Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations (47 page)

Religious life in Litva, therefore, was far from straightforward. On the surface, there appeared to be a high degree of tolerance. Muslim Tartar communities were welcomed. So, too, were Jewish Karaites from Crimea, and special provisions were made for Catholic knights to marry the daughters of the grand duke’s pagan entourage. Under the surface, however, there were ugly tensions. In 1347, when Vilnius was still a pagan capital, three Christian Ruthenian brothers – Anthony, John and Eustaphy – were put to death for some minor insubordination. These three ‘Vilna Martyrs’ were duly revered by the Orthodox faithful, and their relics preserved in the Trinity church.
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When Grand Duke Jogaila (r. 1377–1434) mounted the throne still a bachelor, he knew that any marriage he might make would be overshadowed by strategic considerations. He had no special love for the Poles, worshippers of ‘the German God’ and a target for his raiding parties. His first inclination was to explore the possibility of marrying a princess from Moscow. Yet in 1382 a prime opportunity occurred. Louis of Anjou, king of Poland and Hungary, died suddenly without male issue; Louis’s younger daughter Jadwiga (or Hedwig) was designated by the magnates of Poland as the prospective successor and
rex
:

In 1385, as soon as Jadwiga arrived in Cracow, the Lithuanian matchmakers made their first approaches. A conjugal and a political union were proposed. It was a decisive moment in the life of two nations… The Polish barons, too, had their reasons. After thirteen years of Angevin rule, they were not now disposed to submit to the first man, who by marrying Jadwiga, could impose himself on them. [Further] having rejected Louis’s elder daughter, Maria, on the grounds that she was [betrothed] to Sigismund of Brandenburg, they could hardly accept Jadwiga’s present fiancé, Wilhelm von Habsburg, Prince of Austria… The Lithuanian connection was much more interesting. Jadwiga could be told to do her duty. Maidenly and ecclesiastical reticence could be overcome.

On 14 August 1385, therefore, at Kreva (Krewo) in White Ruthenia, an agreement was signed, in which the Polish barons persuaded Jogaila to concede a number of very advantageous undertakings. In return for the hand of Jadwiga, the Lithuanian prince was ready to accept Christian baptism, to convert his pagan subjects to Roman Catholicism, to release all Polish prisoners and slaves, to co-ordinate operations against the Teutonic Knights, and to associate the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the Kingdom of Poland in a permanent union. On this basis, in February 1386 a great assembly of Polish barons and nobility at Lublin elected Jogaila, whom they knew as ‘Jagiełło’, as their king.
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The grand duchy was embarking on a Polish–Lithuanian orientation that would accompany it for as long as it lasted. ‘For four long generations spanning 186 years, Jogaila and his heirs [would drive] the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Litva in harness, like a coach-and-pair. They presided over an era when the Lithuanian and Ruthenian elite [would be] polonized, and the Poles [would accede] to the problems of the east.’
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For much of that time it appeared that the Jagiellons were building one of Europe’s strongest monarchies.

The consequences of the Union of Kreva were felt more immediately in the grand duchy than in the Kingdom of Poland. The pagan religion of the Lithuanian elite was prohibited. The sacred groves were felled. The pagan priests and vestal virgins were banished, and mass Christian baptisms were enacted in the River Vilnya on the orders of the now Catholic monarch. Henceforth, Roman Catholicism became the official religion of court circles in Vilnius, and increasingly of the more ambitious nobles. Adopted by a substantial minority of the grand duchy’s population, it existed in uneasy cohabitation with the Byzantine Orthodoxy of the majority. At the same time, traditional political culture was undermined. In theory, the grand duke lost none of his autocratic powers; in practice, he was obliged to grant wide privileges to influential subjects, who quickly learned the habits of their more rebellious Polish counterparts.

