Jadwiga of Poland

Jadwiga (Polish: [jadˈvʲiɡa] (audio speaker iconlisten); 1373 or 1374 – 17 July 1399), also known as Hedwig (Hungarian: Hedvig), was the first female monarch of the Kingdom of Poland, reigning from 16 October 1384 until her death. She was the youngest daughter of Louis the Great, King of Hungary and Poland, and his wife Elizabeth of Bosnia. Jadwiga was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou, but she had more close forebears among the Polish Piasts than among the Angevins. In 1997 she was canonized by the Catholic Church.

In 1375 it was planned that she would eventually marry William of Austria, and would live in Vienna from 1378 to 1380. Jadwiga's father is thought to have regarded her and William as his favoured successors in Hungary after the 1379 death of her eldest sister, Catherine, since the Polish nobility had that same year pledged their homage to Louis' second daughter, Mary, and Mary's fiancé, Sigismund of Luxembourg. However, Louis died, and in 1382, at her mother's insistence, Mary was crowned "King of Hungary". Sigismund of Luxembourg tried to take control of Poland, but the Polish nobility countered that they would be obedient to a daughter of King Louis only if she settled in Poland. Queen Elizabeth then chose Jadwiga to reign there, but did not send her to Kraków to be crowned. During the interregnum, Siemowit IV, Duke of Masovia, became a candidate for the Polish throne. The nobility of Greater Poland favored him and proposed that he marry Jadwiga. However, Lesser Poland's nobility opposed him and persuaded Queen Elizabeth to send Jadwiga to Poland.

Jadwiga was crowned "king" in Poland's capital, Kraków, on 16 October 1384. Her coronation either reflected the Polish nobility's opposition to her intended husband, William, becoming king without further negotiation, or simply emphasized her status as queen regnant. With her mother's consent, Jadwiga's advisors opened negotiations with Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, who was still a pagan, concerning his potential marriage to Jadwiga. Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo, pledging to convert to Catholicism and to promote his pagan subjects' conversion. Meanwhile, William hastened to Kraków, hoping to marry his childhood fiancé Jadwiga, but in late August 1385 the Polish nobles expelled him. Jogaila, who took the baptismal name Władysław, married Jadwiga on 15 February 1386. Legend says that she had agreed to marrying him only after lengthy prayer, seeking divine inspiration.

Jogaila, now in Polish styled Władysław Jagiełło, was crowned King of Poland on 4 March 1386. As Jadwiga's co-ruler, Jagiełło worked closely with his wife. After rebellious nobles of the Kingdom of Hungary-Croatia had imprisoned her mother and sister, she marched into the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which had been under Hungarian rule, and persuaded most of the inhabitants to become subjects of the Polish Crown. She mediated between her husband's quarreling kin, and between Poland and the Teutonic Knights. After her sister Mary died in 1395, Jadwiga and Jagiełło laid claim to Hungary against the widowed Sigismund of Luxembourg, but the Hungarian lords failed to support them.

Jadwiga was born in Buda, the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary. She was the third and youngest daughter of Louis I, King of Hungary and Poland, and his second wife, Elizabeth of Bosnia. Both her grandmothers were Polish princesses, connecting her to the native Piast dynasty of Poland. Historian Oscar Halecki concluded that Jadwiga's "genealogical tree clearly shows that [she] had more Polish blood than any other". She was probably born between 3 October 1373 and 18 February 1374. She was named after her distant ancestor, Saint Hedwig of Silesia, who was especially venerated in the Hungarian royal court at the time of her birth.

