King Wladyslaw II OfPoland

Jogaila
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Jogaila or Wladyslaw II Jagiello
Born about 1348
in Vilnius
Died 1 June 1434
in Gródek Jagiellonski (now Horodok, Ukraine)
Buried Wawel Cathedral

Reign Lithuanian grand duke (later supreme duke) from 1377; king of Poland from 1386
to 1 June 1434
Coronation As Polish king: 4 March 1386
in Wawel Cathedral

Family or dynasty Jagiellon dynasty
Coat of Arms Vytis.
Parents Algirdas
Uliana Alexandrovna of Tver
Marriage and children with Jadwiga of Poland:
Elzbieta Bonifacja
with Anna of Celje:
Jadwiga of Lithuania
with Elisabeth of Pilica:
None
with Sophia of Halshany:
Wladyslaw III of Poland, Casimir IV Jagiellon

Jogaila, later Wladyslaw II Jagiello[1] (born ca. 1348; died 1 June 1434), was Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland. He ruled in Lithuania from 1377, at first with his uncle, Kestutis. In 1386, he converted to Christianity, was baptized as Wladyslaw, married the young Queen Jadwiga of Poland, inducted into the Order of the Dragon and was crowned Polish king as Wladyslaw Jagiello.[2] His reign in Poland lasted a further forty-eight years and laid the foundation for the centuries-long Polish-Lithuanian union. He gave his name to the Jagiellon branch of the established Lithuanian Gediminids dynasty, which ruled both states until 1572,[3] and became one of the most influential dynasties in medieval Central and Eastern Europe.[4]

Jogaila was the last pagan ruler of medieval Lithuania. He held the title Didysis Kunigaikatis.[5] As King of Poland, he pursued a policy of close alliances with Lithuania against the Teutonic Order. The allied victory at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, followed by the Peace of Thorn (1411), secured the Polish and Lithuanian borders and marked the emergence of the Polish-Lithuanian alliance as a significant force in Europe. The reign of Wladyslaw II Jagiello extended Polish frontiers and is often considered the beginning of Poland's "Golden Age".
Contents
[hide]

• 1 Early life
  o 1.1 Lithuania
  o 1.2 Baptism and marriage
  + 1.2.1 Reception in Poland
  
• 2 Ruler of Lithuania and Poland
  o 2.1 Challenges
  
• 3 King of Poland
  o 3.1 Defeat
  
• 4 Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic war
  o 4.1 Battle of Grunwald
  
• 5 Final years
  o 5.1 Dissent
  o 5.2 Last conflicts
  o 5.3 Succession
  
• 6 Family tree (incomplete)
  
• 7 See also
  
• 8 Notes
  
• 9 References
  
• 10 External links
  
  [edit] Early life
  
  [edit] Lithuania
  
  Little is known of Jogaila's early life, and even his date of birth is not certain. Previously historians have given his date of birth as 1352, but some recent research suggests a later dateabout 1362.[6] He was a descendant of the Gediminid dynasty and probably born in Vilnius. His parents were Algirdas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, and his second wife, Uliana, daughter of Alexander I, Grand Prince of Tver.
  
  The Lithuania to which Jogaila succeeded in 1377 was a political entity composed of two different nationalities and two political systems: ethnic Lithuania in the north-west and the vast Ruthenian territories of former Kievan Rus', comprising lands of modern Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of western Russia.[7] At first, Jogailalike his father, who had besieged Moscow in 1370[8]based his rule in the southern and eastern territories of Lithuania, while his uncle, Kestutis, the duke of Trakai, continued to rule the north-western region.[9] Jogaila's succession, however, soon placed this system of dual rule under strain.[4]
  
  At the start of his reign, Jogaila was preoccupied with unrest in the Lithuanian Rus' lands. In 137778, for example, his own half-brother, the russified Andrei of Polotsk, maneuvered to secede to Moscow.[10] In 1380, Andrei and another brother, Dmitry, sided with Prince Dmitri of Moscow against Jogaila's alliance with the Tatar Khan Mamai.[11] Jogaila failed to arrive with his troops in time to support Mamai,[10] who was defeated by Prince Dmitri at the Battle of Kulikovo, after which the principality of Moscow posed a heightened threat to Lithuania. In the same year, Jogaila began a struggle for supremacy with Kestutis.
  Equestrian statue of Wladyslaw II Jagiello, Central Park, New York
  
  In the north-west, Lithuania faced constant armed incursions from the monastic state of the Teutonic Orderfounded after 1226 to fight and convert the pagan Baltic tribes of Prussians, Yotvingians and Lithuanianswhich had established itself as a centralised regional power. In 1380, Jogaila secretly concluded the Treaty of Dovydiakes with the Order, in which he agreed to the Christianisation of Lithuania in return for the Order's backing against Kestutis.[4] When Kestutis discovered the plan, the Lithuanian Civil War began. He seized Vilnius, overthrew Jogaila, and pronounced himself grand duke in his place.[12]
  
  In 1382, Jogaila raised an army from his father's vassals and confronted Kestutis near Trakai. Kestutis and his son Vytautas, under a promise of safe conduct from Skirgaila, Jogaila's brother, entered Jogaila's encampment in Vilnius for negotiations but were tricked and imprisoned in the castle of Kreva, where Kestutis was found dead, probably murdered, a week later.[13] Vytautas escaped to the Teutonic fortress of Marienburg and was baptised there under the name Wigand.[12]
  
