PART V
23
Casimir IV, and his sons John Albert (king of Poland, 1492–1501) and Alexander (grand duke of Lithuania, 1492–1506; king of Poland, 1501–6) have never enjoyed a high reputation. While Jagiełło is seen as the union’s founder and the victor of Tannenberg, and while the reigns of Sigismund I (1506–48), the third of Casimir’s sons to succeed him, and Sigismund’s son Sigismund August (1548–72) are associated with the flowering of the Polish Renaissance, the period in between seemed less glamorous; its only major accomplishment the incorporation of Royal Prussia. While some have praised the Nieszawa privileges as laying the foundation stone of the Polish parliamentary system, others have seen them as the first step on the road towards political anarchy. Casimir is often presented in an unappealing light, as an instinctively authoritarian yet dithering monarch, who was cold, aloof, and intellectually undistinguished. John Albert and Alexander are usually depicted as bumbling incompetents at best and downright pernicious at worst.1
Part of the problem lies with the sources. Długosz died in 1480, and his account of Casimir’s reign must be treated with caution. He began his great history after Oleśnicki’s death in 1455, and it constitutes a powerful defence of his mentor, who dominated the political scene between 1434 and 1447, but was frozen out by Casimir after conducting a determined campaign of opposition. Długosz himself fell spectacularly foul of Casimir in the 1460s in a rancorous dispute over the appointment of a new bishop of Cracow; and although Casimir proved characteristically magnanimous in victory, appointing him as tutor to his sons in 1467, it was not until the last year of Długosz’s life that he was rewarded with high office, when he was appointed archbishop of Lwów. The waspish chronicler proved less generous, threading his revenge through the pages of his history in the most unflattering of portraits. Although his chronicle remained unpublished until long after his death, its influence was profound.2
For if Długosz is a problematic source for Casimir’s reign, he is nevertheless a rich one. His negative portrayal of Casimir’s character and abilities is, however, open to question from its outset, when he avidly writes of the doubts cast on Casimir’s paternity, depicting him as an ill-starred king. He presents Casimir as an uneducated illiterate, alleging that councillors were annoyed when Jagiełło appointed tutors to teach his sons to read, preferring that they remained ignorant, in order that they might be easily manipulated.3 Some historians, observing that Casimir’s signature does not appear on any document, have taken this passage at face value.4 It is unlikely that Jagiełło would have allowed Casimir, seen as a possible king of Bohemia as well as a potential ruler of Lithuania, to have been poorly educated, and one document bearing his signature has emerged. Since it was only from the 1460s that signatures appear on chancery documents, the absence of a royal signature cannot be taken as evidence of illiteracy.5 Casimir probably knew no Latin, but spoke Polish, Ruthenian, and Lithuanian; it is likely that Ruthenian was his first language.6 Długosz presented him as a slothful monarch whose anxious dithering caused his advisors serious problems. He hinted darkly at dissolution, blaming the massive fire that destroyed much of Poznań in 1447 on the sodomitical practices he claimed were rife at court. If Miechowita—another hostile source—claims Casimir had a roving eye, he was known more for uxoriousness—he fathered thirteen children by his wife, Elizabeth Habsburg—than debauchery. A taciturn man, he was austerely abstemious: like his father he dressed modestly, shunned display—not a single contemporary portrait has survived apart from his funeral monument—and was an obsessive huntsman and a rigid teetotaller, finding even the smell of alcohol repellent.7 The charge of dithering may stem from his refusal to listen to Oleśnicki; in reality Casimir was astute and eminently capable of decisive action.
John Albert and Alexander fare little better at the bar of history. Although they were spared Długosz’s malevolent carping, they suffered at the hands of Miechowita, who had access to Długosz’s chronicle and the sources on which it was based, and who inherited his dyspeptic view of the Jagiellons. Miechowita’s portrait was so negative that the 1519 first edition of his chronicle was suppressed; only two copies survive. Reissued with the offending passages removed or toned down it remained far from positive, and exercised a profound influence on later accounts.8 Thanks in part to Miechowita, the powerfully built John Albert, who enjoyed a certain reputation as a soldier and was famed for his intellectual accomplishments—it was said he spoke the Latin of a professional rhetorician—is usually presented as a maladroit politician unable to build consensus, whose choleric outbursts ‘spoiled what he achieved through his personal qualities’.9 For Papée, his virtues and accomplishments—personal courage and a capacity for hard work, a good education, and a good practical training in government—were vitiated by his overweening ambition, his refusal to consider whether he had the means to fulfil it, poor judgement of people, and a willingness to place personal interests above those of dynasty and nation.10 Alexander was ridiculed by Miechowita for his modest intellect and peasant Latin; Papée’s verdict that he was a Jagiellon ‘of a weaker cut’, unblessed with the physical appearance, wit, or talent necessary for kingship, has not been widely challenged, although Pietkiewicz has defended his political skills.11 The bowdlerizing of Miechowita’s chronicle did not spare the Jagiellons: the excisions were more concerned with removing passages offensive to the primate, Jan Łaski, who carried them out, and his associates. Accusations of poor government and hints that John Albert, and his brother Frederick died of syphilis remained: the passage concerning the coming of the ‘French disease’ to Poland came immediately after an account of the arrival of Frederick’s cardinal’s hat from Rome and the dissolute lives led by the brothers.12 In this at least, they were seemingly true Renaissance princes.
