1.
Marcello Bacciarelli
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Marcello Bacciarelli was a Polish-Italian painter of the late-baroque and Neoclassic periods. He was born in Rome, and studied there under Marco Benefial, in 1750 he was called to Dresden in Saxony, where he was employed by Elected King Augustus III of Poland, after whose death he went to Vienna, and thence to Warsaw. There he met and worked by the side of another Italian painter in Dresden, Vienna and Warsaw and he was the Director there of the newly set up Academy of Arts of Warsaw. He also made a portrait of Izabela Lubomirska in her wedding gown, Bacciarelli was also keen in painting culturally significant scenes from the history of Poland. Following the partitions of Poland and after Napoleons rise to power he moved to the Duchy of Warsaw, a number of his paintings were painted for King Stanisław II Augustus of Poland and are in the Royal Castle in Warsaw. Another notable pupil of Bacciarellis was Kazimierz Wojniakowski, works of Marcello Bacciarelli Bryan, Michael. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical, york St. #4, Covent Garden, London, Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18,2007, George Bell and Sons
2.
Grand Duke of Lithuania
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The following is a list of rulers over Lithuania—grand dukes, kings, and presidents—the heads of authority over historical Lithuanian territory. The timeline includes Lithuania as an entity or legitimately part of a greater sovereign entity as well as Lithuania under control or occupation of an outside authority. The incumbents and office-holders are listed by names most commonly used in English language, where appropriate, the alternations in Lithuanian, Ruthenian and Polish are included. The state of Lithuania formed in 1230s, when threatened by the Livonian Order in the north and he became the only crowned king of Lithuania. His state became known as Grand Duchy of Lithuania, after Grand Duke Jogaila became also king of Poland in 1386, the two states became closer connected and since 1440 both were ruled by a common ruler. In 1569 Union of Lublin was signed and a new entity—the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—emerged, the commonwealth was partitioned in 1795 and Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire till 16 February 1918. The Council of Lithuania was able to establish the sovereignty only in 1919, the first republic of Lithuania existed until 1940 when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. During the Soviet-German War, Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany, in 1944, as Germany was losing the war, Russia re-occupied Lithuania and established the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence, the restored Republic of Lithuania is a democratic republic, a member of both the European Union and NATO. Title, Grand Duke except for Mindaugas, who became king of Lithuania, dates are approximate because of scant written sources. The act of union with Poland was signed as early as 1385, however. The monarchs retained separate titles for both parts of the state, and their numbering was kept separately, the Jagiellon dynasty was a direct continuation of the Gediminids. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was established by Union of Lublin in 1569, the elected King of Poland was to be elected by Lithuanian noble families as a Grand Duke of Lithuania. The first ruler of the country was Sigismund II Augustus. Following the partitions in 1772,1793, and 1795, the commonwealth ceased to exist, there are some gaps in the timeline as it took a while to elect a new king. Title, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, the Council of Lithuania declared independence on 16 February 1918 and invited Wilhelm of Urach to become king of Lithuania. The name of the state was the Kingdom of Lithuania, on 9 July 1918, the council declared that the Duke of Urach is to become King Mindaugas II of Lithuania. However, on 2 November, the council revoked this decision because of its unpopularity, the institution of President was created on 4 April 1919
3.
Coronation
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The ceremony can also be conducted for the monarchs consort, either simultaneously with the monarch or as a separate event. A ceremony without the placement of a crown on the head is known as an enthronement. Coronations are still observed in the United Kingdom, Tonga, in addition to investing the monarch with symbols of state, Western-style coronations have often traditionally involve anointing with holy oil, or chrism as it is often called. Wherever a ruler is anointed in this way, as in Great Britain and Tonga, some other lands use bathing or cleansing rites, the drinking of a sacred beverage, or other religious practices to achieve a comparable effect. Such acts symbolise the granting of divine favour to the monarch within the relevant spiritual-religious paradigm of the country, in the past, concepts of royalty, coronation and deity were often inexorably linked. Rome promulgated the practice of worship, in Medieval Europe. Coronations were once a direct expression of these alleged connections. Thus, coronations have often been discarded altogether or altered to reflect the nature of the states in which they are held. However, some monarchies still choose to retain an overtly religious dimension to their accession rituals, others have adopted simpler enthronement or inauguration ceremonies, or even no ceremony at all. In non-Christian states, coronation rites evolved from a variety of sources, buddhism, for instance, influenced the coronation rituals of Thailand, Cambodia and Bhutan, while Hindu elements played a significant role in Nepalese rites. The ceremonies used in modern Egypt, Malaysia, Brunei and Iran were shaped by Islam, Coronations, in one form or another, have existed since ancient times. Egyptian records show coronation scenes, such as that of Seti I in 1290 BC, judeo-Christian scriptures testify to particular rites associated with the conferring of kingship, the most detailed accounts of which are found in II Kings 11,12 and II Chronicles 23,11. Following the assumption of the diadem by Constantine, Roman and Byzantine emperors continued to wear it as the symbol of their authority. Although no specific coronation ceremony was observed at first, one gradually evolved over the following century, the emperor Julian was hoisted upon a shield and crowned with a gold necklace provided by one of his standard-bearers, he later wore a jewel-studded diadem. Later emperors were crowned and acclaimed in a manner, until the momentous decision was taken to permit the Patriarch of Constantinople to physically place the crown on the emperors head. Historians debate when exactly this first took place, but the precedent was established by the reign of Leo II. This ritual included recitation of prayers by the Byzantine prelate over the crown, after this event, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the ecclesiastical element in the coronation ceremonial rapidly develop. This was usually performed three times, following this, the king was given a spear, and a diadem wrought of silk or linen was bound around his forehead as a token of regal authority
4.