  Jogaila conducted further talks with the Order formulating the Treaty of Dubysa, which renewed his promises of Christianisation and granted the Knights Samogitia west of the Dubysa river. The Knights, however, pretending to assist both cousins at once, entered Lithuania in summer 1383 and seized most of Samogitia, opening a corridor between Teutonic Prussia and Teutonic Livonia further north. Having taken arms with the Knights, Vytautas then accepted assurances from Jogaila about his inheritance and joined him in attacking and looting several Prussian castles.[14]
  
  [edit] Baptism and marriage
  
  See also: Jadwiga of Poland
  
  When the time came for Jogaila to choose a wife, it became clear that he intended to marry a Christian. His Russian mother urged him to marry Sofia, daughter of Prince Dmitri of Moscow, who required him first to convert to Orthodoxy.[15] That option, however, was unlikely to halt the crusades against Lithuania by the Teutonic Order, who regarded Orthodox Christians as schismatics and little better than heathens.[12][4]
  Wawel Cathedral's towers
  
  Jogaila chose therefore to accept a Polish proposal to become a Catholic and marry the eleven-year-old Queen Jadwiga of Poland.[16][17] He was also to be legally adopted by Jadwiga's mother, Elisabeth of Hungary, so retaining the throne in the event of Jadwiga's death.[12] On these and other terms, on 14 August 1385 at the castle of Kreva, Jogaila agreed to adopt Christianity, repatriate 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 prenuptial agreement superseded when the marriage took place.[18] The agreement at Kreva has been described both as far-sighted and as a desperate gamble.[19]
  
  Jogaila was duly baptised at the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków on 15 February 1386 and from then on formally used the name Wladyslaw or Latin versions of it.[20] An official declaration of the baptism was sent to Grand Master Ernst von Zöllner, who had declined an invitation to become the new Christian's godfather, at the Order's capital, Marienburg.[21] The royal baptism triggered the conversion of most of Jogaila's court and knights, as well as mass baptisms in Lithuanian rivers,[22] a beginning of the final Christianization of Lithuania. Though the ethnic Lithuanian nobility were the main converts to Catholicismboth paganism and the Orthodox rite remained strong among the peasantsthe king's conversion and its political implications created lasting repercussions for the history of both Lithuania and Poland.[22]
  
  [edit] Reception in Poland
  Cross of Jagiellons, Wladyslaw's personal insignia, acquired after his marriage
  
  Before Wladyslaw's arrival in Kraków for the wedding, Queen Jadwiga despatched one of her knights, Zawisza the Red, to confirm that her future husband was really a human, as she had heard he was a bear-like creature, cruel and uncivilised.[23] Despite her misgivings, the marriage went ahead on 4 March 1386, two weeks after the baptism ceremonies, and Jogaila was crowned King Wladyslaw by archbishop Bodzanta. In time, the Poles discovered their new ruler to be a civilised monarch with a high regard for Christian culture, as well as a skilled politician and military commander. An athletic man, with small, restless, black eyes and big ears,[24] Wladyslaw dressed modestly and was said to be an unusually clean person, who washed and shaved every day, never touched alcohol, and drank only pure water.[23][25] His pleasures included listening to Ruthenian fiddlers and hunting.[26] Some medieval chroniclers attributed such model behaviour to Wladyslaw's conversion.[27]
  
  [edit] Ruler of Lithuania and Poland
  Jadwiga's sarcophagus, Wawel Cathedral
  
  Wladyslaw 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 had transferred from Poland to Hungary, and secured the homage of Petru I, Voivode of Moldavia.[28] In 1390, she also personally opened negotiations with the Teutonic Order. Most political responsibilities, however, fell to Wladyslaw, with Jadwiga attending to the cultural and charitable activities for which she is still revered.[28]
  
  Soon after Wladyslaw's accession to the Polish throne, Wladyslaw granted Vilnius a city charter like that of Kraków, modelled 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.[29] Wladyslaw's policy of unifying the two legal systems was partial and uneven at first but achieved a lasting influence.[28][30]
  
  One effect of Wladyslaw'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 the Orthodox boyars.[31] As this process gained momentum, it was accompanied by the rise of both Rus' and Lithuanian identity in the fifteenth century.[32]
  
  [edit] Challenges
  Vytautas
  
  Wladyslaw's baptism entirely 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.[12][33] From now on, however, the Order found it harder to sustain the cause of a crusade and faced the growing threat to its existence posed by a genuinely Christian Lithuania.[34][35]
  
  If anything, Wladyslaw and Jadwiga's policy of Catholicising Lithuania served to antagonise rather than disarm their Teutonic rivals. They sponsored the creation of the diocese of Vilnius under bishop Andrzej Wasilko, the former confessor of Elisabeth of Hungary. 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.[12] The decision may not have improved Wladyslaw'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.[22]
  
  In 1389, Wladyslaw'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.[14] Vytautas started a civil war in Lithuania, aiming to become the Grand Duke. On 4 September 1390, the joint forces of Vytautas and the Teutonic Grand Master, Konrad von Wallenrode, laid siege to Vilnius, which was held by Wladyslaw's regent Skirgaila with combined Polish, Lithuanian and Ruthenian troops.[4][36] Although the Knights, "with all their powder shot away", lifted the siege of the castle after a month, they reduced much of the outer city to ruins.[37] This bloody conflict was eventually brought to a temporary halt in 1392 with the secret Treaty of Ostrów, by which Wladyslaw handed over the government of Lithuania to his cousin in exchange for peace: Vytautas was to rule Lithuania as the Grand Duke until his death, under the overlordship of a supreme prince or duke in the person of the Polish monarch.[38] Vytautas accepted his new status but continued to demand Lithuania's complete separation from Poland.[39][28]
  Lithuania and Poland, ca. 1400.
  