Despite all the sneering, this period saw profound change, and the consolidation of the union state after a long period of crisis. Although Casimir struggled with problems of resources throughout his long reign, he did much to assert the monarchy’s authority, and to devise ways of exercising royal power in a system in which political fragmentation and decentralization had survived long after the restoration of the kingdom in 1320. In doing so, he demonstrated that he was a consummate politician.
He needed to be. His cool handling of the long interregnum had put him in a strong position when he eventually accepted the Polish throne in 1447, but he inherited a difficult legacy from his vanished brother. The treasury was empty. Władysław had mortgaged 240 royal properties, including 14 castles, 36 towns and their attached villages, 4 starosties, 305 villages, 2 lakes, 3 wildernesses, and 2 taverns, signing away the income from 2 municipal courts, 2 village courts, 1 Ruthenian salt mine, and the fabulously lucrative salt works at Wieliczka, not to mention numerous customs duties and the Wielkopolskan poradlne.13
Oleśnicki and his supporters dominated the council. Angry at Casimir’s long delay in accepting the throne, they suspected him of favouring Lithuania, and opposed many of his initiatives. Yet Oleśnicki’s grip on power was more precarious than it looked. The political paralysis that had seeped across Poland since 1434 ensured that many were dissatisfied with the status quo. Grumbling increased as the capacity of Oleśnicki’s cronies to line their pockets became evident: when Jan Głowacz Oleśnicki died in 1460 he was one of the richest magnates in Poland, owning the town and castle of Pińczów, fifty villages in the Sandomierz land, six villages in the Cracow land, and three in the Lublin district.14 Although the group is referred to as Oleśnicki’s faction, it had no unifying political ideology. Oleśnicki had made his name with his defence of elective monarchy, but he, like many of his allies, had risen through royal favour. While these magnates were keen to control the succession and secure royal recognition of the rights and privileges granted to the szlachta, they opposed measures that might challenge their position.
Casimir proved adept at utilizing the powers he had, which were considerable. His most potent prerogative was the right to appoint to office and honour, which gave him the means gradually to secure control of government and council. The years of minority, absentee kingship, and interregnum brought bitter disputes over appointments, which Władysław had largely devolved to the council on his departure for Hungary.15 As Oleśnicki’s grip on power strengthened, opponents clustered round Sonka, and Długosz’s iuniores, whose resentment at their exclusion from power survived long after the 1439 debacle.16 After his coronation, Casimir returned to Lithuania, staying for eight months. Until the Prussian war began in 1454, he was more often resident in Lithuania, far from a Polish council still dominated by Oleśnicki, Tęczyński, and Jan of Czyżów, with the chancellor, Koniecpolski, marginalized and keeping a low profile in Sieradz.17 Casimir gradually built up support round Koniecpolski and other opponents of Oleśnicki, including the vice-chancellor, Piotr Woda—until his untimely death at Konitz in 1454—Hincza of Rogów, and Koniecpolski’s brother Przedbór, castellan of Sandomierz. Jan of Czyżów maintained reasonable relations with Oleśnicki, from whom, as castellan of Cracow, he had borrowed money to pay for Casimir’s coronation. Nevertheless, he mostly supported Casimir: as one who had enjoyed good relations with Vytautas, he adopted a moderate position with regard to relations with Lithuania. Happy to recognize the continuation of a separate grand duchy, he mediated between the court party and Oleśnicki during the 1452–3 confrontation, when he was not prepared to go as far as Oleśnicki in defending Polish rights to Podolia and Volhynia.18
Casimir acted swiftly to establish his authority in the provinces. In Wielkopolska he replaced the starosta general Wojciech Malski with Łukasz Górka, who emerged from a middling szlachta background to become palatine of Poznań in 1441, and promoted a string of new men. In Małopolska Casimir proceeded more cautiously, but Oleśnicki was by no means all-powerful and there were many prepared to support the king. Casimir took his time. He looked to the 1439 confederates, now no longer young. Dziersław Rytwiański, grandson of Wojciech Jastrzębski, who showed his mettle as starosta of Sandomierz by backing Casimir against Oleśnicki in a dispute over the Sandomierz archdeaconry in 1450, was appointed castellan of Rozprza in 1452, and palatine of Sandomierz in 1455. Hincza of Rogów was another 1439 confederate linked to Sonka—he had been one of those accused of inappropriate relations with her in the 1420s—from whom he had received several lucrative starosties. Appointed crown treasurer, he loyally supported the king, although—like Jan of Czyżów—he was willing to work with Oleśnicki for the common good. Casimir could also count on the loyalty of Koniecpolski and his brother Przedbór, who began his career as Sonka’s chamberlain.19