Wawel Cathedral
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The Royal Archcathedral Basilica of Saints Stanislaus and Wenceslaus on the Wawel Hill, also known as the Wawel Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic church located on Wawel Hill in Kraków, Poland. More than 900 years old, it is the Polish national sanctuary, the construction of the current one began in the 14th century on the orders of bishop Nanker. The Cathedral comprises a nave with aisles, transepts with aisles, a choir with aisles. The main altar, located in the apse, was founded about 1650 by Bishop Piotr Gembicki, the altar painting of Crucified Christ by Marcin Blechowski is from the 17th century. Over the main altar stands a canopy of black marble supported by four pillars, designed by Giovanni Battista Trevano. Underneath the canopy is placed a silver coffin of national patron saint St. Stanislaus created between 1669-1671 after the one was stolen by the Swedes in 1655. The Wawel Cathedral has been the burial site for Polish monarchs since the 14th century. As such, it has significantly extended and altered over time as individual rulers have added multiple burial chapels. Financed by Sigismund I the Old, it was built between 1517 and 1533 by Bartolommeo Berrecci, a Florentine Renaissance architect, who spent most of his career in Poland. A square-based chapel with a dome, it houses the tombs of its founder. Notes Media related to Wawel Cathedral at Wikimedia Commons Wawel Cathedral official website
5.
Alexander Jagiellon
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Alexander I Jagiellon of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland. He was the son of Casimir IV Jagiellon. He was elected Grand Duke of Lithuania on the death of his father, Alexander was born as son of the King Casimir IV Jagiellon of Poland and Elisabeth Habsburg of Hungary, daughter of the King Albert of Hungary. For want of funds, Alexander was unable to resist the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights or prevent Grand Duke of Muscovy Ivan III from ravaging Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the Tatars. In the terms of the truce, Lithuania had to surrender about a third of its territory to the nascent expansionist Russian state, during his reign, Poland suffered much humiliation at the hands of her subject principality, Moldavia. It is important to note that Alexander was the last known ruler of the Gediminids dynasty to have maintained the familys ancestral Lithuanian language, from his death, Polish became the sole language of the family, thus fully Polonising the Jagiello family. In 1931, during the refurbishment of Vilnius Cathedral, the sarcophagus of Alexander was discovered. History of Poland Sejm walny St. Annes Church, Vilnius This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Pages and Forums on the Lithuanian History Alexander Jagiellon at Find a Grave
6.
Sigismund II Augustus
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Sigismund II Augustus was the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, the only son of Sigismund I the Old, whom Sigismund II succeeded in 1548. Married three times, the last of the Jagiellons remained childless, and through the Union of Lublin introduced an elective monarchy. Lord and heir From the outset of his reign, Sigismund came into collision with the countrys nobility, so violent was the agitation at Sigismunds first sejm that the deputies threatened to renounce their allegiance unless the King repudiated his wife Barbara. He refused and won the day, Sigismund soon lost all hope of children by his third bride, he was the last male Jagiellon in the direct line so the dynasty was threatened with extinction. He sought to remedy this by adultery with two of the most beautiful of his countrywomen, Barbara Giżanka and Anna Zajączkowska but was unable to either of them. The sejm was willing to legitimatize, and acknowledge as Sigismunds successor, any male heir who might be born to him, however, the Kings marriage was a matter of great political import to Protestants and Catholics alike. The Polish Protestants hoped that he would divorce and remarry and thus bring about a breach with Rome at the crisis of the religious struggle in Poland. He was not free to remarry until Queen Catherines death on 28 February 1572, Sigismunds reign was a period of internal turmoil and external expansion. A less imposing figure than his father, the elegant and refined Sigismund II Augustus was nevertheless an even more effective statesman than the stern and majestic Sigismund I the Old. Sigismund II possessed to a degree the tenacity and patience that seem to have characterized all the Jagiellons. No other Polish king seems to have so understood the nature of the Polish sejm. Both the Austrian ambassadors and the papal legates testify to the care with which he controlled his nation, everything went as he wished, they said, because he seemed to know everything in advance. Like his father, a pro-Austrian by conviction, he contrived even in respect to carry with him the nation. He avoided serious complications with the powerful Turks, Sigismund II mediated for twenty years between the Catholic Church and the Protestants. His most striking memorial may have been the Union of Lublin, also, German-speaking Royal Prussia and Prussian cities were included. This achievement might well have been impossible without Sigismund, Sigismund died at his beloved Knyszyn on 6 July 1572, aged 51. In 1573, Henry III of Valois was elected King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for a few months, shortly thereafter, Sigismunds sister Anna of Poland married Stefan Batory, and they ruled as King and Queen of Poland. In addition to his connections, Sigismund II was allied to the Imperial Habsburgs by his pledge as member of the Order of the Golden Fleece
7.