  This 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.[28] 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 Wladyslaw's protection once more.[4][39]
  
  [edit] King of Poland
  
  On 22 June 1399, Jadwiga gave birth to a daughter, baptised Elzbieta Bonifacja; but within a month both mother and baby were dead from birth complications, leaving the fifty-year-old king sole ruler of Poland and without an heir. Jadwiga's death, and with it the extinction of the Angevin line, undermined Wladyslaw's right to the throne; and as a result old conflicts between the nobility of Lesser Poland, generally sympathetic to Wladyslaw, and the gentry of Greater Poland began to surface. In 1402, Wladyslaw answered the rumblings against his rule by marrying Anna of Celje, a granddaughter of Casimir III of Poland, a political match which re-legitimised his monarchy.
  Poland under king Wladyslaw Jagiello of Poland
  
  The Union of Vilnius and Radom of 1401 confirmed Vytautas's status as grand duke under Wladyslaw's overlordship, while assuring the title of grand duke to the heirs of Wladyslaw rather than those of Vytautas: should Wladyslaw die without heirs, the Lithuanian boyars were to elect a new monarch.[40][41] Since no heir had yet been produced by either monarch, the act's implications were unforeseeable, but it forged bonds between the Polish and Lithuanian nobility and a permanent defensive alliance between the two states, strengthening Lithuania's hand for a new war against the Teutonic Order in which Poland officially took no part.[34][39] While the document left the liberties of the Polish nobles untouched, it granted increased power to the boyars of Lithuania, whose grand dukes had till then been unencumbered by checks and balances of the sort attached to the Polish monarchy. The Union of Vilnius and Radom therefore earned Wladyslaw a measure of support in Lithuania.[28]
  
  In late 1401, the new war against the Order overstretched the resources of the Lithuanians, who found themselves fighting on two fronts after uprisings in the eastern provinces. Another of Wladyslaw's brothers, the malcontent `vitrigaila, chose this moment to stir up revolts behind the lines and declare himself grand duke.[33] On 31 January 1402, he presented himself in Marienburg, where he won the backing of the Knights with concessions similar to those made by Jogaila and Vytautas during earlier leadership contests in the Grand Duchy.[40]
  
  [edit] Defeat
  Wladyslaw II Jagiello's royal seal
  
  The war ended in defeat for Wladyslaw. On 22 May 1404 in the Treaty of Raciaz, he acceded to most of the Order's demands, including the formal cession of Samogitia, and agreed to support the Order's designs on Pskov; in return, Konrad von Jungingen undertook to sell Poland the disputed Dobrzyn Land and the town of Zlotoryja, once pawned to the Order by Wladyslaw Opolski, and to support Vytautas in a revived attempt on Novgorod.[40] Both sides had practical reasons for signing the treaty at that point: the Order needed time to fortify its newly acquired lands, the Poles and Lithuanians to deal with territorial challenges in the east and in Silesia.
  
  Also in 1404, Wladyslaw held talks at Vratislav with Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, who offered to return Silesia to Poland if Wladyslaw supported him in his power struggle within the Holy Roman Empire.[42] Wladyslaw turned the deal down with the agreement of both Polish and Silesian nobles, unwilling to burden himself with new military commitments in the west.[43]
  
  [edit] Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic war
  Main articles: Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War and Battle of Grunwald
  Wladyslaw II Jagiello by Jan Matejko
  
  In December 1408, Wladyslaw and Vytautas held strategic talks in Navahrudak Castle, where they decided to foment a Samogitian uprising against Teutonic rule to draw German forces away from Pomerelia. Wladyslaw promised to repay Vytautas for his support by restoring Samogitia to Lithuania in any future peace treaty.[44] The uprising, which began in May 1409, at first provoked little reaction from the Knights, who had not yet consolidated their rule in Samogitia by building castles; but by June their diplomats were busy lobbying Wladyslaw's court at Oborniki, warning his nobles against Polish involvement in a war between Lithuania and the Order.[45] Wladyslaw, however, bypassed his nobles and informed new Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen that if the Knights acted to suppress Samogitia, Poland would intervene. This stung the Order into issuing a declaration of war against Poland on 6 August, which Wladyslaw received on 14 August in Nowy Korczyn.[45]
  
  The castles guarding the northern border were in such bad condition that the Knights easily captured those at Zlotoryja, Dobrzyn and Bobrowniki, the capital of Dobrzyn Land, while German burghers invited them into Bydgoszcz (German: Bromberg). Wladyslaw arrived on the scene in late September, retook Bydgoszcz within a week, and came to terms with the Order on 8 October. During the winter, the two armies prepared for a major confrontation. Wladyslaw installed a strategic supply depot at Plock in Masovia and had a pontoon bridge constructed and transported north down the Vistula.[46]
  
  Meanwhile, both sides unleashed diplomatic offensives. The Knights despatched letters to the monarchs of Europe, preaching their usual crusade against the heathens;[47] Wladyslaw countered with his own letters to the monarchs, accusing the Order of planning to conquer the whole world.[48] Such appeals successfully recruited many foreign knights to each side. Wenceslas IV of Bohemia signed a defensive treaty with the Poles against the Teutonic Order; his brother, Sigismund of Luxembourg, allied himself with the Order and declared war against Poland on 12 July, though his Hungarian vassals refused his call to arms.[49][50]
  
