(^106) JOGALIA
wording of the coronation service, numerous attempts to follow this precedent
were blocked by the nobility. Sigismund I in 1530 was the only Polish king who
succeeded in having his son crowned during his own lifetime. In Lithuania,
where a separate grand ducal coronation took place in Wilno, many of the old
patrimonial practices were retained. Not till 1529, when the First Lithuanian
Statute enjoined a broader consultative function for the Great Council, did the
Jagiellonian Grand Dukes care to reform procedures in the light of their simul-
taneous experience as Kings of Poland.
The multifarious political manoeuvres of the Jagiellonian monarchs can be
reduced to two main problems. In the external sphere, they sought to isolate the
principal perceived enemy. Their attentions in the fifteenth century were mainly
directed against the Teutonic Order, and in the sixteenth century against
Muscovy. In the internal sphere, they sought to reconcile the competing inter-
ests of estates, regions, religions, and personalities. On the whole, they were
remarkably successful. In contrast to the confused history of the Piast era, and
the galloping anarchy of the succeeding Republic, the Jagiellons reigned over a
dynamic but stable community. Their rule was seriously challenged on only one
occasion — in 1429-30. The various oppositions never assumed the magnitude of
an alternative government. The Jagiellonian era died of natural causes, and was
supplanted by a new system prepared and introduced by its last, heirless repres-
entative.
Wladyslaw-Jagiello lived and ruled for forty-five years after his marriage to
Jadwiga. During her lifetime, he was much concerned with preserving the state
of the Union, reinforcing the hold on peripheral territories such as Red Ruthenia
and suppressing the malcontents, whether of cousin Witold in Lithuania or the
former regent, Ladislaus von Oppeln, in Poland. In his middle decades, he dealt
with the Teutonic Order, and with related diplomatic problems in Central
Europe and in the Church councils. His stand earned him the disgust of the
Emperor, the Luxemburgers, and the Vatican, and the respect of the Hussites,
who at several points urged him to accept the throne of Bohemia. At the end of
his life, he was entirely absorbed with the succession. In spite of four marriages,
he did not produce a son and heir until 1425 when he was well into his seventies.
Leaving day-to-day business in the capable hands of Bishop Olesnicki, he made
fundamental concessions to the barons to secure his sons' future. In the Statutes
of Jetno (1430) and of Cracow (1433), an old man's fears aroused the very sus-
picions they were supposed to allay. At the Congress of Luck in January 1429,
Jagiello's foreign enemies and domestic rivals joined forces. Sigismund of
Luxembourg, who held the thrones of Bohemia, Hungary, and Germany pro-
posed that the Union of Horodlo should be overturned and Witold crowned
King of Lithuania. A rift was opened between the two parts of the Jagiellonian
realm. War loomed. But in 1430 Witold died. Jagiello's longevity was not the
least of his talents. (See Diagram F.)
Wtadyslaw III Warnenczyk (Ladislaus of Varna, 1425-44) is remembered
almost exclusively for the way in which he died. Succeeding at the age of nine,
c. jardin
(C. Jardin)
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