Carol Luttrell retired from DuPont after 23 years of service and currently teaches technical writing and writing in the sciences as an adjunct instructor at the University of Delaware. She was a professional writer in corporate America for 39 years. She has a bachelor’s (Widener University) and master’s degree (Villanova University) in English literature and a Master of Energy and Environmental Policy degree from the University of Delaware. She is currently in the University of Delaware’s Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program.
Jadwiga and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Carol Luttrell, University of Delaware
A few of my 30 Lithuanian cousins (my mother’s side of the family) were bursting with ethnic pride some years ago when they asked me if I knew about the Lithuanian princess, Jadwiga, who was elected king of Poland because she was held in such high esteem. This was news to me, and, coming from peasant stock, indentured servants, and Quaker pacifists, I didn’t think too much about it until we had a family reunion in 2015 and they discussed it again. I thought it would make an interesting research paper, done on a topic and historical figure not commonly addressed or even well known in the United States. My review of general history and world culture textbooks found no mention of this young woman who played a major role in the medieval Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a powerful state in medieval Europe.
Jadwiga of Kraków (1373/4–July 17, 1399) was a ranking figure in the history of Poland and Lithuania and holds as much status to the Poles as Joan of Arc has to the French. But she wasn’t Lithuanian. She was the grandniece of Casimir the Great, the last of the Piast kings of Poland, and the youngest daughter of Louis the Great, King of Hungary, who was also absentee ruler of Poland from 1370 to 1382.[1] Jadwiga was born in Buda, Hungary, ca. 1373.
Louis was guided by his main concern for succession. He had two surviving daughters, Maria and Hedwig (Jadwiga in Polish), but no son. In 1374, at Kosice, he had obtained an assurance from the Polish barons that one of his daughters would succeed him in Poland. Immediately after his death in 1382, Maria was raised to the throne of Hungary. The Poles would have no further personal union between the two kingdoms and had no liking for Sigismund, then Margrave of Brandenburg, Maria’s husband.
At that time, the Poles had had their fill of absentee monarchs. The Polish nobility wanted Sigismund to reside in Poland, which he was unwilling to do. He did not want to rule from Poland, because he had always been more interested in Hungary. To avoid another absentee monarch, the Polish nobles supported Jadwiga’s accession to Poland. She was eight years old, had never visited Poland, had been raised in expectation of the Hungarian throne, and was the ward of her mother, Elizabeth of Bosnia.[2] She became engaged to William of Habsburg, son of Leopold III of Austria, when William was eight and Jadwiga four. The plan was that they would be married when she reached canonical age of 12 in 1386.[3]
The Poles were concerned about Jadwiga’s fiancé. There was no wish to see a German Prince reigning Poland, and moreover, the candidate was apparently not powerful enough to bring any advantage to the kingdom. The chief aristocratic families of little Poland found a candidate in Jagiello, Grand Duke of Lithuania.[4]
Jogaila (ca. 1351–1434) succeeded to the throne of Lithuania at the age of twenty six and lived to be eighty-three. Of all the neighboring peoples, he had no special love for the Poles, who to his pagan mind were servants of “the German God.” Yet the Catholic clouds on his western horizon (the German Teutonic Knights) were unmistakable. Thus he was driven towards Poland by the coldest and most calculated reasons of state. His duty was clear: He had to form a union with the Poles, and the prospect of a nubile Hungarian princess was an added bonus.
In 1384, as soon as Jadwiga arrived in Krakow, the Lithuanian matchmakers make their first approaches. A conjugal and a political union between the child Jadwiga and a man 30 years her senior was proposed. It was a decisive moment in the life of two nations.[5] A great state could be formed, capable of resisting both Germany and the East. Sinking, for once, all their mutual difference, these nations could ensure for themselves a common access to seas, the Baltic and the Black Seas.[6]
Jadwiga at first rebelled. It was her wish to rejoin her childhood companion, who was a veritable prince charming and had reappeared to save her from the barbarian whom stern reasons of state had destined for her husband. This generous child understood that the project, whose realization now depended upon her alone, was more than a mere political combination like so many others. At Krevo, Jagiello had promised that he would unite his Lithuanian and Ruthenian lands to the crown of Poland forever.[7]
Weilkopolaska leaders were prepared to accept Jadwiga if her long-standing betrothal to William of Hapsburg could be broken off. At a second gathering at Sioeradz at the end of 1383, the spokesman of the compromise, Jasko of Czyn, Castellan of Wojnik, persuaded his opponents to relent. The junior princess, aged 10 years 7 months, was crowned in Krakow as King Jadwiga on October 15, 1384. In the event, no voice was raised against her.[8]
Jadwiga was literate and exceptionally well educated. She was schooled in the arts, music, and science, and she spoke at least six languages: Latin, Bosnian, Hungarian, Serbian, Polish, and German. She was not at all a passive child and a tool to be manipulated by more experienced and ambitious politicians. Her charm and kindness, stressed in all contemporary accounts, eventually gained for her an extraordinary position and made her a great asset for a long-suffering nation that was seeking a truly humane and compassionate leadership.[9] She lived a short but accomplished life and was the first female monarch of the Kingdom of Poland, reigning from October 15, 1384, until her death in 1399.[10]
In the United States, unless one is an historian of Polish or Lithuanian ancestry, one has probably never heard of nor had any interest in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Formally known as the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, it was a dualistic state, a bi-confederation of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch, who was both the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania.