Deprived of influence over patronage, Oleśnicki was edged into political irrelevance. The chancery, virtually moribund in 1447, sprang into life under Koniecpolski and Woda. Woda accompanied Casimir to Vilnius, whence he conducted Polish chancery business. The first battle was fought over Oleśnicki’s status. Having turned down one cardinal’s hat and accepted another from antipope Felix V—something he did not make public—Oleśnicki lobbied Nicholas V in 1447 to confirm Eugene IV’s nomination, despite the fact that he had rejected it. Nicholas assented but delayed sending Oleśnicki his insignia for two years following opposition from Casimir, who attempted to remove Oleśnicki from Cracow by offering him the primacy on Kot’s death in 1448. If Oleśnicki accepted, Casimir would accept his elevation. Oleśnicki, however, had no intention of giving up his lucrative see with its proximity to the centre of power. When he appeared in his cardinal’s robes at the Piotrków assembly in December 1449 he sparked a volcanic row by claiming precedence in the council over the new primate, the royalist Oporowski. At Piotrków in June 1451, after two years of rancorous controversy, Casimir imposed a settlement. While recognizing Oleśnicki’s elevation, he upheld Oporowski’s status and banned prelates from seeking or accepting a cardinal’s hat without his blessing. He decreed that he would decide which of the two prelates he would summon to council meetings or assemblies; the other would be left to cool his heels in the royal antechamber if he did not wish to cede precedence.20
Długosz used all his talents to present the 1451 assembly as a triumph for Oleśnicki, quoting a speech by Jan of Czyżów which stressed the magnitude of the honour done to Poland by the pope, giving the impression that Casimir had recognized Oleśnicki’s claims, and suggesting that if Oporowski felt that the elevation had damaged his prestige, he should simply stay away, only turning up if he were willing to recognize his inferior status: ‘let nobody have any doubts that he is lower than a cardinal’.21 Yet Długosz’s blustering account was a travesty. As he himself observed, the assembly was well attended, and there was considerable resentment from Wielkopolskans at another attack on their province’s honour. The mood was with Casimir: even Długosz noted the support of ‘all the most prominent prelates and dignitaries’ for his resolution to the problem. Oleśnicki and Oporowski thereafter alternated in their attendance at councils and assemblies; Casimir was no doubt pleased that his most formidable opponent chose to absent himself so frequently.22 Membership of the council and the right to attend its meetings were not enshrined in either custom or statute, a situation that Casimir exploited in other ways. In June 1452, returning from Lithuania, he summoned a narrow group of councillors to a meeting in Sandomierz. Jan Głowacz Oleśnicki turned up but was refused entry. Casimir used this tactic of summoning only handpicked advisors to council meetings at the three general assemblies he held in 1459.23
He fought another important battle over Oleśnicki’s demand that he publicly confirm the rights and privileges granted by his predecessors. Although this had been one of the conditions of his election Casimir refused on the grounds that to do so would break the oath he had sworn to the Lithuanians in 1447 by implying that Lithuania had been incorporated into Poland, and that he recognized Polish rule over Podolia and Volhynia.24 It was not until 1453 that Casimir finally swore the necessary oath, but in the most general manner and in a form that raised doubts about the legal status of the document, to which the great seal seems not to have been attached. He conceded no ground over Lithuania’s status and imposed his own solution with regard to Podolia and Volhynia.25
Although Długosz muttered darkly that Casimir favoured Lithuania over Poland, it was not an issue that resonated widely. Control of Podolia and Volhynia was of interest to Oleśnicki and a small group of Małopolskan magnates, but not for Wielkopolska or the szlachta masses. Casimir received substantial support for royal policy: his first general assembly at Piotrków in August 1447 agreed to levy the land tax at a rate of 12 groszy per hide.26 His general confirmation of privileges in 1453 was sufficient to satisfy most of the szlachta, and by 1454 Casimir had enough support to ignore Olesnicki’s opposition to the incorporation of Prussia.
Oleśnicki died on 1 April 1455. Despite one last public proclamation of his status at his funeral through the suspension of his three cardinals hats over his coffin, and despite Długosz’s best efforts, his isolation and political impotence at the time of his death cannot be overlooked. The last years of his career bear testimony to the limits of aristocratic power in fifteenth-century Poland, and to the existence of a political basis for effective royal rule. For all the close family and political links Oleśnicki enjoyed with powerful Małopolskan families, and despite his triumph over the succession, he was only able to exercise true political authority between 1434 and 1447. It is important not to exaggerate the coherence of aristocratic factions based on kinship ties: Koniecpolski, who died six days before Oleśnicki, may have been related to him through his wife, Dorota Oleśnicka, but it did not prevent him offering, on the whole, loyal support to Casimir, while Oleśnicki’s own cousins from the Krzyżanowski family waged a long and violent campaign against him in the 1440s in the sort of property dispute that often split families.27
The deaths of Oleśnicki and Koniecpolski, and of Jan of Czyżów in 1458, marked the passing of the generation that had served Jagiełło. In the three years from 1458, eight out of the thirteen Małopolskan palatines and castellans died, giving Casimir a unique opportunity to shape the political scene according to his own taste. He began at the top. Jan Tęczyński, palatine of Cracow, formerly Oleśnicki’s ally, was promoted to the castellany of Cracow in early 1459, as was customary. In appointing his successor Casimir broke radically with tradition by nominating his stepbrother Jan Pilecki, son of Elizabeth, Jagiełło’s third wife. Pilecki had held no previous office, apart from a three-month stint as starosta of Cracow in 1440; his promotion was a dramatic assertion of royal authority made possible by the rapprochement with Tęczyński, who—in contrast to Oleśnicki—supported the Prussian war and backed Casimir during the Nieszawa crisis, for which he was generously rewarded.28
The fortuitous freeing up of positions enabled Casimir to consolidate his support in the difficult years after Nieszawa. His magnanimity and refusal to bear grudges paid dividends, as he won over several figures previously critical of royal policy. The Małopolskan lords Jan Amor Tarnowski and Jan Rytwiański attacked Casimir at the stormy autumn general assembly in 1459, but the former was made castellan of Sącz later that year, while the latter was appointed crown marshal in 1462; thereafter both served loyally. The situation in Małopolska was still difficult and Casimir waited two years after Tęczyński’s death in 1470 before controversially promoting Pilecki to the castellany of Cracow. In 1473 the Małopolskans and Ruthenians, who were unhappy at the domination of local politics by the rapacious Odrowąż family, boycotted the general assembly in Piotrków in protest at nominations to office. It was not until the late 1470s that Casimir’s authority over Małopolska was secure.29
Control of appointments to bishoprics was central to the establishment of royal authority. Koniecpolski was replaced as chancellor by the bishop of Cujavia, Jan Gruszczyński, a royalist who had previously worked in the chancery.30 Gruszczyński’s nomination set the trend for Casimir’s reign. Koniecpolski had been a layman, and the years between 1438 and Woda’s death at Konitz in 1454, were the only period in Polish history when neither chancellor was a cleric.31 Thereafter, with the exception of Jakub of Dębno, chancellor from 1469 to 1473, all Casimir’s chancellors and vice-chancellors were clerics, usually bishops. There were good reasons for this policy. Apart from the educational qualifications of clergymen in an age when Latin was the language of government, appointing them enabled Casimir to avoid individuals from the great council families, instead choosing ambitious scions of middling szlachta background. It was therefore vital for Casimir, as for other contemporary European monarchs, to control appointments to ecclesiastical office, and in particular to bishoprics. Jagiełło had enjoyed a reasonable degree of control, but the end of the schism and Poland’s conciliarist tradition—which re-emerged during the Council of Basle—ensured that after 1447, and especially during the Prussian war, a newly combative papacy was suspicious of Casimir and jealous of its own authority.32 There were relatively few Polish bishoprics, and therefore considerable rivalry among churchmen to fill them.33 Nicholas V did grant Casimir the right to fill twenty benefices in gratitude for Casimir’s recognition of his rights to the papacy, enabling Casimir to raise Oporowski to the primacy. Once he felt secure, Nicholas proved less accommodating. When Casimir nominated Gruszczyński to Cujavia in 1449, Nicholas supported Oleśnicki’s candidate, Mikołaj Lasocki; it was not until Lasocki’s death in 1450 that Gruszczyński was consecrated. A similar battle occurred after the death of Piotr Chrząstowski, bishop of Przemyśl, in January 1452, when Casimir, without consulting the Małopolskan lords, nominated his Silesian secretary, Mikołaj of Blaschewitz, ignoring the custom by which the local chapter elected its bishops.34
This nomination was directed more against Oleśnicki than the papacy, as was Casimir’s nomination of Mikołaj Łabuński to the bishopric of Kamianets in 1453, and, in the same year, of another of his secretaries, Jan Sprowski, as primate over Tomasz Strzempiński, who was preferred by most canons; all of these nominations were confirmed by the pope. Strzempiński, a professor at the university, had succeeded Oleśnicki as bishop of Cracow. As Oleśnicki had demonstrated, the Cracow diocese afforded its incumbent unrivalled opportunities to frustrate the royal government if he were so inclined. When Strzempiński died in September 1460, conflict loomed. The new pope was Pius II who, as Enea Silvio Piccolomini, had been a correspondent of Oleśnicki, imbibing much of his hostility to the Jagiellons. He took the opportunity of asserting his authority. The Cracow canons—including Długosz—begged Casimir not to nominate anyone, but to allow the chapter, still packed with Oleśnicki’s protégés, to elect Strzempiński’s successor. Casimir ignored the plea, nominating Gruszczyński. When the chapter defiantly elected vice-chancellor Jan Lutkowic, who refused the nomination during a stormy assembly at Piotrków, Pius saw his opportunity, appointing Jakub of Sienno, Oleśnicki’s nephew and administrator of the diocese, who had impressed him during a diplomatic mission to Rome in 1459. Casimir, then in Lithuania, issued decrees confiscating the property of Jakub and his supporters and banishing them. In his absence Jakub was consecrated bishop by the suffragan and took up his office. When Casimir returned in early 1461 he vented his fury: the houses of several canons, including Długosz, were looted by a mob under the king’s approving eyes, and the recalcitrant canons were stripped of their income from the tithe. Jakub fled to Pińczów; his suffragan headed for Silesia. Pius appointed archdeacon Jan Pniewski as diocesan administrator but Casimir won the day. At an assembly in Piotrków in January 1463, support for Casimir’s position was overwhelming and Gruszczyński was duly installed. Casimir was magnanimous in victory, restoring the canons’ incomes, nominating Lutkowic to the vacant bishopric of Płock, and even sparing Jakub of Sienno his wrath, appointing him in 1465 to the bishopric of Cujavia. Jakub remained loyal thereafter, and was ultimately rewarded with the archbishopric of Gniezno in 1474.35
Casimir had won a significant victory, which did much to secure the principle of royal control of episcopal nominations. He was helped by the strength of conciliarist feeling in the Polish church, with influential clerics happy to look to the monarchy to protect them against papal encroachments. Casimir was able to ban appeals to Rome, and the implementation in Poland of judgements by the papal courts or summonses before them without a squeak of protest from his bishops.36 Lay politicians also backed him: Jan Ostroróg, in his significant undated treatise on political reform, eloquently defended the king’s right to appoint bishops in a powerful attack on papal pretensions.37 Casimir was increasingly well served by loyalist bishops such as Andrzej Bniński, bishop of Poznań (1439–79), Władysław Oporowski, archbishop of Gniezno (1449–53), and Mateusz Łomżyński, bishop of Kamianets (1479–90), and then Chełm (1490–1505).38
Casimir’s campaign to control the church climaxed with the nomination of his sixth and youngest son, Frederick (1468–1503) to the bishopric of Cracow in April 1488. That Oleśnicki’s old chapter should have confirmed the nomination ‘per inspirationem’—that is without a formal election—shows that this triumph was no unexpected coup, but had been carefully prepared, as is demonstrated by its rapid confirmation by Innocent VIII in May, accompanied by a dispensation allowing Frederick to hold the see in administration until he reached the canonical age of 25. The appointment was testimony to the success of Casimir’s ecclesiastical policy; its symbolic importance was immediately apparent as Oleśnicki’s nephew Zbigniew, now archbishop of Gniezno and already at loggerheads with Casimir despite a long period of faithful service in the chancery, contested Frederick’s claims, as a royal prince, to take precedence over him at council meetings. By January 1489, Oleśnicki had been frozen out; like his uncle, he boycotted council meetings, thereby entering the political wilderness as the other bishops, led by the royalist archbishop of Lwów, Andrzej Boryszewski, accepted Frederick’s precedence.39
Frederick’s elevation was a masterstroke. He played a key role in the interregnum following Casimir’s death on 7 June 1492, moving swiftly to ensure the election of John Albert against his older brother Władysław, and Janusz II of Mazovia, Oleśnicki’s favoured candidate. Borrowing money from Cracow council to hire 600 troops, Frederick hurried to Piotrków, where the election was to take place. He garrisoned the castle, leaving Oleśnicki fuming outside the town wall. Frederick’s quick thinking ensured that it was he rather than Oleśnicki who presided; he was therefore able to secure John Albert’s election.40 The extent of Jagiellon authority over the Polish church was revealed after Oleśnicki’s death in 1493: in March, Frederick was elected—again per inspirationem—by the Gniezno chapter after John Albert’s intervention. Since he remained bishop of Cracow, Frederick now attained an unprecedented position of authority within the Polish church. His status was underlined when Alexander VI made him a cardinal in September 1493.41
Frederick served the dynasty well before his premature death in 1503 at the age of thirty-five. He proved an able politician, administering the kingdom capably when John Albert was absent on military campaign and playing an important—if not quite so dramatic—role in the 1501 election of Alexander after John Albert’s unexpected death. Despite his posthumous reputation for fecklessness and immorality, he proved an effective and dedicated ecclesiastical administrator, taking a close interest in the affairs of his sees, and presiding with notably more enthusiasm over the ecclesiastical courts than most bishops; in this, as in his political ambition, he was more similar to Zbigniew Oleśnicki the elder than he might have cared to admit. The extent of his influence should not be exaggerated, however: the browbeating of the Cracow and Gniezno chapters into accepting him as bishop was resented by many canons, and his unsympathetic portrayal by Miechowita and others indicated the extent of the backlash against such a clear royal attempt to subdue the church. Under the primacy of Jan Łaski (1510–31) the pendulum swung away from Frederick’s royalist agenda. Although Sigismund I secured the appointment of his illegitimate son Jan in 1519 as bishop of Vilnius, it was not until the 1630s that Poland was again to see a royal cardinal.
While domination of the council was important, control of the chancery was vital. Government had long since moved out of the household in Poland, in part because of the interregna of 1382–4 and 1444–7, and the long minority and absentee monarchy of Władysław III. Although it was not until 1504 that a statutory duty was laid upon chancellors to refuse to issue documents that were contrary to the law, this measure merely gave legal force to existing practice: as early as 1420 Wojciech Jastrzębiec refused to attach the great seal to a document in which Jagiełło sought to confer the title of count upon his stepson, Jan Pilecki.42 By the 1460s only the chancellor or vice-chancellor could authorize the drafting of official documents, although in exceptional circumstances the chief secretary occasionally did so. From 1466, when Zbigniew Oleśnicki the younger was grand secretary, his signature or that of the chancellor, Jakub of Dębno, began to appear on documents as a sign of their authenticity; the practice was regularized after Oleśnicki became vice-chancellor in 1472.43 From 1447, the keeping of chancery record books in three series—of the chancellor, vice-chancellor, and secretary—began systematically.44 From the 1470s Casimir began issuing documents under his signet, drawn up by the grand secretary or another of their secretaries under the formula ‘dominus rex per se’.45 Such expedients were viewed with great suspicion, however: the key to effective royal government remained the relationship between the king and his chancellors. There was no substitute for an effective appointments policy.
By the late 1470s, Casimir’s authority was considerable, and he was increasingly able to ignore the legal constraints on his power embedded in the privileges he had sworn to respect. He began to ignore the ban on multiple office-holding and the conventions that had grown up around the developing hierarchy of prestige. When Pilecki died in 1476 Casimir promoted, as was normal, Dziersław Rytwiański, the palatine of Cracow, to the castellany of Cracow. In filling the vacant palatinate, however, he overlooked the claims of the faithful Jakub of Dębno who, as palatine of Sandomierz, by custom had a strong expectation of promotion, instead appointing Dziersław’s brother Jan to the position. Jan remained crown marshal and castellan of Sandomierz. Since the brothers had jointly held the starosty of Sandomierz since 1442, this meant that four of the top positions in Małopolska and one of the leading offices of state were held by two individuals from the same family.46