The minting of coinage, however, has traditionally been one of the marks of sovereignty, and the grand duchy was no exception. Until recently, it was thought that the first coins could be dated to the early fourteenth century, but analysis of a major hoard discovered in the grounds of the lower castle at Vilnius has confirmed that the first minting took place under Jogaila in 1387. The triangular silver alloy
kapros
, which at first sight appear to be more primitive and older, actually date from the fifteenth century. Henceforth, the coinage regularly bore the emblem of the grand duchy – the mounted rider known as the
vytis
or
pahonia
– which has continued in use to the present day.
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Jogaila’s cousin Vytautas (1350–1430) caused constant trouble in the grand duchy for decades. Already disaffected before the Union with Poland, he was imprisoned in the castle of Kreva, during negotiations there with the Poles, won the sympathy of many
boyars
, that is, of senior members of the grand ducal entourage,
*
escaped and took refuge with the Teutonic Knights; he may even have toyed with the idea of an alliance with Muscovy. But he was lured back to obedience by Jogaila, signed the Union of Kreva, accepted baptism and actively supported the Christianization campaign. Shortly afterwards, however, he fell out with Jogaila yet again, this time over the grant of the Duchy of Trakai to someone else. He fled once more to Prussia, and remained the focus of dissent throughout the 1390s. Only defeat by the Tartars tamed his opposition, and thanks to the Vil’nya-Radom Act of 1401 (see below) he was able to emerge as Jogaila’s partner and near-equal, running the grand duchy while Jogaila ran the kingdom. In 1408, he recovered Smalensk at the third attempt before loyally leading the grand duchy’s army into battle alongside the Poles. Nonetheless, he jealously guarded Lithuania’s separate status for a further thirty years, gaining the epithet of ‘Vytautas the Great’ and becoming an international figure. He received the obeisance of Tartar khans and Russian princes, exacted rich tribute from Novgorod, and conducted diplomatic relations with both the pope and the German emperor. At the time of his death in 1430, news spread that he had been planning to have himself crowned as ‘king of Lithuania’.
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The death of Vytautas led first to civil war and then to reconciliation under the main branch of the Jagiellonian dynasty. The civil war lasted throughout the 1430s as Jogaila’s brother battled with a brother of Vytautas, while the Teutonic Knights did their best to meddle. At one point, it was announced that the grand duchy had been annexed by Poland. Yet Jogaila’s passing defused tensions. One of his young sons, Władysław III (r. 1434–44), took the throne of Poland under the guidance of the great Cardinal Oleśnicki, who dominated the royal court, while Jogaila’s younger son, Kazimierz Jagiellończyk (1427–92), was brought up to rule the grand duchy. In the end, weary of bloodshed, the
boyars
of Litva acclaimed the thirteen-year-old Jagiellończyk grand duke in 1440 without seeking Polish approval. Their choice proved judicious. The young prince grew into one of the great father-figures of medieval Europe. He added the throne of Poland to his position in the grand duchy after his crusader-brother was killed by the Turks at Varna in 1444, and, by marrying a Habsburg, was able to place his numerous sons and daughters in positions of influence far and wide. Apart from rescuing the Polish-Lithuanian Union, he oversaw the rise of Jagiellons to the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary. Indeed, for a time in the late fifteenth century, the prospects of the Jagiellonian dynasty looked considerably stronger than those of their Habsburg relatives.

Notwithstanding stresses and strains, therefore, the dual state proved more resilient than many had feared. It adjusted to successive crises, its constitutional structures evolving accordingly:

The [Act] of Kreva was abrogated by Jadwiga’s death [in 1400], but the political arguments which inspired it remained operative throughout the Jagiellonian era. On every occasion that difficulties arose, the Polish-Lithuanian Union was renewed on terms of ever increasing intimacy…

The first stage [had been] effected in 1401. As Jogaila and Jadwiga were childless, it was necessary to design the machinery of a future succession. Meeting in their separate camps at Radom and Vilna the Polish and Lithuanian barons agreed that nothing should be decided in future without mutual consultation. In the so called ‘Vilna-Radom Act’, Jogaila’s cousin Vitautas (Witold) was to rule Lithuania for life… If Jogaila were to die without natural heirs, the future of his two realms was to be determined by common assent.