The Commonwealth was established by the Union of Lublin in July 1569, but the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been in a de facto personal union since 1386 with the marriage of the Polish “King” Jadwiga and Lithuania's Grand Duke Jogaila, who was crowned King jure uxoris Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland.[11] Jure uxoris, Latin for “by right of his wife,” is a title of nobility held by a man because his wife holds it suo jure, “in her own right.”
Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, sent his envoys—including his brother, Skirgaila, and a German burgher from Riga—to Kraków to request Jadwiga's hand in January 1385.[12] Jadwiga, then only 11 years of age, refused to answer, stating only that her mother would decide because she was a minor and had no right to make any final decisions.[13] In considering Jogaila, Elizabeth informed the nobles that “she would allow whatever was advantageous to Poland and insisted that her daughter and the prelates and nobles of the Kingdom had to do what they considered would benefit Christianity and their kingdom.”[14]
The contention that Jadwiga was not really bound by a betrothal to William of Austria made when she was underage mollified the Queen, and she eventually agreed to marry the Grand Duke, not to satisfy passion or savor the delights of the flesh but rather to ensure the spread of Christianity and peace.[15] They were married on February 15, 1386. She had agreed to marry him only after lengthy prayer, seeking divine inspiration.[16] The marriage unified Poland, Lithuania, and Ruthenia into a strong political unit able to resist both Russian and German expansion. Jogaila presided over the Ruthenian territories—the lands of modern Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia—which the Lithuanian state had acquired in the fourteenth century.[17]
However, Jogaila was ready not only to become a Christian, if Jadwiga would have him, but to bring all of Lithuania into the Church. The Lithuanians prided themselves on being the last pagan state in Europe.[18] According to my aunts, they worshiped thunder and nature spirits. Dlugosz writes:
The ordinary people protested and insisted that it was unworthy, irrational and against the tradition of their ancestors to expose themselves and their idols to destruction. The sacred groves were to be cut down, and the snakes kept in people’s houses as a tutelary idols were to be killed. When this had been done, thus proving the falseness of their gods, the people agreed to accept the Christian faith.[19]
For Jadwiga, the experience was extremely painful. She was eleven years old and virtually alone in a foreign country. She was being told to abandon a young man whom she had known from infancy and to wed a pagan bachelor more than three times her age, with whom she could not even converse. She was intelligent, pretty, an accomplished musician and scholar, and entirely helpless.[20]
To reduce their dependency on Poland’s magnates, this oddly assorted royal couple, although unable to speak a common language, quickly established a working political relationship. Jadwiga was not a mere queen-consort. She emerged as a powerful figure in her own right.[21] She helped her husband gain general recognition not as a prince consort but as a real monarch, like herself.[22]
She wielded a moderating influence on the governance of the turbulent double-kingdom, tempering her husband’s tendency to jealousy and extreme measures.[23] She functioned as a military leader. For example, according to Dlugosz:
[W]hile her husband was in Lithuania, Queen Jadwiga, intending to enlarge her kingdom, assembled another army of knights and gentry who are so attached to her that they obey all her commands, and invade Ruthenia. Within a short time, she has captured many parts, thanks in part to the generalship of a Hungarian knight, called Bebek. She removed all the Hungarians and Silesians installed there by her father and the Duke of Opole and replaces them with Poles, thus reuniting lands unjustly torn from the Kingdom of Poland.[24]
She functioned as a diplomat, patiently negotiating with the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights without giving up any Polish rights in 1398; she wisely postponed a war which was unavoidable but for which neither her own realm not its possible allies on both sides of the Baltic were prepared.[25] She also acted as an advocate for the Commonwealth and was actively involved in education, church works, and charity. She accompanied Władysław II Jagiełło to Greater Poland to appease the local lords who were still hostile to him.[26] The royal visit caused damage to the peasants who lived in the local prelates' domains, but Jadwiga persuaded her husband to compensate them, saying: “We have, indeed, returned the peasants' cattle, but who can repair their tears?”[27] A court record of her order to the judges in favor of a peasant also shows that she protected the poor.[28]