Kozienice
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Kozienice is a town in central Poland with 21,500 inhabitants. Located four miles from the Vistula, it is the capital of Kozienice County, the name of the town first appeared in records in 1429, when it was spelled in Latin Coszinicze. In 1569 it was called Kozienycze – the name comes from the given name Kozina, even though Kozienice is part of Lesser Poland, it is situated in the Masovian Voivodeship, previously, it was in Radom Voivodeship and in Kielce Voivodeship. North-west of Kozienice, in Świerże Górne, Polands second largest coal-fired thermal Kozienice Power Station is located, history of the town dates back to 1206, when – together with neighboring villages, Kozienice was owned by the Norbertine Nuns from Płock. Subsequently, it used to belong to Polish crown, and remained so until the Partitions of Poland, in 1326 Kozienice was incorporated by King Władysław I the Elbow-high. Located on the ancient road from Kraków to Vilnius and on the edge of the Kozienice Forest, the town one of favorite retreats of King Władysław II Jagiełło. In 1467, future King Sigismund I the Old was born in Kozienice at a manor house, Kozienice was incorporated as a city in 1549, by King Sigismund II Augustus. In 1652, the town was decimated by an outbreak, and four years later, during the Deluge. In 1782 Kozienice burns in a fire, and due to the efforts of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, the town was rebuilt, in 1784-1788, a manufacture, producing rifles, was founded in Kozienice. In 1867, for the first time in history, Kozienice became the seat of a county, a road to Radom was built, as well as barracks of the Imperial Russian Army. In 1897 it was inhabited by 6391 people, Kozienice gives its name to the protected area called Kozienice Landscape Park. Kozienice had a Jewish community with a history dating back to 1596. Kozienice is pronounced as Kozhnitz in Yiddish, in the early 19th century, the Kozhnitzer Magid Yisroel Hopsztajn was one of the pioneers of Hasidism in Poland. In 1856, there were 2,885 people in Kozienice with 1,961 Jews, before World War II, about 15,000 souls lived in this region. The Jewish community lived there for about 400 years, the two main industries there were tourism, with Jewish pilgrims visiting the Maggids tomb, and shoe manufacturing. Kozienice had approximately 5,000 Jews before World War II, during the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Germans forced 2,000 Jews into a small local church, where many of them died of suffocation. The Germans established a ghetto in the Fall of 1940 in an area of three streets. A Jewish Judenrat council was established by the Germans, but most prominent Jews refused to serve, on September 27,1942,8,000 Jews from Kozienice and nearby towns were sent to the Treblinka death camp, where they were murdered on arrival
8.
Bona Sforza
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Bona Sforza was a member of the powerful House of Sforza, which ruled the Duchy of Milan since 1447. In 1518, she became the wife of Sigismund I the Old. Their marriage lasted 30 years until Sigismunds death in 1548, ambitious and energetic, Bona became heavily involved in the political life of Poland–Lithuania. To increase state revenue, she implemented various economic and agricultural reforms and her reforms made her the richest landowner in the Grand Duchy. In foreign policy, she opposed the Habsburgs and sought to secure her eldest daughter Isabella Jagiellon in the Kingdom of Hungary, Bona was the third of the four children of Gian Galeazzo Sforza and his wife Isabella of Naples. Gian Galeazzo was the heir to the Duchy of Milan. The couple was sent to live at the Castello Visconteo in Pavia, rumors spread that he was poisoned by Ludovico. The family moved to the Sforza Castle in Milan, where they lived under the eye of Ludovico. He was afraid that Milan residents would rebel and install Francesco Sforza, to minimize the risk, Ludovico separated the boy from his family and granted Bari and Rossano to Isabella. The plans were interrupted by the Italian War of 1499–1504, King Louis XII of France deposed Ludovico and took Francesco with him to Paris. Isabella had nothing left in Milan and departed for her native Naples in February 1500, the war reached the Kingdom of Naples and Isabellas uncle Frederick of Naples was deposed. Together with other relatives, she hid at the Aragonese Castle on Ischia. In April 1502, Isabella and her surviving daughter Bona settled at the Castello Normanno-Svevo in Bari more permanently. There Bona started her extensive education and her teachers included Italian humanists Crisostomo Colonna and Antonio de Ferraris who taught her Latin, classical literature, mathematics, history, law, natural science, theology, even geography. Bona could also play musical instruments. When the House of Sforza was restored to the Duchy of Milan in 1512, Isabella hoped to wed Bona, the initial and most likely plan to marry Maximilian Sforza failed when he was deposed after the French victory in the Battle of Marignano in 1515. Pope Leo X proposed his nephew Lorenzo de Medici as he hoped, using Bonas inheritance claims to the Milan, however, the French hold on Milan was too strong and the plan failed. Polish King Sigismund I the Old was widowed in October 1515, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, did not want Sigismund to marry another Habsburg opponent like his late wife Barbara Zápolya
9.
Hedwig Jagiellon, Electress of Brandenburg
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Hedwig Jagiellon was a member of the Polish Jagiellon dynasty and an Electress of Brandenburg. Hedwig was born on March 15,1513 in Poznań and she was the eldest daughter of King Sigismund I the Old of Poland and his first wife, Hungarian Countess Barbara Zápolya, sister of the later King John I of Hungary. Her only full sibling, Anna, died at age 5 and her father remarried and had six children with his second wife. Although she grew up with her brothers and sisters, she had personal tutors. Hedwig was described by Olaus Magnus, who met her in 1528, as a beautiful, wise maiden finer than all the riches I have just mentioned. Her hand was first sought by King Gustav I of Sweden, in 1526, Johannes Magnus was sent to Poland by the King of Sweden to negotiate the marriage. The next suitor was from Brandenburg, the intensely Catholic Georg von Blumenthal, Bishop of Lebus, was sent to negotiate the marriage. On 29 August or 1 September 1535 Hedwig married Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg, the wedding was held in Kraków. The marriage contract, signed on 21 March 1535, stipulated that Hedwig would be allowed to bring a Polish priest with her, the marriage did not satisfy Hedwigs mother-in-law, Elizabeth of Denmark, a devout Protestant, for Catholic services were held for Hedwig in her private chapel. The Dowager Electress was also unhappy because Hedwig could not speak German, after breaking her thigh and hurting her back in the collapse of a floor at a hunting lodge, Hedwig spent the last 22 years of her life crippled. The accident signified the collapse of her marriage, which was damaged by differences in religion. Hedwig was replaced by her husbands mistress, Anna Sydow, whom Joachim treated as his wife, Hedwig died in Neuruppin on 7 February 1573, two years after her husband. She is one of the characters on the painting by Jan Matejko. Hedwig and Joachim had six children, Elisabeth Magdalena, married Francis Otto, Sigismund, Bishop of Magdeburg and Halberstadt. Hedwig, married Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, sophia, married of Wiliam of Rosenberg
10.