King Louis, who had not fathered any sons, wanted to ensure his daughters' right to inherit his realms.Therefore, European royals regarded his three daughters as especially attractive brides.Leopold III, Duke of Austria, proposed his eldest son, William, to Jadwiga already on 18 August 1374.The envoys of the Polish nobles acknowledged that one of Louis's daughters would succeed him in Poland after he confirmed and extended their liberties in the Privilege of Koszyce on 17 September 1374. They took an oath of loyalty to Catherine on Louis's demand

Louis agreed to give Jadwiga in marriage to William of Austria on 4 March 1375. The children's sponsalia de futuro, or "provisional marriage", was celebrated at Hainburg on 15 June 1378.The ceremony established the legal framework for the consummation of the marriage without any further ecclesiastical act as soon as they both reached the age of maturity. Duke Leopold agreed that Jadwiga would only receive Treviso, a town which was to be conquered from the Republic of Venice, as dowry from her father. After the ceremony, Jadwiga stayed in Austria for almost two years; she mainly lived in Vienna.

Catherine died in late 1378. Louis persuaded the most influential Polish lords to swear an oath of loyalty to her younger sister, Mary, in September 1379. She was betrothed to Sigismund of Luxemburg,a great-grandson of Casimir the Great, who had been Louis's predecessor on the Polish throne. The "promised marriage" of Jadwiga and William was confirmed at their fathers' meeting in Zólyom (now Zvolen in Slovakia) on 12 February 1380. Hungarian lords also approved the document, implying that Jadwiga and William were regarded as her father's successors in Hungary.

A delegation of the Polish lords and clergy paid formal homage to Sigismund of Luxemburg as their future king on 25 July 1382.The Poles believed that Louis planned also to persuade the Hungarian lords and prelates to accept Jadwiga and William of Austria as his heirs in Hungary.However, he died on 10 September 1382.Jadwiga was present at her father's death bed

The interregnum that followed Louis's death and caused such internal strife came to an end with Jadwiga's arrival in Poland. A large crowd of clerics, noblemen and burghers gathered at Kraków "to greet her with a display of affection", according to the 15th-century Polish historian, Jan Długosz.Nobody protested when Archbishop Bodzanta crowned her on 16 October 1384.According to traditional scholarly consensus, Jadwiga was crowned "king". Thereby, as Robert W. Knoll proposes, the Polish lords prevented her eventual spouse from adopting the same title without their consent.[ Stephen C. Rowell, who says that sources that contradict the traditional view outnumber those verifying it, suggests that sporadic contemporaneous references to Jadwiga as "king" only reflect that she was not a queen consort, but a queen regnant.

Bodzanta, Archbishop of Gniezno, Jan Radlica, Bishop of Kraków, Dobrogost of Nowy Dwór, Bishop of Poznań, and Duke Vladislaus II of Opole were Jadwiga's most trusted advisers during the first years of her reign. According to a widely accepted scholarly theory, Jadwiga, who was still a minor, was "a mere tool" to her advisers. However, Halecki refutes this view, contending that Jadwiga matured quickly and her personality, especially her charm and kindness, only served to strengthen her position. Already in late 1384 she intervened on Duke Vladislaus's behalf to reconcile him with her mother's favourite, Nicholas I Garai.

The Polish lords did not want to accept Jadwiga's fourteen-year-old fiancé, William of Habsburg, as their sovereign.They thought that the inexperienced William and his Austrian kinsmen could not safeguard Poland's interests against its powerful neighbours, especially the Luxemburgs which controlled Bohemia and Brandenburg, and had a strong claim on Hungary.[58][59] According to Halecki, the lords of Lesser Poland were the first to suggest that Jadwiga should marry the pagan duke Jogaila of Lithuania.

Jogaila sent his envoys – including his brother, Skirgaila, and a German burgher from Riga, Hanul – to Kraków to request Jadwiga's hand in January 1385. Jadwiga refused to answer, stating only that her mother would decide. Jogaila's two envoys left for Hungary and met Queen Elizabeth. She informed them 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", according to Jan Długosz's chronicle. The nobles from Kraków, Sandomierz and Greater Poland assembled in Kraków in June or July and the "majority of the more sensible" voted for the acceptance of Jogaila's marriage proposal

In the meantime, William's father, Leopold III hurried to Buda in late July 1385, demanding the consummation of the marriage between William and Jadwiga before 16 August. Queen Elizabeth confirmed the previous agreements about the marriage, ordering Vladislaus II of Opole to make preparations for the ceremony. According to canon law, Jadwiga's marriage sacrament could only be completed before her twelfth birthday if the competent prelate testified her precocious maturity. Demetrius, Archbishop of Esztergom, issued the necessary document. William went to Kraków in the first half of August, but his entry to Wawel Castle was barred. Długosz states that Jadwiga and William would only be able to meet in the nearby Franciscan convent.