Jadwiga’s childhood betrothal relationship with William came back to haunt her. On William's demand, Pope Urban VI initiated a new investigation about the marriage of Jadwiga and Władysław II Jagiełło.[29] They sent Bishop Dobrogost of Poznań to Rome to inform the pope of the Christianization of Lithuania.[30] In his letter to Bishop Dobrogost, Pope Urban jointly mentioned the royal couple in March 1388, which implied that he had already acknowledged the legality of their marriage.[31] However, Gniewosz of Dalewice, a Polish knight and a courtier of King Władysław Jagiełło and Queen Jadwiga of Poland, who had been William of Habsburg's supporter, spread rumors about secret meetings between William and Jadwiga in the royal castle.[32] Jadwiga took a solemn oath before Jan Tęczyński, one of the most important advisers to the first King of Poland stating that she had only had marital relations with Władysław II Jagiełło.[33] After all witnesses confirmed her oath, Gniewosz of Dalewice confessed that he had lied. Jadwiga did not take vengeance on him.[34]
Jadwiga was childless for more than a decade. Finally, she conceived. On the occasion of the expected birth to the royal couple, Władysław II Jagiełło's cousin Vytautas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, sent expensive gifts, including a silver cradle, to the royal court on behalf of himself and his wife, Anna.[35] A girl was delivered on June 22, 1399, at Wawel Castle.
The newborn princess was named Elizabeth Bonifacia after Jadwiga's mother and Pope Boniface IX who, in a letter of May 5, 1399, had agreed to be godfather under the condition that the infant be called Boniface or Bonifacia). She was baptized by Piotr Wysz Radoliński, Bishop of Kraków. However, the infant died after only three weeks, on July 13, 1399. Jadwiga, too, was on her deathbed; she died July 17, 1399, four days after her newborn daughter.[36] Jadwiga and her daughter were buried together in Wawel Cathedral, on August 24, 1399. Władysław II Jagiełło mourned her. He wore his wedding ring from her all the time in spite of his three remarriages and on his deathbed called it the most precious jewel of his whole life.[37]
A patron of religion and scholarship, Jadwiga sought to promote the religious development of the nations that she had united, founded a special college and established scholarships for Lithuanians and Ruthenian students,[38] and financed the restoration of the university at Kraków, which was enhanced after her death and later named the Jagiellonian University. Chiefly Jadwiga’s work, the university was modeled after the University of Paris and became the center of Polish civilization and influence.
My devoutly Roman Catholic aunts and uncles would be glad to know that Queen Jadwiga really cared for her relationship with Jesus and did a lot to bring Him closer to her relatives and subjects. To strengthen the fundamentals of the faith in the Kingdom of Poland, she bequeathed her fortune to the renewal and expansion of the impoverished Academy of Kraków, now Jagiellonian University. She obtained the Pope’s permission to open a Department of Theology, which greatly hastened evangelization in the whole area of the vast kingdom in the Polish, Lithuanian, and Ruthenian (Ukranian) lands. The Department had a great influence on raising the profile of the University, which from then was a major academic establishment in Europe, and whose revival had great meaning in the history of Poland. It was from here that many notable individuals were graduated. For example:
· Pawel Wlodkowic (ca. 1370–1435), distinguished scholar, jurist and rector of the Kraków Academy who defended Poland and native non-Christian tribes against the Teutonic Knights and their policies of conquest
· Mikolaj Kopernik, in German, Nicholas Copernicus (1437–1543), the Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the sun rather than the earth at the center of the universe
· St. John Cantius (1390-1473), Polish priest, scholastic philosopher, physicist and theologian
· Stanislaw Wyspianski (1869-1907), playwright, painter and poet, as well as interior and furniture designer
· Tadeusz Sgeligowski (1896-1963), composer, educator, lawyer and music organizer
· Karol Wojtyla (1920–2005), Pope John Paul II
· Andrzej Duda (b. 1972), the current President of Poland[39]
Pope John Paul II canonized Jadwiga in Blonia Park, a vast meadow with an area of 48 hectares directly adjacent to the historic center of the city of Kraków, Poland. This was also an important historical event: the first canonization mass on Polish soil. She was canonized on June 8, 1997,and her feast day is February 28. At the canonization the Pope praised Jadwiga’s appreciation of the value of cultural institutions to both state and church. In his homily, the Pope stated:
The only woman on the throne of Poland. Young, beautiful, smart…she could have everything what a soul desires! She chose the good of her subjects and country, which she reigned over. This choice gave Poland stability and prosperity for the next few hundred years. But Queen Jadwiga was mainly known for her gentleness, courage, wisdom and care for her subjects.[40]
Jadwiga’s tragic yet worthwhile life is unparalleled in Polish history. The fruits of her marriage were prodigious. It is precisely in the lifetime of Jadwiga that one can perceive the transition from medieval universalism to modern nation-state and the balance of power systems.[41] It sounded the death knell for the Teutonic order: With the conversion of Lithuania to Catholicism, the need for crusading vanished and with it the wholeraison d’etre of the Knights in Prussia.[42]