Isabella Jagiellon
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Isabella Jagiellon was the oldest child of Polish King Sigismund I the Old and his Italian wife Bona Sforza. In 1539, she married John Zápolya, Voivode of Transylvania and King of Hungary, while Isabellas marriage lasted only a year and a half, it did produce a male heir – John Sigismund Zápolya born just two weeks before his fathers death in July 1540. She spent the rest of her life embroiled in disputes on behalf of her son. Her husbands death sparked renewed hostilities but Sultan Suleiman established her as a regent of Transylvania on behalf of her infant son, the region developed as a semi-independent buffer state noted for its freedom of religion. Ferdinand, however, never renounced his claims and conspired with Bishop George Martinuzzi who forced Isabella to abdicate in 1551 and she returned to her native Poland to live with her family. Sultan Suleiman retaliated and threatened to invade Hungary in 1555–56 forcing nobles to invite Isabella back to Transylvania and she returned in October 1556 and ruled as her sons regent until her death in September 1559. Born in Kraków, Isabella was the oldest child of King Sigismund I the Old and she spent most of her childhood at Wawel Castle in Kraków and hunting castle in Niepołomice. She also lived in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1527–29, during the latter visit her three younger sisters were left in Kraków. This episode foreshadowed future family relationships, Bona Sforza favored her oldest daughter, arranging her marriage early, Isabella received a good education, including from humanist Johannes Honter, and she could speak and write four languages, Polish, Latin, German, and Italian. Sigismund supported Charles V, but Bona continued to pursue a French marriage for Isabella and she hoped that King of France would install his son and Isabella in the Duchy of Milan which Bona claimed as her inheritance. In 1524, Hieronymus Łaski negotiated an alliance with the French, among the provisions was marriage of Isabella and Henry. But this alliance failed after Francis was taken prisoner in the Battle of Pavia, Bona then pursued an Italian marriage. Isabella of Naples, Isabellas grandmother, sent envoys to Poland to propose marriage to Francesco II Sforza, however, Sigismund refused as the duchy was contested and Francescos hold was tenuous. Bona then proposed Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, in 1530, he proposed Maximilian, eldest son of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, but they refused as Isabella was eight years older than the groom. When Habsburgs wanted to stop the marriage between Isabella and John Zápolya, they proposed Ludovico, eldest son of Charles III, Duke of Savoy. Around 1531, a plan emerged to wed Isabella to John Zápolya, Voivode of Transylvania, when Louis II of Hungary was killed in the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Hungary was divided between pro-Habsburg Royal Hungary and pro-Zápolya Eastern Hungarian Kingdom. The parties were engaged in the Little War in Hungary, Zápolya had sustained his claim only by gaining support from and becoming vassal of the Ottoman Empire. Bona Sforza, ardent opponent of the Habsburgs, supported Zápolya and tried to convince her husband Sigismund to provide military support, Sigismund, whose first wife was Zápolyas sister Barbara, refused not wanting to upset the Habsburgs and doubting Zápolyas ability to hold onto his throne
11.
Anna Jagiellon
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Anna Jagiellon was Queen of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania in her own right from 1575 to 1586. She was a daughter of Polish King Sigismund I the Old, despite multiple proposals, she remained unmarried until the age of 52. She was elected, along with her then-fiancé Stephen Báthory, as co-ruler in the 1576 royal election of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and their marriage was a formal arrangement and distant. Báthory was preoccupied with the Livonian War, while Anna spent her time in Warsaw on local administrative matters, after Báthorys death in December 1586, she had an opportunity to claim the throne for herself, but did not even attempt it. Instead, she promoted her nephew Sigismund III Vasa, establishing House of Vasa on the Polish–Lithuanian throne for the eighty years. Anna Jagiellon was born on 18 October 1523 to the Polish king and queen, Sigismund I the Old and she spent most of her childhood in Kraków. Twice, from June 1533 to November 1536 and from April 1540 to June 1542, Anna and that meant that the three sisters grew closer, but grew more distant from their elder brother Sigismund II Augustus. Her early life was rather mundane and she embroidered and sewed, played chess and dice, was involved in works of charity and fulfilled her obligations as a princess. She also received an education – she was fluent in Italian and knew Latin –, the issue of marriage of the three Jagiellon sisters was neglected by both their father and their mother. Sigismund II Augustus did not attend to the issue of his sisters marriages, in 1550, Bona attempted to negotiate marriage with Charles Victor or Philip, sons of Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, or Ernest of Bavaria. Finally in January 1556, Queen Bona managed to arrange a marriage for Sophia Jagiellon, a month later, Bona Sforza departed to her native Italy leaving her two unmarried daughters alone in Warsaw. After about a year, Sigismund II Augustus brought his sisters to Vilnius where they became close to his third wife Catherine of Austria, even though Anna was already in her mid-thirties, Sigismund investigated marriage proposals. John agreed, but asked for Annas younger sister Catherine and it was against custom for a younger sister to marry first, therefore their wedding was postponed. However, at the last minute, only John arrived to the wedding in Vilnius, the court demanded that John married Anna, but John insisted on Catherine. Sigismund II Augustus, who needed Swedish troops and money in the Livonian War, though it must have been humiliating for Anna, she agreed and Catherine married John on 4 October 1562. Anna moved to the Royal Castle in Warsaw as Vilnius was not safe due to the Livonian War, there she lived alone with a court of about 70 people, she spent her time praying, embroidering or sewing, and corresponding with her sisters. Her brother visited her annually when he attended sessions of the sejm in Warsaw. Even though Anna was already in her forties, marriage continued to come in
12.