  [edit] Battle of Grunwald
  Battle of Grunwald, 1410. Painting by Jan Matejko
  
  When the war resumed in June 1410, Wladyslaw advanced into the Teutonic heartland at the head of an army of about 20,000 mounted nobles, 15,000 armed commoners, and 2,000 professional cavalry mainly hired from Bohemia. After crossing the Vistula over the pontoon bridge at Czerwinsk, his troops met up with those of Vytautas, whose 11,000 light cavalry included Ruthenians and Tatars.[51] The Teutonic Order's army numbered about 18,000 cavalry, mostly Germans and 5,000 infantry. On 15 July, at the Battle of Grunwald,[52] after one of the largest and most ferocious battles of the Middle Ages,[53] the allies won a victory so overwhelming that the Teutonic Order's army was virtually annihilated, with most of its key commanders killed in combat, including Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen and Grand Marshal Friedrich von Wallenrode. Thousands of troops were reported to have been slaughtered on either side.[54]
  The Teutonic Order's castle at Marienburg
  
  The road to the Teutonic capital Marienburg now lay open, the city undefended; but for reasons the sources do not explain, Wladyslaw hesitated to pursue his advantage.[55] On 17 July, his army began a laboured advance, arriving at Marienburg only on 25 July, by which time the new Grand Master, Heinrich von Plauen, had organised a defence of the fortress.[56][57] The apparent half-heartedness of the ensuing siege, called off by Wladyslaw on 19 September, has been ascribed variously to the impregnability of the fortifications, to high casualty figures among the Lithuanians, and to Wladyslaw's unwillingness to risk further casualties; but a lack of sources precludes a definitive explanation. Pawel Jasienica, in his monumental Polska Jagiellonów (Poland of the Jagiellons) suggests Wladyslaw, as a Lithuanian, might have wished to preserve the equilibrium between Lithuania and Poland, the Lithuanians having suffered particularly heavy casualties in the battle.[58] Other historians point out that Wladyslaw might have assumed Marienburg was impregnable and therefore seen no advantage in a lengthy siege with no guarantee of success.[56]
  
  [edit] Final years
  
  [edit] Dissent
  Polish and Lithuanian conflict with Teutonic Prussia, 13771434.
  
  The war ended in 1411 with the Peace of Thorn, in which neither Poland nor Lithuania drove home their negotiating advantage to the full, much to the discontent of the Polish nobles. Poland regained Dobrzyn Land, Lithuania regained Samogitia, and Masovia regained a small territory beyond the Wkra river. Most of the Teutonic Order's territory, however, including towns which had surrendered, remained intact. Wladyslaw then proceeded to release many high-ranking Teutonic Knights and officials for apparently modest ransoms.[59] This failure to exploit the victory to his nobles' satisfaction provoked growing opposition to Wladyslaw's regime after 1411, further fuelled by the granting of Podolia, disputed between Poland and Lithuania, to Vytautas, and by the king's two-year absence in Lithuania.[60]
  
  A lingering Polish distrust of Wladyslaw, who never became fluent in Polish, was expressed later in the century by the chronicler and historian Jan Dlugosz:
  He loved his country Lithuania and his family and brothers so much that without hesitation he brought to the Polish kingdom all kinds of wars and troubles. The crown's riches and all it carried he donated towards the enrichment and protection of Lithuania.[61]
  
  In an effort to outflank his critics, Wladyslaw promoted the leader of the opposing faction, bishop Mikolaj Traba, to the archbishopric of Gniezno in autumn 1411 and replaced him in Kraków with Wojciech Jastrzebiec, a supporter of Vytautas.[60] He also sought to create more allies in Lithuania. In 1413, in the Union of Horodlo, signed on 2 October, he decreed that the status of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was "tied to our Kingdom of Poland permanently and irreversibly" and granted the Catholic nobles of Lithuania privileges equal to those of the Polish szlachta. The act included a clause prohibiting the Polish nobles from electing a monarch without the consent of the Lithuanian nobles, and the Lithuanian nobles from electing a grand duke without the consent of the Polish monarch.[62]
  
  [edit] Last conflicts
  
  In 1414, a sporadic new war broke out, known as the "Hunger War" from the Knights' scorched-earth tactics of burning fields and mills; but both the Knights and the Lithuanians were too exhausted from the previous war to risk a major battle, and the fighting petered out in the autumn.[60] Hostilities did not flare up again until 1419, during the Council of Constance, when they were called off at the papal legate's insistence.[60]
  
  The Council of Constance proved a turning point in the Teutonic crusades, as it did for several European conflicts. Vytautas sent a delegation in 1415, including the metropolitan of Kiev; and Samogitian witnesses arrived at Constance at the end of that year to point out their preference for being "baptised with water and not with blood".[63] The Polish envoys, among them Mikolaj Traba, Zawisza Czarny, and Pawel Wlodkowic, lobbied for an end to the forced conversion of heathens and to the Order's aggression against Lithuania and Poland.[64] As a result of the Polish-Lithuanian diplomacy, the council, though scandalised by Wlodkowic's questioning of the monastic state's legitimacy, denied the Order's request for a further crusade and instead entrusted the conversion of the Samogitians to Poland-Lithuania.[65]
  
  The diplomatic context at Constance included the revolt of the Bohemian Hussites, who looked upon Poland as an ally in their wars against Sigismund, the emperor elect and new king of Bohemia. In 1421, the Bohemian Diet declared Sigismund deposed and formally offered the crown to Wladyslaw on condition he accept the religious principles of the Four Articles of Prague, which he was not prepared to do.[66]
  
  In 1422, Wladyslaw fought another war, known as the Gollub War, against the Teutonic Order, defeating them in under two months before the Order's imperial reinforcements had time to arrive. The resulting Treaty of Lake Melno ended the Knights' claims to Samogitia once and for all and defined a permanent border between Prussia and Lithuania.[67] The terms of this treaty have, however, been seen as turning a Polish victory into defeat, thanks to Wladyslaw's renunciation of Polish claims to Pomerania, Pomerelia, and Chelmno Land, for which he received only the town of Nieszawa in return.[68] The Treaty of Lake Melno closed a chapter in the Knights' wars with Lithuania but did little to settle their long-term issues with Poland. Further sporadic warfare broke out between Poland and the Knights between 1431 and 1435.
  