In a sense, Jadwiga played the unenviable role of Poland’s sacrificial lamb. It is difficult to overlook the fact that the union, however advantageous to Poland and Lithuania, was made at the expense of a young woman’s personal happiness. Personal happiness wasn’t important in state marriages of that time. Nobles didn’t marry for love as they do in the twenty-first century. Of great importance was the fact that because of her marriage to Jogaila, Lithuania, which had the capacity to become Poland’s main enemy and rival in the east, thus joined Poland in a common political destiny. By marrying a man she likely didn’t love, Jadwiga turned Lithuania into a Catholic country and gave Poland a permanent ally that would eventually help it destroy its mortal threat, the Teutonic Order, at Grunwald in 1410. For this, and her kind reign, she is honored as one of Poland’s greatest rulers.
How would East Central Europe have developed if Jadwiga hadn’t ruled? The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would not have come into existence as it did in 1386. Lithuania would not have converted to Christianity as easily, if at all. She is also credited with preparing the way for the Jagiellonian Federal Union, which although not perfect was nevertheless one of the most successful experiments in regional federal organization, where the principles of self-determination and international cooperation were reconciled.[43]
Additionally, the Jagiellonian University would not have obtained the reputation that it has today. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe, and one of the oldest surviving universities in the world. Foreigners from as far afield as England and Spain came to study or teach in its halls, while native graduates went abroad to widen their learning.[44] It is ranked number 1 in Poland and number 429 in the world.[45]
Jadwiga’s personality and accomplishments belied her youth. Jadwiga reigned for 14 years and did more than most. She was involved in education, charity, and care for the poor. Although the Commonwealth ultimately declined, it would not have existed or developed at all without her. With her ascension to the throne, it was not long before Poland’s position as a great central European power was assured.[46] Her cult is part of the Polish tradition and despite the delays in her canonization process, she is considered one of the nation’s patron saints.[47] All these years after her death, she is still regarded by millions of Poles as their greatest queen.[48]
The marriage of Jadwiga and Jagiello coincided with the start of a long period of prosperity that enabled the Polish-Lithuanian state to emerge as an international power. According to Stone, improvements and superior organization produced agricultural surpluses for sale to local cities and abroad. Prosperity led to the colonization of new farming area, while more efficient production freed rural residents to become artisans or merchants in cities. Trade routes crisscrossed Poland-Lithuania, bringing political unification and defining foreign policy interests. Wealth brought social mobility to individuals within the established system.[49]
The rise and fall of the Polish-Lithuanian state offers one of the great dramatic spectacles of European history. It did not equal Rome’s rise and fall in chronological and geographical grandeur, but it covered a substantial period of 409 years (1386-1795) and encompassed a major geographic region. Poland’s union with Lithuania enabled it to become the dominant power in east-central Europe during the 15th and early 16th centuries and one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th- and 17th-century Europe. At its peak in the early 17th century, the Commonwealth spanned almost 400,000 square miles (1,000,000 km2) and sustained a multi-ethnic population of 11 million.[50] The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth covered much of the contemporary lands of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, and Romania. It was linked dynastically at various times to the predecessors of the modern states of Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, and parts of Germany.[51]
The Commonwealth possessed many features unique among medieval contemporary states. The idiosyncratic system of government in the Commonwealth was a precursor to modern concepts of democracy, constitutional monarchy, and federation. Its political system was characterized by strict checks upon monarchical power. These checks were enacted by a parliamentary legislature (Sejm) controlled by the nobility (Szlachta), who didn’t trust a strong monarchy. By the 16th century, Polish monarchs were elected by the Sejm, which was, however, dominated by the Polish landed class who wanted weak monarchs, a situation that would enhance their power; hence, they elected a French king who would be largely absentee. This became the fatal weakness of the Polish state by the 18th century. Although the two component states of the Commonwealth were formally equal, Poland was the dominant partner in the union.