Catherine Jagiellon
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Catherine Jagiellon was a Polish princess and the wife of John III of Sweden. As such, she was Duchess of Finland, Queen of Sweden, Catherine had significant influence over state affairs during the reign of her spouse, and negotiated with the pope to introduce a counter reformation in Sweden. Catherine Jagiellon was born in Kraków as the youngest daughter of King Sigismund I the Old of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Catherine became the spouse of King John III of Sweden and mother of the future Sigismund III Vasa, King of Poland. After the death of her father in 1548, she and her sister Anna moved to Masovia with their mother, after their mothers departure to Italy in 1558, they lived there alone. The sisters were not close to their brother Sigismund II Augustus of Poland, Catherine could reportedly speak Italian and Latin, and was described as more attractive than Anna, and most marriage suggestions were directed toward her. Duke Albert of Prussia, Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria and Tsar Ivan IV of Russia were among her suitors, in 1560, John resumed the negotiations on his own initiative and without the consent of Eric XIV. On 4 October 1562, Catherine was married in the Lower Castle of Vilnius, Lithuania, to Duke John of Finland, John had not received his brothers permission for the marriage and there were already tensions between them, since John pursued an independent foreign policy. The marriage was conducted in a Catholic ceremony, Catherine brought a large entourage and luxurious possessions, but actually her dowry and inheritance after her mother was never given. The couple set up house in Turku Castle in Turku, Finland, Duke Johns dealings in Livonia caused King Eric XIV to declare war on his brother. Eric sent 10,000 men to besiege the castle, on 12 August 1563 the castle capitulated, Catherine and John were taken to Sweden and imprisoned in Gripsholm Castle. Catherine was offered by Eric to return to Poland, but chose to accompany John in prison. She asked for the part of her entourage to be sent home, only keeping some Polish ladies-in-waiting and her Court dwarf Dorothea Ostrelska. During her incarceration, Catherine gave birth first to her eldest daughter Isabella of Finland in 1564, Catherine was used as a valuable hostage by Eric, but because of her, the imprisonment was lenient. In October 1567, John reconciled with Eric, and the couple was released, Catherine and John apparently developed a close relationship during the years of imprisonment. Catherines unsuccessful suitor Tsar Ivan was in negotiations with Eric in hopes of separating her from John and this caused alarm with Catherine and her relations. In popular opinion, this discussion was one of the reasons for the Swedish peoples growing dissatisfaction with the increasingly insane Eric, King Eric agreed to hand over Catherine to Ivan, but the Swedish king was deposed before Catherine could be sent away. As his brother John succeeded him, the problem disappeared, Catherine was at Vadstena during the rebellion. According to a witness, she answered, Pontus, I have heard your advise and the reasons you present well and good, and they are all very correct and just, but hard to realise
13.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
14.
Jagiellonian dynasty
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The dynasty reigned in several Central European countries between the 14th and 16th centuries. Members of the dynasty were Kings of Poland, Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Kings of Hungary, one Jagiellonian briefly ruled both Poland and Hungary, and two others ruled both Bohemia and Hungary and then continued in the distaff line as a branch of the House of Habsburg. The cultural flowering had its base in the prosperity of the elites. The name comes from Jogaila, the first Grand Duke of Lithuania to become King of Poland, the rule of Piasts, the earlier Polish ruling house had ended with the death of King Casimir III the Great. Gediminids, the predecessors of the first Jagiellonian, were rulers of medieval Lithuania with the title of Grand Duke. Their realm, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was inhabited by Lithuanians and Ruthenians. Jogaila, the eponymous first ruler of the Jagiellonin dynasty, started as the Grand Duke of Lithuania, as a result of the Union of Krewo he then converted to Christianity and married the 11-year-old Hedwig of Poland. Thereby he became King of Poland and founded the dynasty, angevin rulers were the second and Jagiellonian third dynasty of Polish Kings. In 1385 the Union of Krewo was signed between Queen Jadwiga of Poland and Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, the last pagan state in Europe, the act arranged for Jogailas baptism and for the couples marriage and constituted the beginning of the Polish–Lithuanian union. The Union strengthened both nations in their opposition to the Teutonic Knights and the growing threat of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Uniquely in Europe, the union connected two states located on the opposite sides of the great civilizational divide between the Western or Latin, and the Eastern or Byzantine worlds. The intention of the Union was to create a state under Władysław II Jagiełło. Geographic consequences of the union and the preferences of the Jagiellonian kings accelerated the process of reorientation of Polish territorial priorities to the east. The political influence of the Jagiellonian kings was diminishing during this period, the royal dynasty, however, had a stabilizing effect on Polands politics. The Jagiellonian Era is often regarded as a period of political power, great prosperity, and in its later stage. The offensive that followed lost its impact with the siege of Malbork. The failure to take the fortress and eliminate the Teutonic state had for Poland dire historic consequences in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, the Peace of Thorn had given Poland and Lithuania rather modest territorial adjustments, including Samogitia. Afterwards there were negotiations and peace deals that didnt hold, more military campaigns and arbitrations, one attempted, unresolved arbitration took place at the Council of Constance
15.
