Because of his concerns over dynastic succession, Władysław II, who had no children with Jadwiga, granted new privileges to the szlachta (all those of noble rank). Called neminem captivabimus (comparable to habeas corpus), the measure guarded against arbitrary arrest or confiscation of property and distinguished between the executive and the judiciary. The Polish example also began to affect the internal evolution of magnate-dominated Lithuania. The lesser boyars, envious of the position of their Polish counterparts, favoured closer unity. At the Union of Horodło in 1413, Polish nobles offered their coats of arms to a number of Lithuanians as a gesture of solidarity.
Only Władysław’s fourth wife, Sophia Holszańska, bore him male children. One of their sons, Władysław III Warneńczyk, ruled Poland (1434–44) under the regency of the powerful Oleśnicki" class="md-crosslink">Zbigniew Cardinal Oleśnicki; the other son, Casimir, was the grand duke of Lithuania. Largely because of Oleśnicki, Władysław III was elected king of Hungary, became active in crusades against the Turks, and, after initial victories, died at the Battle of Varna in 1444. Casimir subsequently became the ruler of both Poland and Lithuania. Casimir IV
The long and brilliant reign of Casimir IV Jagiellonian (1447–92) corresponded to the age of “new monarchies” in western Europe. By the 15th century Poland had narrowed the distance separating it from western Europe and become a significant factor in international relations. The demand for raw materials and semifinished goods stimulated trade (producing a positive balance) and contributed to the growth of crafts and mining. Townspeople in Poland proper constituted about 20 percent of the population—roughly the European average. Divisions between the nobles, the burghers, and the peasants were still somewhat fluid. Coexistence of the ruler and the estates was relatively smooth and stable.
Cultural progress was striking, with the reconstituted and enlarged University of Kraków playing a major role. Humanist trends found a promoter at Kraków in the Italian scholar Filippo de Buonacorsi, known as Callimachus. From the pen of Jan Długosz came the first major history of Poland.
Casimir’s foreign policy centred on the conflict with the Teutonic Knights and succession in Hungary and Bohemia. When the rebellious Prussian towns and nobility turned to Casimir, he decreed an incorporation of the Knights’ state into Poland (1454). Unable to decisively defeat the Teutonic Order during the Thirteen Years’ War (1454–66), he had to sign the compromise Treaty of Toruń in 1466. Gdańsk Pomerania, renamed Royal Prussia and endowed with far-reaching autonomy, became Polish once again. This opened the route to the Baltic. The other territories (most of the future East Prussia), with the capital at Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia), remained with the Knights, albeit as a Polish fief.
Casimir’s dependence on the noble levies in wartime enabled the szlachta to extract new concessions. They culminated in the Privilege of Nieszawa (1454), which gave the provincial diets (sejmiki) the right to declare the levies and raise new taxes. In 1493–96 a bicameral general diet (Sejm) marked the beginning of Polish parliamentarism. The representatives of the sejmiki formed the lower house, while the king’s appointees constituted the senate.
The question of succession in Bohemia and Hungary was resolved toward the end of the 15th century when one of Casimir’s sons, Vladislas II, was elected to the throne of Bohemia in 1471 and Hungary in 1490. His other sons John I Albert and Alexander succeeded each other in Poland and Lithuania from 1492 to 1506. A Jagiellonian bloc had come into existence, but its effectiveness was marred by the fact that the four countries were guided by divergent interests and faced different problems. The golden age of the Sigismunds Political developments
Under the last two Jagiellonians, Poland reached its apogee. The king was the source of law (usually in tandem with the Sejm, though some decrees did not require the Sejm’s assent), supreme judge, chief executive, and supreme commander, free to declare war and peace. He ruled Lithuania as a hereditary domain. Royal administration was quite effective, and Casimir’s youngest son, Sigismund the Old (reigned 1506–48), tried to improve the nation’s finances and taxation. An inadequate financial base and an undersized standing army limited the actual power of the king.
Sigismund I, detail of a painting by Andrzej, 1546; in the State Collections of Art in the Wawel, Kraków, Poland.Courtesy of the Państwowe Zbiory Sztuki na Wawelu, Kraków, Poland
Domestic politics under Sigismund—and even more so under his son and successor, Sigismund II Augustus (reigned 1548–72)—centred on a contest between the fast-growing magnate oligarchy and the dynamic gentry, with the rulers generally favouring the former. The option of relying on the burghers, as was done by western European rulers, was not available because the towns (Gdańsk and some Royal Prussian towns excepted) allowed themselves to be eliminated from political struggles. The reformers among the lesser nobles focused on the program of the “execution” (enforcement) of laws that prohibited the transfer of crown lands and the accumulation of offices that profited the oligarchy. Wishing to emancipate itself from the magnates’ political tutelage, the gentry strove for real partnership in government.
Brama Wyżynna (High Gate), built 1574, Gdańsk, Poland.Courtesy of CAF
The Nihil Novi constitution (1505) achieved some of these aims, but it also stipulated that no new laws could be passed without the consent of the Sejm. The way was opened for parliamentary dominance that would eventually undermine the existing system of checks and balances. The growing political and economic power of the landowners had pernicious effects on the lot of the peasantry. Beginning with edicts issued in 1496 and repeatedly throughout the 16th century, the peasants’ mobility was curtailed, labour obligations (corvée) were increased, and subjection to the lord’s jurisdiction was affirmed. The degree of evasion of these burdens, however, was probably high. The impoverishment of the peasantry from the late 16th century became pronounced, while the barriers between the burghers and the szlachta became more rigid. Foreign affairs
Sixteenth-century foreign policies had to take into consideration an alliance between the Habsburgs, Moscow, and the Teutonic Order that was directed against Poland. Muscovite expansion threatened Lithuania, and only a major victory at Orsza in 1514 averted a catastrophe. The victory allowed Sigismund I to detach the Habsburgs from Moscow through the Vienna accords of 1515. Providing for dynastic marriages, the accords opened the way for Habsburg succession in Bohemia and Hungary should the Jagiellonians die out. Eleven years later Louis II, the Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia, perished at Mohács fighting the Turks. Thus ended the Jagiellonian bloc.
One year before Mohács, however, the matter of the Teutonic Knights had found a controversial resolution. The grand master of the order, Albert Hohenzollern, became a Lutheran and, isolated from the empire and papacy, offered to secularize his state as a vassal of the king of Poland. His act of homage in 1525 seemed a realistic arrangement that left the way open for the eventual absorption of Ducal Prussia (as East Prussia was thereafter called) into Poland. However, subsequent concessions to the Hohenzollerns allowed them to rule both Prussia and Brandenburg, on the flanks of the “corridor” that provided Polish access to the Baltic.
Polish concern with Baltic issues led to the creation of a small navy and to wars with Muscovy over Livonia (present-day Latvia and Estonia), which was controlled by the Knights of the Sword and coveted by the Muscovite tsar Ivan the Terrible. Eventually the region was partitioned. The union of 1561 brought the southern part to Poland and Lithuania and established a duchy of Courland, ruled as a Polish fief by the former grand master of the secularized Knights of the Sword. Meanwhile, Sweden expanded in the north.