GEDYMIN (d. 1342), grand-duke of Lithuania, was supposed by some to have been the servant of Witen, prince of Lithuania, but more probably he was Witen's younger brother and the son of Lutuwer, another Lithuanian prince. Gedymin inherited a vast domain, comprising Lithuania proper, Samogitia, Red Russia, Polotsk and Minsk; but these lands were environed by powerful foes, the most dangerous being the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Knights of the Sword. The systematic raiding of Lith uania by the knights under the pretext of converting it had long since united all the Lithuanian tribes against the common enemy; but Gedymin aimed at establishing a dynasty which should make Lithuania not merely secure but mighty, and for this purpose he began negotiations with the Holy See. At the end of 1322 he wrote to Pope John XXII. soliciting his protection against the persecution of the knights, informing him of the privileges already granted to the Dominicans and the Franciscans in Lithuania, and desiring that legates should be sent to receive him also into the church. Gedymin then issued circular letters, dated Jan. 25, 1325, to the principal Hanse towns, offering a free access into his do mains to settlers. The immigrants were to choose their own settle ments and be governed by their own laws. Similar letters were sent to the Wendish or Baltic cities, and to the bishops and land owners of Livonia and Esthonia. In short Gedymin anticipated Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great by throwing open the semi savage Russian lands to western culture.
In Oct. 1323 representatives of the archbishop of Riga, the bishop of Dorpat, the king of Denmark, the Dominican and Franciscan orders, and the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order assembled at Vilna, when Gedymin confirmed his promises and undertook to be baptized as soon as the papal legates arrived. A compact was then signed at Vilna confirming the promised privi leges. But the christianizing of Lithuania was by no means to the liking of the Teutonic Knights, and they strove to nullify Gedymin's design. Gedymin's chief object was to save Lithuania from destruction at the hands of the Germans. But he was still a pagan reigning over semi-pagan lands; he was equally bound to his pagan kinsmen in Samogitia, to his orthodox subjects in Red Russia, and to his Catholic allies in Masovia. His policy, therefore, was necessarily tentative and ambiguous. Thus his raid upon Dobrzyn, the latest acquisition of the knights on Polish soil, gave them a weapon against him. The Prussian bishops, who were devoted to the knights, at a synod at Elbing questioned the authority of Gedymin's letters and denounced him as an enemy of the faith; his orthodox subjects reproached him with leaning towards the Latin heresy ; while the pagan Lithuanians accused him of abandoning the ancient gods. Gedymin then repudiated his former promises ; he refused to receive the papal legates who arrived at Riga in Sept. 1323, and dismissed the Franciscans. Gedymin saw that the pagan element was still the strongest force in Lithuania, and could not yet be dispensed with in the coming struggle for nationality. But, through his ambassa dors, he privately informed the papal legates at Riga that his difficult position compelled him to postpone his own baptism, and the legates showed their confidence in him by forbidding the neighbouring states to war against Lithuania for the next four years, besides ratifying the treaty made between Gedymin and the archbishop of Riga. Nevertheless in 1325 the Order, disregarding the censures of the church, resumed the war with Gedymin, who by the marriage of his daughter to Casimir, son of Wladislaus Lokietek, king of Poland, had improved his position.
While on his guard against his northern foes, Gedymin from 1316 to 1340 was extending his rule over neighbouring Russian principalities. The principality of Halicz-Vladimir was obtained by the marriage of his son Lubart with the daughter of the Halic zian prince ; Kiev seems to have been acquired by conquest. Gedymin also secured an alliance with the grand-duchy of Mus covy by marrying his daughter, Anastasia, to the grand-duke Simeon. He was strong enough to counterpoise the influence of Muscovy in northern Russia, and assisted the republic of Pskov, which acknowledged his overlordship, to break away from Great Novgorod. His internal administration bears all the marks of a wise ruler. He protected the Catholic as well as the orthodox clergy, encouraging them both to civilize his subjects; he raised the Lithuanian army to the highest state of efficiency then attain able ; defended his borders with a chain of strong fortresses ; and built numerous towns including Vilna, the capital (c. 1321). Gedy min died in the winter of 1342 of a wound received at the siege of Wielowa. He was married three times, and left seven sons and six daughters.
See Teodor Narbutt, History of the Lithuanian Nation (Pol.) (Vilna, 1835) ; Antoni Prochaska, On the Genuineness of the Letters of Gedymin (Pol.) (Cracow, 1895) ; Vladimir Bonifatovich Antono vich, Monograph concerning the History of Western and South western Russia (Rus.) (Kiev, 1885) . (R. N. B.; X.)