Poland, a progressive among medieval European countries in the fourteenth century was moving in the direction of an elective monarchy and parliamentary government. It had an advisory council of the crown, and a national diet in which, theoretically, all the people, but actually for the time being only nobility of numerous gentry and clergy, were represented.[52]
Jadwiga tried to shape Poland’s policy toward the Teutonic Knights through negotiations. Her faith was so strong that, despite the sword-brandishing spirit of her age she believed she could succeed. And so, using all her influence to win Jagiello’s support, she embarked on a course of persistent, wearying effort for a peaceful solution. Indeed, her diplomatic struggle to bring the Order to reason and justice stands as one of the extraordinary episodes or European history. That she did not in the end succeed as she had hoped to does not dim the values in this picture of her as the early advocate of negotiation, the early pleader for peace.[53]
Jadwiga had filled her life with good works in the year 1390, declared a holy year by Pope Boniface IX. She increased her study of the church fathers and the saints, she added more days of self-denial, although she and Jagiello limited themselves two days a week to bread and water. At certain seasons she dressed almost as a nun, wearing a black veil and a rough garment next to her skin.[54] She was an enthusiast in church music and did much to improve it. For five hundred years Poland has been reverently grateful to Jadwiga for her effort to bring religion and learning within the reach of all; and for being, as she was, one of the first to appreciate the beauty and importance of the Polish language.[55]
Jadwiga was never set aside, and as young as she was she inaugurated from that moment her political role at the side of a husband who submitted to the ascendance of her character and intelligence and of her high culture. Jadwiga, who herself in 1384, had been crowned “king” became after 1386 a co-ruler whose influence increased with her years.[56] Before her death she again impressed upon those around her that the Polish-Lithuanian union must be built up not merely on constitutional charters but, above all, on a true fellowship. The University of Casimir the great having fallen into a state of decay, she prepared its renovation.[57]
Jadwiga is a very early example of feminism at work. She was a liberated young woman and who played a major role in her adopted country, making it a powerful state in medieval Europe. She deserves to get recognition for her accomplishments.
[1] Christine Kellogg, “Jadwiga, Poland’s Great Queen,” in Great Men and Women of Poland, ed. Stephan Mizwa (New York: Kosciuszko Foundation, 1967), 24.
[2] Robert I. Frost, Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 10.
[3] Ibid., 8.
[4] Oscar Halecki, Jadwiga of Anjou and the Rise of East Central Europe, ed. Tadeucz Gromasa (Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs/Highland Lakes, NJ/Atlantic Research Publications; Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1991), 67.
[5] Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland. Volume I: The Origins to 1795 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 116.
[6] Halecki, 69.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Davies, 112.
[9] Halecki, 114.
[10] S. C. Rowell, “1386: The Marriage of Jogaila and Jadwiga Embodies the Union of Lithuania and Poland,” in Lithuanian Historical Studies 11 (2006), 140.
[11] Daniel Stone, The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 3.
[12] Frost, 33.
[13] Halecki, 123.
[14] Jan Dlugosz, The Annals of Jan Długosz: An English Abridgement, ed. and trans. Maurice Michael (Charlton, West Sussex: IM Publications, 1997), 345.
[15] Ibid., 347.
[16] Halecki, 139.
[17] Stone, 4.
[18] Davies, 115.
[19] Dlugosz, 349.
[20] Davies, 117.
[21] Frost, 88.
[22] Halecki, 154.
[23] Ibid., 321.
[24] Dlugosz, 352.
[25] Halecki, 321.
[26] Ibid., 160.
[27] Dlugosz, 348.
[28] Halecki, 160.
[29] Ibid., 167–178.
[30] Ibid., 170.
[31] Ibid., 170.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid., 137, 180.
[34] Ibid., 180.
[35] Ibid., 242–243.
[36] Frost, 91.
[37] Halecki, 297.
[38] Stone, 95.
[39] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagiellonian_University.
[40] http://archive.krakow2016.com/en/saint-jadwiga-queen-of-poland.html.
[41] Halecki, 52.
[42] Adam Zamoyski, Poland: A History (London: Harper Press, 2009), 38.
[43] Halecki, xiv.
[44] Zamoyski, 53.
[45] https://www.cwur.org/2016/Jagiellonian-University.php.
[46] Paul W. Knoll, The Rise of the Polish Monarchy: Piast Poland in East Central Europe, 1320-1370 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1972), 236.
[47] Halecki, 77.
[48] Kellogg, 24.
[49] Stone, 67.
[50] Ibid.
[51] Ibid., ix.
[52] Kellogg, 27.
[53] Ibid., 34.
[54] Ibid., 35.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Halecki, 74.
[57] Ibid.
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