  Cracks in the cooperation between Poland and Lithuania after the death of Vytautas in 1430 had offered the Knights a revived opportunity for interference in Poland. Wladyslaw supported his brother `vitrigaila as grand duke of Lithuania,[69] but when `vitrigaila, with the support of the Teutonic Order and dissatisfied Rus' nobles,[32] rebelled against Polish overlordship in Lithuania, the Poles, under the leadership of Bishop Zbigniew Olesnicki of Kraków, occupied Podolia, which Wladyslaw had awarded to Lithuania in 1411, and Volhynia.[70] In 1432, a pro-Polish party in Lithuania elected Vytautas's brother }ygimantas as grand duke,[69] leading to an armed struggle over the Lithuanian succession which stuttered on for years after Wladyslaw's death.[71]
  
  [edit] Succession
  Tomb effigy of Wladyslaw II Jagiello, Wawel Cathedral
  
  Wladyslaw's second wife, Anna of Celje, had died in 1416, leaving a daughter, Jadwiga. In 1417, Wladyslaw married Elisabeth of Pilica, who died in 1420 without bearing him a child, and two years later, Sophia of Halshany, who bore him two surviving sons. The death in 1431 of Princess Jadwiga, the last heir of Piast blood, released Wladyslaw to make his sons by Sophia of Halshany his heirs, though he had to sweeten the Polish nobles with concessions to ensure their agreement, since the monarchy was elective. Wladyslaw finally died in 1434, leaving Poland to his elder son, Wladyslaw III, and Lithuania to his younger, Casimir, both still minors at the time.[72]
  
  [edit] Family tree (incomplete)
  
  For more exhaustive relations see:
  Main article: Family relations of Jogaila
  Family tree of Jogaila/Wladyslaw II[73][hide]
  Gediminas
  b. ca. 1275
  d. 1341 Jewna
  b. ca. 1280
  d. 1344 Alexander I of Tver
  b. 1301
  d. 22 X 1339 Anastasia of Halych
  
  Algirdas
  b. ca. 1296
  d. May 1377 Uliana Alexandrovna of Tver
  b. ca. 1330
  d. 1392
  
  1
  Jadwiga I of Poland
  b. 1374
  d. 17 VII 1399
  OO 18 II 1386 2
  Anna of Celje
  b. 1380/81
  d. 21 V 1416
  OO 29 I 1402 Jogaila/Wladyslaw II Jagiello
  b. ca. 1362
  d. 1 VI 1434 3
  Elzbieta Pilecka
  b. 1372
  d. 12 V 1420
  OO 2 V 1417 4
  Sophia of Halshany
  b. ca. 1405
  d. 21 IX 1461
  OO 7 II 1422
  
  1 2 4 4 4
  Elzbieta Bonifacja
  b. 22 VI 1399
  d. 13 VII 1399
  Jadwiga
  b. 8 IV 1408
  d. 8 XII 1431
  Wladyslaw III
  b. 31 X 1424
  d. 10 XI 1444
  Kazimierz
  b. 16 V 1426
  d. 2 III 1427
  Kazimierz IV
  b. 30 XI 1427
  d. 7 VI 1492
  
  [edit] See also
  Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wladislaus II of Poland
  
  
• History of Poland (1385-1569)
  