The second stage was effected in an agreement signed at Horodło in Volhynia on 2 October 1413. Here, in effect, the Polish lords and Lithuanian boyars formed themselves into a joint estate. Among the many provisions it was agreed that matters of concern touching both countries should be settled in joint assemblies of the nobility, and that the Polish lords should participate in the electoral confirmation of the Lithuanian Grand Duke…

Most remarkable, however, was the spirit in which the agreements were reached… The Polish nobility were obtaining a permanent stake in the internal affairs of their partners: the Lithuanians were receiving a guarantee of the separate identity of their state. Cynics would say that in such circumstances it is easy to be noble-minded. Even so… the words of the Preamble to the Act of Horodło are worth noting: ‘
Whoever is unsupported by the mystery of Love
’, it began, ‘
shall not achieve the Grace of salvation… For by Love, laws are made, kingdoms governed, cities ordered, and the state of the commonweal is brought to its proper goal. Whoever shall cast Love aside, shall lose everything
.’ In later times, when a weakened Polish-Lithuanian state became… the prey of stronger enemies, these words served… as a reminder of the Union’s high founding principles.

Thus the Polish and Lithuanian nobility looked forward to the future with confidence. To all intents and purposes, they became one, political nation. Henceforth, to be ‘Polish’ was to be a citizen of the Polish-Lithuanian state.
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One persistent nuisance to the security of the united polity continued to be posed by the Teutonic Knights. Despite the fact that the crusaders’ original
raison d’être
had vanished with the conversion of Lithuania, they doggedly defended their power and sought to extend the Order’s lands. Most descriptions of the wars between the Teutonic Order and Poland-Lithuania view them as a simple clash between Prussian and Polish interests. Conventional interpretations of the great battle at Grunwald in 1410, at which the Order was decisively defeated (see pp.
346–7
), provide a good example. Yet the grand duchy’s priorities necessarily diverged from the kingdom’s. The ‘Great War’ with the Knights (1409–22) certainly brought Poland and Lithuania closer, but in matters of foreign policy and military preparedness, the grand duchy had to reckon with other issues relating to Livonia, Muscovy and Crimea which affected the Poles only tangentially.

After 1418 Livonia evolved into an unusual confederation of mini-states, less than half of which was occupied by the Livonian province of the Teutonic Order. It was joined in the greater part by the four self-governing bishoprics of Riga, Courland, Ösel and Dorpat. A Livonian Diet regularly convened at Walk (a town which today is divided between Valka in Latvia and Valga in Estonia), and was dominated by a Germanized nobility. The fragmented character of the confederation reduced its capacity for offence. Nonetheless, it was the nearest foreign state to Vilnius, and it had to be watched at all times.
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Muscovy aroused fears that were by no means confined to its growing military strength. Having extracted the lands of the eastern Rus’ from the Mongol yoke, it grew in power and prestige, and by gaining control of the Republic of Novgorod by stages, it became the equal of the grand duchy in terms of inhabited territory and population. Its culminating assault arrived in 1478, when large numbers of Novgorod’s citizens were massacred. Yet the source of Moscow’s unparalleled pretensions lay far over the horizon in ideas born in Byzantium. In 1453, when the Ottoman Turks finally captured Constantinople, they put the Byzantine Empire out of its terminal agony; but they also planted the seed of a megalomaniac idea in Muscovite minds. Byzantium, the
‘Second Rome’ was dead. Long live Moscow, therefore, the ‘Third Rome’! Ivan III (r. 1440–1505), known as ‘the Great’, was the first Muscovite prince to take the idea seriously, to adopt the Byzantine two-headed eagle as his emblem, and thereby to spread the notion that he was the only true successor of the Roman Caesars, the ‘tsars’. The prospects from the religious perspective were particularly threatening. The patriarch of Constantinople, to whom all Orthodox Slavs had hitherto owed allegiance, had now fallen into infidel hands. According to Moscow’s logic, his authority passed automatically to the metropolitan of Moscow, who would eventually be raised to the self-appointed rank of patriarch. All Orthodox Slavs, not least in Ukraine and White Ruthenia, quaked.
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