews of Poland in the reigns of Boleslaus the Pious and Casimir the Great. Władysław's policy of unifying the two legal systems was partial and uneven at first but achieved a lasting influence. By the time of the Union of Lublin in 1569, there was not much difference between the administrative and judicial systems in force in Lithuania and Poland.

One effect of Jagiello's measures was to be the advancement of Catholics in Lithuania at the expense of Orthodox elements; in 1387 and 1413, for example, Lithuanian Catholic boyars were granted special judicial and political privileges denied to the Orthodox boyars. As this process gained momentum, it was accompanied by the rise of both Rus' and Lithuanian identity in the fifteenth century.

Challenges

Jagiello's baptism failed to end the crusade of the Teutonic Knights, who claimed his conversion was a sham, perhaps even a heresy, and renewed their incursions on the pretext that pagans remained in Lithuania. From then on, however, the Order found it harder to sustain the cause of a crusade and faced the growing threat to its existence posed by the Kingdom of Poland and a genuinely Christian Lithuania alliance. Władysław sponsored the creation of the diocese of Vilnius under bishop Andrzej Wasilko, the former confessor of Elizabeth of Poland. The bishopric, which included Samogitia, then largely controlled by the Teutonic Order, was subordinated to the see of Gniezno and not to that of Teutonic Königsberg. The decision may not have improved Władysław's relations with the Order, but it served to introduce closer ties between Lithuania and Poland, enabling the Polish church to freely assist its Lithuanian counterpart.

In 1389, Władysław's rule in Lithuania faced a revived challenge from Vytautas, who resented the power given to Skirgaila in Lithuania at the expense of his own patrimony. Vytautas started a civil war in Lithuania, aiming to become the Grand Duke. On 4 September 1390, the joint forces of Vytautas and Grand Master Konrad von Wallenrode of the Teutonic Order, laid siege to Vilnius, which was held by Władysław's regent Skirgaila with combined Polish, Lithuanian and Ruthenian troops. Although the Knights lifted the siege of the castle after a month, they reduced much of the outer city to ruins. This bloody conflict was eventually brought to a temporary halt in 1392 with the Treaty of Ostrów, by which Władysław handed over the government of Lithuania to his cousin in exchange for peace: Vytautas was to rule Lithuania as the grand duke (''magnus dux'') until his death, under the overlordship of the Supreme Duke (''dux supremus'') in the person of the Polish monarch. Skirgaila was moved from the Duchy of Trakai to become prince of Kiev. Vytautas initially accepted his status but soon began to pursue Lithuania's independence from Poland.

The protracted period of war between the Lithuanians and the Teutonic Knights was ended on 12 October 1398 by the Treaty of Salynas, named after the islet in the Neman River where it was signed. Lithuania agreed to cede Samogitia and assist the Teutonic Order in a campaign to seize Pskov, while the Order agreed to assist Lithuania in a campaign to seize Novgorod. Shortly afterwards, Vytautas was crowned as a king by local nobles; but the following year his forces and those of his ally, Khan Tokhtamysh of the White Horde, were crushed by the Timurids at the Battle of the Vorskla River, ending his imperial ambitions in the east and obliging him to submit to Władysław's protection once more.

King of Poland

Early actions

On 22 June 1399, Jadwiga gave birth to a daughter, baptised Elizabeth Bonifacia, but within a month the mother and daughter died, leaving Władysław sole ruler of the Kingdom of Poland and without an heir nor much legitimacy to rule the kingdom. Jadwiga's death undermined Władysław's right to the throne, and as a result old conflicts between the nobility of Lesser Poland, generally sympathetic to Władysław, and the gentry of Greater Poland began to surface. In 1402, Władysław answered the rumblings against his rule by marrying Anna of Celje, a granddaughter of Casimir III of Poland, a political match that re-legitimised his reign.

The Union of Vilnius and Radom of 1401 confirmed the status of Vytautas as grand duke under Władysław's overlordship, while assuring the title of grand duke to the heirs of Władysław rather than those of Vytautas: should Władysław die without heirs, the Lithuanian boyars were to elect a new monarch. Since no heir had yet been produced by either monarch, the implications of the union were unforeseeable, but it forged bonds between the Polish and Lithuanian nobility and a permanent defensive alliance

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases