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Rh but Poland formed but a small portion of his vast domains, and Poland’s interests were subordinated to the larger demands of an imperial policy which embraced half Europe within its orbit.

On the death of Louis there ensued an interregnum of two years marked by fierce civil wars, instigated by duke Ziemovit of Masovia, the northernmost province of Poland, which continued to exist as an independent principality alongside of the kingdom of Poland. Ziemovit aimed at the Polish crown, proposing to marry the infant princess Jadwiga of Hungary, who, as the daughter of Louis the Great and the granddaughter of Wladislaus Lokietek, had an equal right, by inheritance, to the thrones of Hungary and Poland. By an agreement with the queen mother of Hungary at Kassa in 1383, the Poles finally accepted Jadwiga as their queen, and, on the 18th of February 1386, greatly against her will, the young princess, already betrothed to William of Austria, was wedded to Jagiello, grand duke of Lithuania, who had been crowned king of Poland at Cracow, three days previously, under the title of Wladislaus II.

The union of Poland and Lithuania as separate states under one king had been brought about by their common fear of the Teutonic Order. Five years after the death of Gedymin, Olgierd, the most capable of his seven sons, had been placed upon the throne of Lithuania by his devoted brother Kiejstut, and for the next two-and-thirty years (1345–1377) the two princes still further extended the sway of Lithuania, principally at the expense of Muscovy and the Tatars. Kiejstut ruled the western portion of the land where the Teutonic Knights were a constant menace, while Olgierd drove the Tatar hordes out of the south-eastern steppes, and compelled them to seek a refuge in the Crimea. During Olgierd’s reign the southern boundaries of Lithuania touched the Black Sea, including the whole tract of land between the mouth of the Bug and the mouth of the Dnieper. Olgierd was succeeded by his son Jagiello as grand duke in 1377, while Kiejstut was left in possession of Samogitia, Troki and Grodno; but the Teutonic Order, alarmed at the growth of Lithuania, succeeded in estranging uncle and nephew, and Kiejstut was treacherously assassinated by Jagiello’s orders, at Krewo, on the 15th of August 1382. Three weeks later Jagiello was compelled to cede Samogitia, as far as the Dubissa, to the Knights, and, in the following year they set up against him Kiejstut’s son Witowt. The eyes of Jagiello were now opened to the fact that the Machiavellian policy of the Knights aimed at subjugating Lithuania by dividing it. He at once made peace with his cousin; restored him his patrimony; and, to secure Lithuania against the future vengeance of the Knights, Jagiello made overtures to Poland for the hand of Jadwiga, and received the Polish crown along with it, as already mentioned.

Before proceeding to describe the Jagiellonic period of Polish history, it is necessary to cast a rapid glance at the social and political condition of the country in the preceding Piast period.

The paucity and taciturnity of our sources make it impossible to give anything like an adequate picture of Old Poland during the first four centuries of its existence. A glimpse here and there of the political development of the country is the utmost that the most diligent scrutiny can glean from the scanty record of the early chronicles. External pressure, here as elsewhere, created a patriotic military caste, and the subsequent partitional period, when every little prince had his own separate court, still further established the growing influence of the szlachta, or gentry, who were not backward in claiming and obtaining special privileges in return for their services. The first authentic pacta conventa made between the Polish nobility and the Crown dates from the compact of Kassa (September 17, 1374), when Louis of Hungary agreed to exempt the szlachta from all taxation, except two Polish groschen per hide of land, and to compensate them for the expenses of all military service rendered beyond the confines of the realm. The clergy received their chief

privileges much earlier. It was at the synod of Leczyca, nearly a century before the compact of Kassa, that the property of the Church was first safeguarded against the encroachments of the state. The beneficial influence of the Church of Poland in these early times was incalculable. To say nothing of the labours of the Cistercians as colonists, pioneers and church builders, or of the missions of the Dominicans and Franciscans (the former of whom were introduced into Poland by Ivo, bishop of Cracow, the personal friend of Dominic), the Church was the one stable and unifying element in an age of centrifugal particularism. The frequent synods represented the whole of Poland, and kept alive, as nothing else could, the idea of national solidarity. The Holy See had also a considerable share in promoting the political development of the land. In the 13th century alone no fewer than forty-nine papal legates visited Poland, and thirty provincial synods were held by them to regulate church affairs and promote good government. Moreover the clergy, to their eternal honour, consistently protected the lower from the tyranny of the upper classes.

The growth of the towns was slower. During the heroic Boleslawic period there had been a premature outcrop of civil life. As early as the 11th century Kruschwitz, the old Polish capital, and Gnesen, the metropolitan see, were of considerable importance, and played a leading part in public life. But in the ensuing anarchic period both cities were utterly ruined, and the centre of political gravity was transferred from Great Poland to Little Poland, where Cracow, singularly favoured by her position, soon became the capital of the monarchy, and one of the wealthiest cities in Europe. At the end of the 14th century we find all the great trade gilds established there, and the cloth manufactured at Cracow was eagerly sought after, from Prague to Great Novgorod. So wealthy did Cracow become at last that Casimir the Great felt it necessary to restrain the luxury of her citizens by sumptuary ordinances. Towards the end of the 14th century the Polish towns even attained some degree of political influence, and their delegates sat with the nobles and clergy in the king’s councils, a right formally conceded to them at Radom in March 1384. Even the peasants, who had suffered severely from the wholesale establishment of prisoners of war as serfs on the estates of the nobles, still preserved the rights of personal liberty and free transit from place to place, whence their name of lazigi. The only portion of the community which had no privileges were the Jews, first introduced into Poland by Boleslaus the Pious, duke of Great Poland, in 1264, when bitter persecutions had driven them northwards from the shores of the Adriatic. Casimir the Great extended their liberty of domicile over the whole kingdom (1334). From the first they were better treated in Poland than elsewhere, though frequently exposed to outbreaks of popular fanaticism.

The transformation of the pagan Lithuanian chieftain Jagiello into the catholic king of Poland, Wladislaus II., was an event of capital importance in the history of eastern Europe. Its immediate and inevitable consequence was the formal reception of the Lithuanian nations into the fold of the Church. What the Teutonic Order had vainly endeavoured to bring about by fire and sword, for two centuries, was peacefully accomplished by Jagiello within a single generation, the Lithuanians, for the most part, willingly yielding to the arguments of a prince of their own blood, who promptly rewarded his converts with peculiar and exclusive privileges. The conversion of Lithuania menaced the very existence of the Teutonic Knights. Originally planted on the Baltic shore for the express purpose of Christianizing their savage neighbours, these crusading monks had freely exploited the wealth and the valour of the West, ostensibly in the cause of religion, really for the purpose of founding a dominion of their own which, as time went on, lost more and more of its religious character, and was now little more than a German military forepost, extending from Pomerania to the Niemen, which deliberately excluded the Slavs from the sea and thrived