Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk
Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk (Casimir the Jagiellonian, 1427-1492), second surviving son of Vladislaus Jagiełło by his fourth wife Sonka; Grand Duke of Lithuania as of 1440, and King of Poland as of 1447 (3 years after the Battle of Varna from which his brother Vladislaus never returned to Poland and was presumed dead). Casimir took his time over agreeing to ascend the throne, forcing the Polish magnates to accept a change in the conditions for the union between Poland and Lithuania, in favour of the latter, and granting the Lithuanian boyars the same extent of privileges as those enjoyed by the Polish nobility and gentry.
Another war between Poland and the Teutonic Order, known as the (East European) Thirteen Years’ War, broke out in Casimir’s reign (1454-1466). This time its cause was a petition brought to the King of Poland by the boroughs of Prussia, through an association called the Prussian Union, for intervention on their behalf with the Teutonic Order and for the tutelary incorporation of Prussia in the Kingdom of Poland. The people of Prussia felt oppressed by the Teutonic Order, masters of the Principality, and looked with envy at the social, political, and economic rights enjoyed by the equestrian (noble) estate in Poland, wanting to share in them. After the successful deployment of a mercenary army, Casimir eventually won and concluded a peace treaty with the Order at Toruń in 1466, whereby part of the Order’s domains, including the City of Gdańsk, was incorporated directly into the Kingdom of Poland (and henceforth known as “Royal Prussia”), and the rest (henceforth known as “Ducal Prussia”) became Casimir’s fiefdom.
Casimir also pursued a successful dynastic policy. In 1454 he married the Archduchess Elizabeth Habsburg, who was young but not very attractive (she had a slight deformation of the spine and chest and a defective occlusion), and had been given only a meagre dowry. But the couple lived together happily for 38 years and had seven daughters and six sons. Of the boys, one who died young became a saint (St. Casimir, patron of Lithuania), the youngest was a cardinal and archbishop of Gniezno, and the remaining four were all kings – three of Poland-Lithuania, and one, Vladislaus, of the neighbouring Kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary. At the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries monarchs from the House of Jagiellon reigned over the greatest expanse of territory in Central Europe. Through the descendants of their thirteen children Casimir and Elizabeth became ancestors to all of Europe’s current kings and queens. Casimir the Jagiellonian was the only King of Poland to have been a Knight of the Order of the Garter.
Events during Casimir’s reign led to the establishment of Poland’s General Sejm (Parliament) in 1493. It consisted of three “estates”: the King, the Upper House or Senate, and the Lower House (izba poselska, the House of Deputies or Envoys). The Senate comprised the highest ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries of the realm (bishops, voivodes, and castellans); while representatives elected at the provincial sejmiki (regional parliaments) by the local szlachta (nobility and gentry, or equestrian estate) sat in the Lower House. In confirmation of the political and economic rights the equestrian estate had already secured, in 1454 the King pledged that he would never levy taxes or declare a general call to arms without the consent of Sejm. Poland’s Parliament continued to function right up to the end of the First Republic (1795) when the country was partitioned and deprived of sovereignty and independence. The modern Polish Parliament – revived in 1918 when the Republic of Poland was restored, and revitalised yet again on the emergence of the Third Republic of Poland in 1989 – looks back with pride to these ancient traditions.