Casimir IV Jagiellon
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Casimir IV KG of the Jagiellonian dynasty was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1440 and King of Poland from 1447, until his death. He was an opponent of aristocracy, and helped to strengthen the importance of Parliament. The great triumph of his reign was bringing Prussia under Polish rule, the long and brilliant rule of Casimir corresponded to the age of “new monarchies” in western Europe. By the 15th century Poland had narrowed the distance separating it from western Europe, the demand for raw materials and semi-finished goods stimulated trade, producing a positive balance, and contributed to the growth of crafts and mining in the entire country. Casimir Jagiellon was the third and youngest son of King Władysław II Jagiełło and his fourth wife and his father was already 65 at the time of Casimir’s birth, and his brother Władysław III, three years his senior, was expected to become king before his majority. Strangely, little was done for his education, he was never taught Latin, nor was he trained for the responsibilities of office, despite the fact he was the only brother of the rightful sovereign. He often relied on his instinct and feelings and had little political knowledge, the sudden death of Sigismund Kęstutaitis left the office of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania empty. The Voivode of Trakai, Jonas Goštautas, and other magnates of Lithuania, however many Polish noblemen hoped that the thirteen-year-old boy would become a Vice-regent for the Polish King in Lithuania. Since the young Grand Duke was underage, the control over the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in the hands of the Council of Lords. Casimir had been taught Lithuanian language and the customs of Lithuania by appointed court officials, during Casimirs rule the rights of the Lithuanian nobility—dukes, magnates and boyars, irrespective of their religion and ethnicity—were put on an equal footing to those of the Polish szlachta. Additionally, Casimir promised to protect the Grand Duchys borders and not to appoint persons from the Polish Kingdom to the offices of the Grand Duchy and he accepted that decisions on matters concerning the Grand Duchy would not be made without the Council of Lords consent. He also granted the region of Samogitia the right to elect its own elder. Casimir was the first ruler of Lithuania baptised at birth, becoming the first native Roman Catholic Grand Duke, Casimir succeeded his brother Władysław III as King of Poland after a three-year interregnum on 25 June 1447. In 1454, he married Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of the late King of the Romans Albert II of Habsburg by his late wife Elisabeth of Bohemia and her distant relative Frederick of Habsburg became Holy Roman Emperor and reigned as Frederick III until after Casimirs own death. The marriage strengthened the ties between the house of Jagiellon and the sovereigns of Hungary-Bohemia and put Casimir at odds with the Holy Roman Emperor through internal Habsburg rivalry, however, when the insurgent cities rebelled against the Order, it resisted and the Thirteen Years War ensued. Casimir and the Prussian Confederation defeated the Teutonic Order, entering its abandoned capital at Marienburg, Elisabeths only brother Ladislaus, king of Bohemia and Hungary, died in 1457, and after that Casimir and Elisabeths dynastic interests were directed also towards her brothers former kingdoms. King Casimir IV died on 7 June 1492 in the Old Grodno Castle in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was in a personal union with Poland. The intervention of the Curia, which hitherto had been hostile to Casimir because of his steady, the pope was anxious to get rid of the Hussite King of Bohemia, George Podebrad, as the first step towards the formation of a league against the Turk
16.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
17.
Lithuanian language
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Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.9 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania, Lithuanian is a Baltic language, related to Latvian. It is written in a Latin alphabet, Lithuanian is often said to be the most conservative living Indo-European language, retaining many features of Proto-Indo-European now lost in other Indo-European languages. Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant, among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is extraordinarily conservative, retaining many archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit or Ancient Greek. For this reason, it is one of the most important sources in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation, the Proto-Balto-Slavic languages branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic, according to some glottochronological speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between AD400 and AD600. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name, the Galindai and Sudinoi in the 2nd century AD, the differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after AD800, for a long period, they could be considered dialects of a single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century, also, the 13th- and 14th-century occupation of the western part of the Daugava basin by the German Sword Brethren had a significant influence on the languages independent development. The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lords Prayer, the Hail Mary, printed books existed after 1547, but the level of literacy among Lithuanians was low through the 18th century, and books were not commonly available. Brought into the country by book smugglers despite the threat of prison sentences. Jonas Jablonskis made significant contributions to the formation of the standard Lithuanian language and his proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitijan dialect with some features of the eastern Prussian Lithuanians dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor. These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian language, Lithuanian has been the official language of Lithuania since 1918. During the Soviet era, it was used in official discourse along with Russian, Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages, along with Latvian. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian, was extinct by the 18th century, such an opinion was first represented by the likes of August Schleicher, and to a certain extent, Antoine Meillet. Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact while Schleicher, Meillet and others argued for a kinship between the two families. An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski and he proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities, they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody, vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov believed in the unity of Balto-Slavic, but not in the unity of Baltic. In the 1960s, they proposed a new division, that into East-Baltic, West-Baltic, the Ivanov–Toporov theory is gaining ground among students of comparative-historic grammar of Indo-European language, and seems to be replacing the previous two stances in most PIE textbooks
18.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
19.
