Pola

The growth of the towns was slower. During the heroic Bole slawic period there had been a premature outcrop of civil life. As early as the I rth century Kruschwitz, the old Polish capital, and Gnesen, the metropolitan see, were of considerable impor tance, and played a leading part in public life. But in the ensuing anarchic period both cities were utterly ruined, and the centre of political gravity was transferred from Great Poland to Little Poland, where Cracow, singularly favoured by her position, soon became the capital of the monarchy, and one of the wealthiest cities in Europe. At the end of the 14th century we find all the great trade gilds established there, and the cloth manufactured at Cracow was eagerly sought after, from Prague to Great Novgorod. Towards the end of the 14th century the Polish towns even attained some degree of political influence, and their delegates sat with the nobles and clergy in the king's councils. Even the peasants, who had suffered severely from the wholesale estab lishment of prisoners of war as serfs on the estates of the nobles, still preserved the rights of personal liberty and free movement from place to place. The only portion of the community which had no privileges were the Jews, first introduced into Poland by Boleslaus the Pious, duke of Great Poland, in 1264, when bitter persecutions had driven them northwards from the shores of the Adriatic. Casimir the Great extended their liberty of domicile over the whole kingdom (1334). From the first they were better treated in Poland than elsewhere, though frequently exposed to outbreaks of popular fanaticism.

Wladislaus II. and the Teutonic Order.

The transforma tion of the pagan Lithuanian chieftain Jagiello into the catholic king of Poland, Wladislaus II., was an event of capital importance in the history of eastern Europe. Its immediate and inevitable consequence was the formal reception of the Lithuanian nations into the fold of the church. What the Teutonic Order had vainly endeavoured to bring about by fire and sword, for two centuries, was peacefully accomplished by Jagiello within a single generation, the Lithuanians, for the most part, willingly following a prince of their own blood. The conversion of Lithuania menaced the very existence of the Teutonic Knights, whose dominion was now little more than a German military forepost, extending from Pomerania to the Niemen, and cutting off the central Slays from the sea. But if the Order had now become a superfluous anachronism, it had still to be disposed of, and this was no easy task. For if it had failed utterly as a mission in partibus, it had succeeded in establishing on the Baltic one of the strongest military organiza tions in Europe. In the art of war the Knights were immeasurably superior to all their neighbours. Skilfully taking advantage of the jealousies of Poland and Lithuania, accentuated as they were by the personal antagonism of Jagiello and Witowt (Tu.), they even contrived (Treaty of Salin, 1378) to extend their territory by getting possession of the province of Samogitia, the original seat of the Lithuanians, where paganism still persisted. By this time, however, the prudent Jagiello had become convinced that Lithuania was too strong to be ruled by or from Poland, and yet not strong enough to stand alone, and by the compact of Vilna (Jan. 18, 1401, confirmed by the compact of Radowo, March 0)

he surrendered the whole grand duchy to Witowt, on the under standing that the two States should have a common policy, and that neither of them should elect a new prince without the consent of the other. The wisdom of this arrangement was made manifest in 1410, when Jagiello and Witowt combined their forces for the purpose of delivering Samogitia from the intolerable tyranny of the Knights. The issue was fought out on the field of Tannen berg, or Griinewald (July 15, 1410), when the Knights sustained a crushing defeat, which shook their political organization to its very foundations. A few weeks after the victory the towns of Thorn, Elbing, Braunsberg and Danzig submitted to the Polish king, and all the Prussian bishops voluntarily offered him homage. But the excessive caution of Jagiello gave the Knights time to recover from the blow; the Polish levies proved unruly and in competent ; Witowt was suddenly recalled to Lithuania by a Tatar invasion, and thus it came about that, when peace was concluded at Thorn, on Feb. 1, 1411, Samogitia, finally sur rendered in 1422, Dobrzyn, and a war indemnity of 100,0o0 marks payable in four instalments, were the best terms Poland could obtain from the Knights. The solidarity of Poland and Lithuania was still further strengthened by the Union of Horodlo (Oct. 2, 1413) which enacted that henceforth Lithuania was to have the same order of dignitaries as Poland, as well as a council of State, or senate, similar to the Polish senate. The power of the grand duke was also greatly increased. He was now declared to be the equal of the Polish king, and his successor could be elected only by the senates of Poland and Lithuania in conjunction. The Union of Horodlo also established absolute parity between the nobility of Poland and Lithuania, but the privileges of the latter were made conditional upon their profession of the Roman Catholic faith, experience having shown that difference of religion in Lithuania meant difference of politics, and a tendency Moscow wards, the majority of the Lithuanian boyars being of the Greek Orthodox Confession.

Had Wladislaus II. been as great a warrior as Witowt he might, perhaps, have subdued the Knights altogether. But he was essenti ally a diplomatist, and as such he was hampered by the suspicion felt towards him by the emperor Sigismund, who as king of Bohemia feared that his subjects would be attracted towards the new power which had arisen in the north-east. As emperor, Sigismund resented Wladislaus's encroachments upon territory formerly in German occupation, and though he was careful to avoid giving to Wladislaus any excuse for accepting the Bohemian crown, his influence was inevitably on the side of the Teutonic Order. Nevertheless the Order never recovered the position which it had held before the battle of Tannenberg and the conversion of its possessions into a territorial State was only a question of time.