• Jogaila (Wladyslaw II Jagiello): names and titles
  
• List of Belarusian rulers
  
• List of Lithuanian rulers
  
• King Jagiello Monument
  
  [edit] Notes
  
  1. ^ He is known under a number of names: Jogaila Algirdaitis; Wladyslaw II Jagiello; Jahajla (??????). See also: Jogaila (Wladyslaw II Jagiello): names and titles.
  2. ^ Bojtár, 182.
  3. ^ Anna Jagiellon last member of royal Jagiellon family died in 1596.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Bojtár, 180186.
  5. ^ Translated as grand duke or grand prince. Kunigaikatis is a cognate of König and king, and didysis magnifies it. See Rowell, 65-69, for the nature of didysis kunigaikatis in practice.
  6. ^ See Tadeusz Wasilewski in "Przeglad Wschodni" 1991 r., and Jan Tegowski, Pierwsze pokolenia Giedyminowiczów, WroclawPoznan 1999, s. 124125
  7. ^ Stone, 4; In the late fourteenth century, ethnic Lithuanians are unlikely to have numbered more than 300,000, seven times fewer than the Christian Orthodox inhabitants. Lukowski and Zawadzki, 389; The former Rus'ian principalities Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, Kiev, Volhynia, Podlasie, and Podolia retained the local laws and privileges they had enjoyed before coming under Lithuanian supremacy. Every new grand duke of Lithuania confirmed these privileges and promised not to submit the native populations to the Lithuanian court. Dvornik, 342; The Muscovite and Novgorod authors called Lithuanian Rus' territories "The Lithuanian Land". Plokhy, 46
  8. ^ Bojtár, 180.
  9. ^ Some historians, for example Vanda Sruogiene-Sruoga in Jogaila (13501434) and J. Deveike in The Lithuanian Diarchies, have called this system a diarchy, but S.C.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". Rowell, 68.
  10. ^ a b Lukowski and Zawadzki, 3345.
  11. ^ Plokhy, 46.
  12. ^ a b c d e f New Cambridge Medieval History, 709712.
  13. ^ "Jogaila murdered the stubborn uncle in a quarrel at the end of 1382." Endre Bojtár, 181. "Jogaila himself had come to power in 1382 with the murder of his uncle Kestutis." Lukowski and Zawadzki, p 34. Vytautas, during his second Prussian refuge of 1390, was recorded as saying: "Jogaila captured our father and killed him; he also killed our mother and imprisoned me". Quoted by Mickunaite, 157, from a Teutonic chancellery document titled dis ist witoldes sache wedir jagaln und skirgaln. But Sruogiene-Sruoga calls the murder "mysterious" and notes that there are "several hypotheses" about what really happened. Jogaila (13501434).
  14. ^ a b Mickunaite, 157.
  15. ^ 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...". Byzantium and the Rise of Russia, 205. 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". Document quoted by Dvornik, 221.
  16. ^ Jadwiga had actually been crowned king of Poland (rex poloni), because the Polish political system made no provision for a queen regnant. Stone, 8.
  17. ^ The nobles of Malopolska, not without suspicion from the nobles of Wielkopolska, made this offer to Jogaila for many reasons. For example, they were "concerned to neutralize the dangers from Lithuania itself and to secure the fertile territories of Halych-Rus'." Lukowski and Zawadzki, 42. Dvornik suggests that the Polish nobles saw the offer as an "opportunity for increasing their privileges". Dvornik, 129. They also wished to avoid Austrian influence, Jogaila agreeing to "pay off" Jadwiga's previous fiancé Wilhelm von Habsburg. Lukowski and Zawadzki, 37.
  18. ^ Lukowski and Zawadzki read the clause to imply that "The Kreva Act seemingly promised that he would incorporate Lithuania into Poland." Lukowski and Zawadzki, 41. Sruogiene-Sruoga points out in Jogaila that "Lithuanians probably reasoned that this agreement was only temporary, a kind of wedding formality." The Kreva Union was short-lived and was succeeded by several other agreements between Lithuania and Poland. According to modern historian G. Rhode, and other researchers, the Kreva Union did not annihilate Lithuanian sovereignty, as interpreted by most Polish historians. G.Rhode. Grundzuge der Geschichte Litauens, 141, 1966. Daniel Z. Stone says, "The exact intent of this union has been hotly debated by historians, but it seems likely that Jogaila and the Poles both intended to unite the realms fully". Stone, 8.
  19. ^ It "reflects the exceptional far-sightedness of the political elites ruling both countries." Kloczowski, 55. It was "a desperate gamble by Jogaila to avert a seemingly inevitable subjugation." Lukowski and Zawadzki, 38.
  20. ^ "...was given the Christian name Vladislovas (Wladyslaw)". Vanda Sruogiene-Sruoga, Jogaila (13501434). A Slavic name that roughly translates as glorious rule, Wladyslaw is often Latinised into either Wladislaus or Ladislaus. The choice evoked both Wladyslaw I of Poland, the Elbow-high, who unified the kingdom a century before, and Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary, a king who sided with the pope against the emperor Henry IV and Christianised Transylvania. New Cambridge Medieval History, 709712.
  21. ^ Lukowski and Zawadzki, 3345; Stone, 16.
  22. ^ a b c Kloczowski, 5457.
  23. ^ a b Kosman, Jagiello królem Polski: z dziejów unii Polski i Litwy, 79.
  24. ^ Physiognomical details provided by the chronicler Jan Dlugosz. Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 23.
  25. ^ "Wherever he traveled, he always carried a razor, scissors, brushes, and an ivory comb. He shaved his beard daily, and to the surprise of all the Poles, he even bathed every day." M.Kuczynski, quoted by Vanda Sruogiene-Sruoga, Jogaila (13501434)
  26. ^ And according to mid-fifteenth-century chronicler Jan Dlugosz, his pleasures further included the exercise of a prodigious sex drive, "not only in permitted ways but also in forbidden ones". Quoted by Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 23.
  27. ^ Stone, 8.
  28. ^ a b c d e f Jasienica, 80146.
  29. ^ Jasienica, 7480.
  30. ^ 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. Dvornik, 344.
  31. ^ Magocsi, 134.
  32. ^ a b Serhii Plokhy identifies a "mobilisation of Rus' identity" during the 1430s. Plokhy, 98.
  33. ^ a b Housley, 354.
  34. ^ a b Sedlar, 388.
  35. ^ Turnbull, Crusader Castles of the Teuton Knights (2), 22.