Duke of Silesia
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The Duke of Silesia was the sons and descendants of the Polish Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth. This was known as the fragmentation of Poland, subsequent developments lead to further splintering of the duchies. Between 1327 and 1329 most dukes accepted the overlordship of Bohemian king John of Bohemia, in the coming centuries all branches of the Silesian Piasts died out, and with the death of George William, Duke of Liegnitz the dynasty ceased to exist. After Konrads death Głogów was again united with the Duchy of Wrocław/Lower Silesia, in 1173 Bolesław returned and he agreed to let Mieszko and Bolesław rule in their own Duchies, separated from the Duchy of Silesia. This led to the creation of the Duchy of Racibórz for Mieszko I, the territories controlled by Mieszko I and Jarosław roughly corresponded to what is known as Upper Silesia, while the territories remaining with Bolesław I roughly corresponded to Lower Silesia. Some sources refer to it as the Duchy of Silesia, some as Duchy of Lower Silesia, others yet as the Duchy of Wrocław. Wrocław was the capital of the Duchy of Silesia, yet this early Duchy of Silesia should not be confused with the smaller Duchy of Wrocław that was created with further fragmentation in 1248. The Duchy went through various changes in the coming years, sometimes losing. In 1248 Lower Silesia was divided when Bolesław II had to cede the Duchy of Wrocław to his younger brother Henry III, Duchy of Lower Silesia In 1248, the Duchy of Lower Silesia was partitioned in the duchies of Wrocław and Legnica. Duchy of Wrocław Duchy of Legnica In 1251, in Lower Silesia, Duchy of Głogów In 1274, the Duchy of Świdnica-Jawor emerged from Legnica. In the same year, the Duchy of Zágán emerged from Glogów, Duchy of Świdnica-Jawor Duchy of Żagań In 1311, the Duchy of Brzeg emerged from Legnica. Duchy of Brzeg In 1313, the Duchy of Oleśnica emerged from Glógow, Duchy of Oleśnica In 1322, the Duchy of Ziebice emerged from Swidnica-Jawor. Duchy of Ziębice Upper Silesia was divided into the Duchies of Cieszyn, in 1340 the Duchy of Racibórz was united with Opava, a Bohemian fief. Duchy of Opole-Racibórz In 1281, the Duchy of Cieszyn is created, Duchy of Cieszyn In 1282, the Duchies of Opole and Racibórz were created from the partition of the Duchy of Opole-Racibórz. With this partition, it was created also the Duchy of Bytom, Duchy of Opole Duchy of Racibórz Duchy of Bytom In 1315, the Duchy of Oświęcim emerged from the Duchy of Cieszyn. Duchy of Oświęcim In 1445, the Duchy of Zator emerged from the Duchy of Oświęcim, 1747–1795 Philipp Gotthard von Schaffgotsch 1795–1817 Joseph Christian Franz zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Bartenstein Prussian part secularised in 1810. 1823–1832 Emanuel von Schimonsky 1835–1840 Leopold von Sedlnitzky 1843–1844 Joseph Knauer 1845–1850 Melchior von Diepenbrock Theocracy abolished in 1850, list of Polish rulers Piast dynasty Dukes of Masovia Dukes of Greater Poland Dukes of Little Poland Dukes of Cuiavia Dukes of Sieradz-Łęczyca Neue deutsche Biographie, Berlin 2001, Bd. 20, p. 403-407 Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Leipzig 1905–1909, Bd
20.
John III of Sweden
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John III was King of Sweden from 1568 until his death. He was the son of King Gustav I of Sweden and his second wife Margaret Leijonhufvud and he was also, quite autonomously, the ruler of Finland, as Duke John from 1556 to 1563. In 1581 he assumed also the title Grand Prince of Finland and he attained the Swedish throne after a rebellion against his brother Eric XIV. He is mainly remembered for his attempts to close the gap between the newly established Lutheran Church of Sweden and the Catholic church and his first wife was Catherine Jagellonica of the Polish-Lithuanian ruling family, and their son Sigismund eventually ascended both the Polish-Lithuanian and Swedish thrones. He was the son of Gustav Vasa. His mother was Margareta Leijonhufvud, a Swedish noblewoman, as a Duke of Finland, he opposed his half-brother Eric XIV of Sweden and was imprisoned in 1563. After his release from prison, probably because of his brothers insanity, John again joined the opposition, deposed Eric and his important ally was his maternal uncle Sten Leijonhufvud, who at deathbed was made Count of Raseborg. Shortly after this John executed his brothers most trusted counsellor, Jöran Persson, after two more years of fighting, this war was concluded without many Swedish concessions in the Treaty of Stettin. During the following years he successfully fought Russia in the Livonian War, concluded by the Treaty of Plussa in 1583, as a whole his foreign policy was affected by his connection to Poland of which country his son Sigismund III Vasa was made king in 1587. In domestic politics John showed clear Catholic sympathies, inspired by his Polish queen and he launched the Red Book, which reintroduced several Catholic customs and resulted in the Liturgical Battle, which was not to end for twenty years. In 1575, he gave his permission for the remaining Catholic convents in Sweden to start receiving novices again, from time to time he was also at odds with his younger brother Duke Charles of Sudermannia. John III was a patron of art and architecture. In January 1569, John was recognized as king by the riksdag that forced Eric XIV off the throne. But this recognition was not without influence from John, Duke Karl received confirmation on his dukedom without the restrictions of his power that the Arboga articles imposed, the nobilities power and rights were extended and their responsibilities lessened. John was still concerned about his position as king as long as Eric was alive. The fear of a liberation of the locked up king worried him to the point that in 1571 he ordered the guards to, in any suspicion of liberation attempt. It is possible this is how his life ended in 1577, John married his first wife, Catherine Jagellonica of Poland, house of Jagiello, in Vilnius on 4 October 1562. In Sweden, she is known as Katarina Jagellonica and she was the sister of king Sigismund II Augustus of Poland
21.