Protests at this breach of customary and statute law were sharp, not least from loyal members of the younger generation, whose expectations had been rudely shattered: the failure to free up offices at the top led to congestion further down the system. In the event, Dziersław diplomatically died in January 1478, just before the opening of a general assembly at which protests were inevitable; Casimir prudently advanced Jakub of Dębno rather than Jan Rytwiański to the castellany of Cracow. Rytwiański himself soon died; it may be that in promoting two elderly men Casimir was deliberately testing the waters to gauge the reaction. Lower down the system he was more able to ignore the legal and customary constraints on his authority to build up a strong group of loyal office-holders across Wielkopolska and Małopolska.47 Through his nomination of loyalists to the key post of judicial starosta, in particular the starosta generals of Wielkopolska, Małopolska, Ruthenia, and Prussia, Casimir projected royal power deep into the provinces: from the appearance of the office from the turn of the thirteenth century, judicial starostas were in charge of the castle courts, the main criminal tribunals in lands and districts; they were responsible for the execution of royal judgements and decrees, for the administration of royal taxation at the local level, and for jurisdiction over nobles who did not possess estates in the district, and therefore were not subject to the elected land courts. Originally he had full military authority at the local level, although the decline of the importance of the noble levy in favour of professional troops meant that his military significance faded. He retained, however, considerable administrative and judicial authority. He was responsible for the administration of the royal estates attached to the royal castle (gród) in his district, from which he drew substantial revenues. Since, following Wielkopolskan practice, a growing number of castle courts deemed the acts they registered to be eternally valid, the castle court was the preferred institution for local nobles to register documents of all kinds from testaments to property transactions. As the reach of the castle court grew, so the power of the starosta expanded; concern at this growth led to the clauses in the 1454 privileges decreeing that judicial starosties could no longer be held by palatines, castellans, or land judges—elected by sejmiks from the fifteenth century—who presided over the land courts.48
Casimir took great care over whom he appointed to judicial starosties. The post was still at the king’s pleasure, although Casimir was happy to leave trusted associates in post for long periods: while the starosty of Cracow was held by individuals for very short periods in the late 1430s and 1450s, under Casimir, Jan of Czyżów held it from 1440 until 1457, and Jakub of Dębno from 1463 until his death in 1490. Maciej Mosiński of Bnin, appointed palatine of Poznań in 1477, remained starosta general of Wielkopolska in breach of Nieszawa.49 This consolidation of royal authority at the central and the local level after 1466 was a substantial achievement.
1 For a more positive view see Almut Bues, Die Jagiellonen (Stuttgart, 2010), 82.
2 Annales, xii, 374; Biskup and Górski, Kazimierz, 5–6; Maria Bogucka, Kazimierz Jagiellończyk i jego czasy (Warsaw, 1981), 118–21; Wojciech Fałkowski, Elita władzy w Polsce za panowania Kazimierza Jagiellończyka (1447–1492) (Warsaw, 1992), 167; Jadwiga Krzyżaniakowa, ‘Portret niedokończony: Kazimierz Jagiellończyk w Annales Jana Długosza’, in Kras et al. (eds), Ecclesia, 465–76.
3 Annales, xi, 228–9; xii/i, 360.
4 Górski, ‘Młodość’, 10; Łowmiański, Poliytka, 215.
5 Urszula Borkowska, ‘Edukacja Jagiellonów’, RH, 71 (2005), 101; Bogucka, Kazimierz, 30–1; PSB, xii, 269; Irena Sułkowska-Kurasiowa, Polska kancelaria królewska w l. 1447–1506 (Wrocław, 1967), 16, 70.
6 Łowmiański, Poliytka, 215; Bogucka, Kazimierz, 226.
7 Annales, xii, 27, 50, 359, 366; Górski, ‘Młodość’, 11–12.
8 Maciej Miechowita, Chronica Polonorum (Cracow, 1519; 2nd edn, 1521, refs to facs. of 2nd edn, 1986); Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg, Frühneuzeitliche Nationen im östlichen Europa: Das polnische Geschichtsdenken und die Reichweite einer humanistischen Nationalgeschichte (1500–1700) (Wiesbaden, 2006), 74–6. For the changes see Ferdynand Bostel, ‘Zakaz Miechowity’, Przewodnik Naukowy i Literacki, xii (1884), 438–51, 540–62, 637–52.
9 PSB, x, 409.
10 Fryderyk Papée, Jan Olbracht, 2nd edn (Cracow, 1999), 26–7.
11 Miechowita, Chronica, 372; PSB, i, 61; Łowmiański, Polityka, 329–30, 333; Błaszczyk, Litwa, 13–14, 24; Krzysztof Pietkiewicz, ‘Spór wokół Aleksandra Jagiellończyka (1461–1506)’, in Rimvydas Petrauskas (ed.), Aleksandras (Vilnius, 2007), 16–34.
12 Miechowita, Chronica, 355, 356–7, 373. More direct accusations were levied by Maciej Grodziski and Łaski himself in their updatings of Długosz’s unpublished Catologum Episcoporum Cracoviensium: Natalia Nowakowska, Church, State and Dynasty in Renaissance Poland (Aldershot, 2007), 156–62.
13 Marcin Sepiał, ‘Zastaw na dobrach ziemskich i dochodach królewskich w okresie panowania Władysława III Warneńczyka na Węgrzech (1440–1444)’, ZNUJPH, 125 (1998), 46.