Contemporary or nearly contemporaneous records of the completion of the marriage between William and Jadwiga are contradictory and unclear. The official accounts of the municipal authorities of Kraków record that on 23 August 1385 an amnesty was granted to the prisoners in the city jail on the occasion of the celebration of the Queen's marriage.On the other hand, a contemporary Austrian chronicle, the Continuatio Claustroneubuzgis states that the Poles had tried to murder William before he consummated the marriage. In the next century, Długosz states that William was "removed in a shameful and offensive manner and driven from the castle" after he entered "the Queen's bedchamber"; but the same chronicler also mentions that Jadwiga was well aware that "many people knew that ... she had for a fortnight shared her bed with Duke William and that there had been physical consummation".

On the night when William entered the queen's bedchamber, a group of Polish noblemen broke into the castle, forcing William to flee, according to Długosz. After this humiliation, Długosz continues, Jadwiga decided to leave Wawel and join William, but the gate of the castle was locked. She called for "an axe and [tried] to break it open", but Dymitr of Goraj convinced her to return to the castle. Oscar Halecki says that Długosz's narrative "cannot be dismissed as a romantic legend"; Robert I. Frost writes that it is a "tale, almost certainly apocryphal".There is no doubt, however, that William of Austria was forced to leave Poland

Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo in August 1385, promising Queen Elizabeth's representatives and the Polish lords' envoys that he would convert to Catholicism, together with his pagan kinsmen and subjects, if Jadwiga married him. He also pledged to pay 200,000 florins to William of Habsburg in compensation. William never accepted it. Two days after the Union of Krewo, the Teutonic Knights invaded Lithuania.

The Aeltere Hochmeisterchronik and other chronicles written in the Knights' territory accused the Polish prelates and lords of forcing Jadwiga to accept Jogaila's offer. According to a Polish legend, Jadwiga agreed to marry Jogaila due to divine inspiration during her long prayers before a crucifix in Wawel Cathedral. Siemowit IV of Mazovia resigned his claim to Poland in December.

The Polish lords' envoys informed Jogaila that they would obey him if he married Jadwiga on 11 January 1386. Jogaila went to Lublin where a general assembly unanimously declared him "king and lord of Poland" in early February. Jogaila went on to Kraków where he was baptized, receiving the Christian name, Władysław, in Wawel Cathedral on 15 February.[80][92] Three days later, 35-year-old Władysław-Jogaila married 12-year-old Jadwiga.Władysław-Jogaila styled himself as dominus et tutor regni Poloniae ("lord and guardian of the Kingdom of Poland") in his first charter issued after the marriage.

Archbishop Bodzanta crowned Władysław-Jogaila king on 4 March 1386. Poland was transformed into a diarchy – a kingdom ruled over by two sovereigns. Jadwiga and her husband did not speak a common language, but they cooperated closely in their marriage. She accompanied him to Greater Poland to appease the local lords who were still hostile to him. 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?", according to Długosz's chronicle. A court record of her order to the judges in favour of a peasant also shows that she protected the poor.

Pope Urban VI sent his legate, Maffiolus de Lampugnano, to Kraków to enquire about the marriage of the royal couple. Lampugnano did not voice any objections, but the Teutonic Knights started a propaganda campaign in favour of William of Habsburg. Queen Elizabeth pledged to assist Władysław-Jogaila against his enemies on 9 June 1386,but Hungary had sunken into anarchy. A group of Slavonian lords captured and imprisoned Jadwiga's mother and sister on 25 July. The rebels murdered Queen Elizabeth in January 1387. A month later, Jadwiga marched at the head of Polish troops to Ruthenia where all but one of the governors submitted to her without opposition.