  36. ^ The Teutonic forces consisted largely of volunteers and mercenaries from western Europe, notably from France, the German states, and England. Jasienica, 8384.
  37. ^ The phrase "with all their powder shot away" is quoted by Stephen Turnbull from the chronicler Wigand of Marburg; Turnbull also mentions that Henry Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV of England, took part in the siege of Vilnius. Turnbull, Crusader Castles of the Teutonic Knights (2), 534.
  38. ^ Wladyslaw would adopt the higher title dux supremus, with Vytautas styled magnus dux. New Cambridge Medieval History, 732. Skirgaila was moved from the Duchy of Trakai to become prince of Kiev. Stone, 10.
  39. ^ a b c Dvornik, 222225.
  40. ^ a b c Pawel Jasienica, 103-105.
  41. ^ Stone, 11.
  42. ^ The imperial electors had deposed Wenceslaus as King of the Romans four years earlier. New Cambridge Medieval History, 348.
  43. ^ "Slask w polityce Piastów (Silesia within the policies of the Piasts)". Polska Piastów. 2005. http://www.piastowie.kei.pl/piast2/slask.htm. Retrieved on 2006-08-09.
  44. ^ Karwasinska, 21.
  45. ^ a b Jasienica, 106107.
  46. ^ Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 3233.
  47. ^ French chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet's perspective on the conflict reveals how ingrained was the crusading view of events: "The King of Poland, who was a great enemy of the Grand Master of Prussia and had just recently pretended to become a Christian in order to win the Polish crown, came with his Poles to the aid of the Saracens". Quoted by Delbrück, The Barbarian Invasions, 526; For their part, the Polish envoys protested that the Knights "take from us milk and wool, suck our blood, and devour the meat from our bones." Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 20.
  48. ^ Wladyslaw's letter is preserved in several copies, as cited by Jasienica, p 108.
  49. ^ Jasienica, 110.
  50. ^ Sigismund had secretly advised the Order that by employing "heathens or schismatics" the Poles and Lithuanians would provide "a just and reasonable cause" for hostility. Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 21.
  51. ^ Stone, 16.
  52. ^ The battle is also known as the battle of Tannenberg.
  53. ^ Bojtár, Foreword to the Past, 182; Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 7.
  54. ^ Stone, 16.
  55. ^ "There can be few other examples in history of a battle so decisively won and a subsequent campaign that so singularly failed to achieve its aims." From the introduction to Stephen Turnbull's Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 7.
  56. ^ a b Stone, 17.
  57. ^ What we know about this delay, as Stephen Turnbull describes, is that with Marienburg less than sixty miles away, the Polish-Lithuanian army, perhaps due to casualties, waited for two days before marching on, and then only at a rate of nine miles (14 km) a day. The delay, which Turnbull calls "perhaps understandable but fatal", allowed Heinrich von Plauen to reach Marienburg with around 2000 (some sources say 3000 men), evacuate the town, and dig in for a long siege. Turnbull, Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights, 73.
  58. ^ Jasienica, 113120
  59. ^ The cumulative expense of the ransoms, however, proved a drain on the Order's resources. "The defeat at Grunwald cost the Order vast sums in ransom money." New Cambridge Medieval History, 364. The Order never recovered its strength after Grunwald: in an effort to meet their expenses, the Knights introduced riot-provoking taxes and debased their currency, but by 1419, 20% of Order land had been desertedin southern Pomerelia, more than 50% of landholdings lay abandoned and in the Schwetz (Swiecie). Stone, 17.
  60. ^ a b c d Jasienica, 121124.
  61. ^ Dlugosz also delivered the following verdict on Wladyslaw: "He was so far removed from the bloodshed that he forgave even the chief offenders, and to the conquered he was always merciful... His unsensible generosity harmed the country more than did those who were stingy and greedy for wealth". Vanda Sruogiene-Sruoga, Jogaila (13501434)
  62. ^ Stone, 11; Dvornik, 3423; New Cambridge Medieval History, 7756.
  63. ^ Housley, 361; New Cambridge Medieval History, 733.
  64. ^ Pawel Wlodkowic's Tractatus de potestate papae et imperatoris respectu infidelium (Treatise on the Power of the Pope and the Emperor Over the Infidels) condemned the Teutonic Order for its wars of conquest and the extermination of native non-Christian peoples in Prussia and Lithuania, likened Wladyslaw to the apostles for the Christianisation of Lithuania, and proposed that pagan and Christian nations live together in peace. Kloczowski, 73.
  65. ^ Housley, 351361.
  66. ^ After Wladyslaw's refusal, Vytautas was postulated (elected in absentia) as Bohemian king, but he assured the pope that he opposed the heretics. Between 1422 and 1428, Wladyslaw's nephew, Sigismund Korybut, attempted a regency in war-torn Bohemia, with little success. Bideleux, 233235; Turnbull, The Hussite Wars, 1112. Vytautas accepted Sigismund's offer of a royal crown in 1429apparently with Wladyslaw's blessingbut Polish forces intercepted the crown in transit and the coronation was cancelled. Stone, 11; New Cambridge Medieval History, 353.
  67. ^ Lithuania was given the province of Samogitia, with the port of Palanga, but the city of Klaipeda was left to the Order. Stone, 11. This border remained largely unchanged for roughly 500 years, until 1920.
  68. ^ Jasienica, 130.
  69. ^ a b Sruogiene-Sruoga, Jogaila (13501434)
  70. ^ Stone, 11. How much influence the aged Wladyslaw had on these events is not clear. Sruogiene-Sruoga says that he wished to restore Lithuanian independence and at one point instructed the leader of the Lithuanian army not to listen to Polish orders. Plokhy, on the other hand, says that he sided with the Poles over Podolia. Plokhy, 98.
  71. ^ Stone, 11.; Plokhy, 98.
  72. ^ Sedlar, 282; New Cambridge Medieval History, 711. The Lithuanian inheritance, however, could not be taken for granted. "Jagiello's death in 1434 ended the personal union between the two realms, and it was not clear what would take its place." Stone, 22.
  73. ^ Ryszard Jurzak, Wladyslaw II Jagiello, in Genealogy, (2006). Retrieved 2006-09-27.
  