14 PSB, xxiii, 765; Zawitkowska, W służbie, 191.
15 Zawitkowska, W służbie, 161, 210–11; Górski, ‘Rządy’, 82–6.
16 Czwojdrak, ‘Kilka’, 204; Zawitkowska, W służbie, 171; Górski, ‘Rządy’, 85–6.
17 Zawitkowska, W służbie, 222–4; Nowakowska, Church, 23.
18 Anna Sochacka, Jan z Czyżowa, namiestnik Władysława Warneńczyka (Lublin, 1993), 159–70; Zawitkowska, W służbie, 218–19; Fałkowski, Elita, 58–9.
19 Fałkowski, Elita, 51–6; 60–3.
20 Maria Koczerska, ‘Zbigniew Oleśnicki wśród ludzi i idei swojej epoki’, in Kiryk and Noga (eds), Oleśnicki, 30–3.
21 Annales, xii, 100.
22 Koczerska, ‘Oleśnicki’, 33–4; Bogucka, Kazimierz, 58; Kurtyka, Tęczyńscy, 345. Fałkowski accepts Długosz’s assessment: Elita, 65–6, 70.
23 Annales, xii, 127; Wojciech Fałkowski, ‘Rok trzech sejmów’, in Manikowska et al. (eds), Aetas media, 425–38.
24 Halecki, Dzieje, i, 373–4.
25 Zawitkowska, W służbie, 295; Halecki, Dzieje, i, 380–1.
26 Zawitkowska, W służbie, 222.
27 Górczak, Podstawy, 171; Nowakowska, Church, 22.
28 Fałkowski, Elita, 83–5.
29 Fałkowski, Elita, 92, 118–20.
30 Fałkowski, Elita, 85.
31 Zawitkowska, W służbie, 311.
32 For appointments before 1447 see Tomasz Graff, Episkopat (Cracow, 2008), 159–86.
33 The archbishoprics of Gniezno and Lwów, and the bishoprics of Cracow, Cujavia, Poznań, Przemyśl, Chełm, and Kamianets in the kingdom of Poland, the bishoprics of Vilnius, Miedininkai (Samogitia), Lutsk, and Kyiv in the grand duchy, and of Płock in Mazovia, and Culm in Pomerelia. It was not until the end of the century that the Polish monarchy established its influence over the Prussian bishopric of Ermland (Warmia).
34 Bogucka, Kazimierz, 117; Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii, 830, 837; Fałkowski, Elita, 73–4.
35 Bogucka, Kazimierz, 118–21; PSB, x, 366.
36 Górski, ‘Rządy’, 107.
37 Jan Ostroróg, Monumentum pro comitiis generalibus regni sub rege Casimiro pro Reipublicae ordinatione (undated); Bobrzyński, Jan Ostroróg (Cracow, 1884), 4.
38 Witold Knoppek, ‘Zmiany w układzie sił politycznych w Polsce w drugiej połowie XV w. i ich związek z genezą dwuizbowego sejmu’, CPH, 7/2 (1955), 72–3.
39 Nowakowska, Church, 39–41.
40 Miechowita, Chronica, 347; Nowakowska, Church, 43.
41 Nowakowska, Church, 44–5.
42 VC, i/i, 129; Annales, xi, 129–31; Stanisław Kętrzyński, Zarys nauki o dokumencie polskim wieków średnich, 2nd edn (Poznań, 2008), 182.
43 Waldemar Chorążyczewski, Przemiany organizacyjne polskiej kancelarii królewskiej u progu czasów nowożytnych (Toruń, 2007), 62.
44 Knoppek, ‘Zmiany’, 74–5.
45 Waldemar Chorążyczewski, ‘Początki kancelarii pokojowej za Jagiellonów’, in Chorążyczewski and Wojciech Krawczyk (eds), Polska kancelaria królewska między władzą a społeczeństwem, iii (Warsaw, 2008), 37–46.
46 Fałkowski, Elita, 131–2.
47 Fałkowski, Elita, 137–9.
48 The term starosty was also used to denote complexes of royal estates leased out or mortgaged to individual nobles, but without judicial or administrative powers. Their holders were known as ‘nonjudicial starostas’ [starostowie niegrodowi]. The Nieszawa privileges forbade the mortgaging of judicial starosties, a practice that had spread since 1400: Juliusz Bardach, Historia państwa i prawa Polski, i: Do połowy XV wieku (Warsaw, 1964), 256–7, 457–60, 475–81; Wacław Uruszczak, Historia państwa i prawa polskiego, i: 966–1795 (Warsaw, 2010) 174–6.
49 Fałkowski, Elita, 136–8, 165.