Jadwiga was childless for over a decade, which, according to chronicles written in the Teutonic lands, caused conflicts between her and her husband. She became pregnant in late 1398 or early 1399.[ Sigismund, King of Hungary, came to Kraków in early March to negotiate for a campaign to defend Wallachia against the Ottoman Turks. Vytautas, in order to bolster his authority over the Rus' principalities, decided to launch an expedition against Timur, who had subdued the Golden Horde. According to Jan Długosz's chronicle, Jadwiga warned the Polish noblemen not to join Vytautas' campaign because it would end in failure. Halecki says that the great number of Polish knights who joined Vytautas's expedition proves that Długosz's report is not reliable.

On the occasion of the expected birth to the royal couple, Jogaila'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. The first horoscopes written for Jadwiga's and Jogaila's child predicted a son in mid-September 1398. However, a girl was delivered on 22 June 1399 at Wawel Castle. Reports of the time stated that the child was born prematurely. According to the horoscope, she was actually born slightly late. However, a due date of 18 June would rule out the suspicion of pregnancy as early as mid-September.

The newborn princess was named Elizabeth Bonifacia (Polish: Elżbieta Bonifacja, Lithuanian: Elżbieta Bonifacija), after Jadwiga's mother and Pope Boniface IX who, in a letter of 5 May 1399, had agreed to be godfather under the condition that the infant be called Boniface or Bonifacia. She was baptised by Piotr Wysz Radoliński, Bishop of Kraków. However, the infant died after only three weeks, on 13 July 1399. Jadwiga, too, was on her deathbed. Stanisław of Skarbimierz expressed hope that she would survive, describing her as the spiritual mother of the poor, weak, and ill of Poland. She advised her husband to marry Anna of Cilli, Casimir the Great's granddaughter—which he did— and died on 17 July 1399, four days after her newborn daughter.]

Jadwiga and her daughter were buried together in Wawel Cathedral, on 24 August 1399, as stipulated in the Queen's last will. On 12 July 1949, 550 years later, their tomb was opened; nothing remained of the child's soft cartilage.

Two leading historians, Oscar Halecki and S. Harrison Thomson, agree that Jadwiga was one of the greatest rulers of Poland, comparable to Bolesław the Brave and Casimir the Great. Her marriage to Władysław-Jogaila enabled the union of Poland and Lithuania, establishing a large state in East Central Europe. Jadwiga's decision to marry the 'elderly' Władysław-Jogaila instead of her beloved fiancé, William of Habsburg, has often been described as a sacrifice for her country in Polish historiography. Her biographers emphasize Jadwiga's efforts to preserve the peace with the Teutonic Order, which enabled Poland to make preparations for a decisive war against the Knights. Jadwiga's childless death weakened Władysław-Jogaila's position, because his claim to Poland was based on their marriage. Six days after her funeral, Władysław-Jogaila left Poland for Ruthenia, stating that he was to return to Lithuania after his wife's death. The Polish lords sent their envoys to Lviv to open negotiations with him. The delegates took new oaths of loyalty to him, confirming his position as king. On the lords' demand, he agreed to marry Anna of Cilli. Their wedding was celebrated on 29 January 1402.

Jadwiga's cultural and charitable activities were of exceptional value. She established new hospitals, schools and churches, and restored older ones. Jadwiga promoted the use of vernacular in church services, especially the singing of hymns in Polish. The Scriptures were translated into Polish on her order.

Casimir the Great had already in 1364 established the University of Kraków, but it did not survive his death. Władysław-Jogaila and Jadwiga jointly asked Pope Boniface IX to sanction the establishment of a faculty of theology in Kraków. The pope granted their request on 11 January 1397. Jadwiga bought houses along a central street of Kraków for the university. However, the faculty was only set up a year after Jadwiga's death: Władysław-Jogaila issued the charter for the reestablished university on 26 July 1400. In accordance with Jadwiga's last will, the restoration of the university was partially financed through the sale of her jewellery