  [edit] References
  
  
• (English) Bideleux, Robert (1998). A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0415161118.
  
• (English) Bojtár, Endre (2000). Foreword to the Past: A Cultural History of the Baltic People. Budapest: Central European University Press. ISBN 963-9116-42-4. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Delbrück, Hans (1990). The Barbarian Invasions: History of the Art of War. Translated by Walter.J.Renfroe. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 080326447X.
  
• (English) Dlugosz, Jan. The Annals of Jan Dlugosz, translated and abridged by Maurice Michael. IM Publications (1997). ISBN 1901019004.
  
• (German) Drabina, Jan (1994). Die Religionspolitik von König Wladyslaw Jagiello im polnisch-litauischen Reich in den Jahren 13851434, in the journal Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, volume 43.
  
• (English) Dvornik, Francis (1992). The Slavs in European History and Civilization. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-0799-5. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Housley, Norman, (1992). The Later Crusades 12741580: From Lyons to Alcazar. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822136-3. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (Lithuanian) paraae Jakatas. J. and Z. Ivinskis, S. Su~iedelis, A. `apoka, P. `le~as (1935), Jogaila, redagavo A. `apoka, Kaunas.
  
• (Polish) Jasienica, Pawel (1988). Polska Jagiellonów. Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. ISBN 83-06-01796-X.
  
• (English) Jurzak, Ryszard (2006). Wladyslaw II Jagiello. Dynastic Genealogy. Retrieved 27 September 2006.
  
• (Polish) (Latin) Karwasinska, Jadwiga, and Ignacy Zakrzewski (1935). Lites ac res gestae inter Polonos Ordinemque Cruciferorum (Conflicts and Matters between Poland and the Teutonic Order} With notes and commentary. Warsaw: Bibliotheca Cornicensis (Kórnik Library). Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Kloczowski, Jerzy (2000). A History of Polish Christianity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36429-9. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (Polish) Kosman, Marceli (1976). Drogi zaniku poganstwa u Baltów. Wroclaw: Zaklad Narodowy im. Ossolinskich.
  
• (Polish) Kosman, Marceli (1987). Jagiello królem Polski: z dziejów unii Polski i Litwy (Jagiello the King of Poland: The History of the Polish-Lithuanian union). Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne (WSiP). ISBN 83-02-03292-1.
  
• (English) Lukowski, Jerzy and Hubert Zawadzki (2001). A Concise History of Poland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55917-0. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0802078206.
  
• (English) Meyendorff, John (1990 edition). Byzantium and the Rise of Russia. Vladimir's Seminary Press, U.S. ISBN 0881410799.
  
• (English) Mickunaite, Giedre (1999). From Pamphlet to Origin Theory, in The Medieval Chronicle: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Erik Simon Kooper. ISBN 90-420-0834-2. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) O'Connor, Kevin (2003). A History of the Baltic States. Greenwood Press, U.S. ISBN 0-313-32355-0
  
• (English) Plokhy, Serhii (2006). The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521864038. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (Polish) Rogalski, Leon (1846). Dzieje Krzyzaków (History of the Teutonic Knights). Warsaw: Samuel Orgelbrand. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Rowell, S.C. (2000). Baltic Europe, in The New Cambridge Medieval History VI, ed. Michael Jones, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36290-3. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Rowell, S.C. (1994). Lithuania Ascending: A Pagan Empire Within East-central Europe, 12951345. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052145011X. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Sedlar, Jean. W (1994). East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 10001500. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97290-4. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (Polish) Slask w polityce Piastów (Silesia within the policies of the Piasts). Polska Piastów, 2005. Retrieved 9 August 2006.
  
• (English) Sruogiene-Sruoga, Vanda. Jogaila (13501434), in Lituanus, vol. 33 (4), Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences, (Winter 1987). Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Stone, Daniel. Z. (2001). The Polish-Lithuanian State, 13861795. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-98093-1. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (Polish) Tegowski, Jan (1999). Pierwsze pokolenia Giedyminowiczow. Poznan-Wroclaw.
  
• (English) Turnbull, Stephen (2004). Crusader Castles of the Teutonic Knights (2): Baltic Stone Castles 11841560. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-712-3. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Turnbull, Stephen (2003). Tannenberg 1410: Disaster for the Teutonic Knights. Osprey, 2003. ISBN 1841765619. Retrieved 25 January 2007.
  
• (English) Turnbull, Stephen and Angus McBride (2004). The Hussite Wars: 141936. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1841766658.
  
  [edit] External links
  
  
• "Wladyslaw II" at the Directory of Royal Genealogical Data
  
  Regnal titles
  Preceded by
  Algirdas Grand Duke of Lithuania
  13771381 Succeeded by
  Kestutis
  Preceded by
  Kestutis Grand Duke of Lithuania
  13821386 Succeeded by
  Skirgaila
  Preceded by
  none Supreme Duke of Lithuania
  13861434 Succeeded by
  none
  Preceded by
  Jadwiga King of Poland
  13861434
  with Jadwiga Succeeded by
  Wladyslaw IIIIn 1440 the Magyars offered Wladyslaw III the crown of Hungary; Poland's attention shifted to the plains of Hungary and the growing Turkish threat. In 1444, the combined Polish Hungarian forces were defeated by the Turks at Varna on the Black Sea and Wladyslaw was killed. For a brief period the Hungarian throne passed out of Polish hands. Wladyslaw III's brother, King Kazimierz IV, started a prolonged war against the Teutonic Order in order to recover Pomerania and Gdansk. The subsequent victory in 1466, led to the Peace of Torun by which the Order was humiliated and Prussia was partitioned: Royal (West) Prussia came under direct Polish rule, the Grand-Master of the Order of Teutonic Knights keeping Ducal (east) Prussia as a vassal to the Polish Crown. During the Reformation The Grand Master split with Rome, and by becoming a vassal of the Polish King was able to turn East Prussia into a Duchy.