House of Vasa
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The House of Vasa was an early modern royal house founded in 1523 in Sweden, ruling Sweden 1523–1654, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1587–1668 and the Tsardom of Russia 1610–1613. Its agnatic line became extinct in Poland with the death of King John II Casimir of Poland in 1672, the House of Vasa descended from a Swedish 14th century noble family, tracing agnatic kinship to Nils Kettilsson, fogde of the castle Three Crowns in Stockholm. Several members held high offices during the 15th century, in 1523, after the abolishment of the Kalmar Union, Gustav Eriksson became King Gustav I of Sweden and the royal house was founded. Yet, his son, King John III of Sweden, married a Catholic Polish Queen Catherine Jagiellon, as a result, the dynasty was split into a Protestant Swedish branch and a Catholic Polish one, which would rival for royal titles in subsequent wars. The involvement of the famous Protestant General and King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the Thirty Years War gave rise to the saying that he was the incarnation of the Lion of the North. Yet, notably, his daughter and heiress Queen Christina of Sweden abdicated from the Swedish throne in 1654 after converting to Roman Catholicism, in Poland, John II Casimir of Poland abdicated from the throne in 1668. With his death, the royal House of Vasa became extinct in 1672, Gustav Eriksson, a son of Cecilia Månsdotter Eka and Erik Johansson Vasa, was probably born in 1496. The birth most likely place in Rydboholm Castle, northeast of Stockholm. The newborn got his name, Gustav, from Eriks grandfather Gustav Anundsson, since the end of the 14th century, Sweden had been a part of the Kalmar Union with Denmark and Norway. The Danish dominance in this union led to uprisings in Sweden. During Gustavs childhood, parts of the Swedish nobility tried to make Sweden independent, Gustav and his father Erik supported the party of Sten Sture the Younger, regent of Sweden from 1512, and its struggle against the Danish King Christian II. Following the battle of Brännkyrka in 1518, where Sten Stures troops beat the Danish forces, it was decided that Sten Sture and King Christian would meet in Österhaninge for negotiations. To guarantee the safety of the king, the Swedish side sent six men as hostages to be kept by the Danes for as long as the negotiations lasted. However, Christian did not show up for the negotiations, violated the deal with the Swedish side, the six members of the kidnapped hostage were Hemming Gadh, Lars Siggesson, Jöran Siggesson, Olof Ryning, Bengt Nilsson – and Gustav Eriksson. The election of Gustav Eriksson as a regent made many Swedish nobles, some noblemen, still loyal to the king, chose to leave Sweden, while others were killed. As a result, the Swedish Privy Council lost old members who were replaced by supporters of Gustav Eriksson, most fortified cities and castles were conquered by Gustavs rebels, but the strongholds with the best defences, including Stockholm, were still under Danish control. In 1522, after negotiations between Gustav Erikssons people and Lübeck, the Hanseatic city joined the war against Denmark, the winter of 1523 saw the joint forces attack the Danish and Norwegian areas of Scania, Halland, Blekinge and Bohuslän. During this winter, Christian II was overthrown and replaced by Frederick I, the new king openly claimed the Swedish throne and had hopes Lübeck would abandon the Swedish rebels
22.
Albert, Duke of Prussia
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Albert was the first European ruler to establish Lutheranism, and thus Protestantism, as the official state religion of his lands. He proved instrumental in the spread of Protestantism in its early stage. That arrangement was confirmed by the Treaty of Kraków in 1525, Albert pledged a personal oath to the King and in return was invested with the duchy for himself and his heirs. Alberts rule in Prussia was fairly prosperous, Albert established schools in every town and founded Königsberg University in 1544. He promoted culture and arts, patronising the works of Erasmus Reinhold, during the final years of his rule, Albert was forced to raise taxes instead of further confiscating now-depleted church lands, causing peasant rebellion. The intrigues of the court favourites Johann Funck and Paul Skalić also led to various religious, Albert spent his final years virtually deprived of power and died at Tapiau on 20 March 1568. His son, Albert Frederick, succeeded him as Duke of Prussia, Alberts dissolution of the Teutonic State caused the founding of the Duchy of Prussia, paving the way for the rise of the House of Hohenzollern. He is therefore seen as the father of the Prussian nation. Albert was born in Ansbach in Franconia as the son of Frederick I. His mother was Sophia, daughter of Casimir IV Jagiellon, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, and his wife Elisabeth of Austria. He was raised for a career in the Church and spent some time at the court of Hermann IV of Hesse, Elector of Cologne, who appointed him canon of the Cologne Cathedral. Not only was he quite religious, he was interested in mathematics and science. His career was forwarded by the Church, however, and institutions of the Catholic clerics supported his early advancement, turning to a more active life, Albert accompanied Emperor Maximilian I to Italy in 1508 and after his return spent some time in the Kingdom of Hungary. Duke Frederick of Saxony, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, the new Grand Master, aware of his duties to the empire and to the papacy, refused to submit to the crown of Poland. As war over the orders existence appeared inevitable, Albert made strenuous efforts to secure allies, the ill-feeling, influenced by the ravages of members of the Order in Poland, culminated in a war which began in December 1519 and devastated Prussia. Albert was granted a four-year truce early in 1521, the dispute was referred to Emperor Charles V and other princes, but as no settlement was reached Albert continued his efforts to obtain help in view of a renewal of the war. For this purpose he visited the Diet of Nuremberg in 1522, the Grand Master then journeyed to Wittenberg, where he was advised by Martin Luther to abandon the rules of his order, to marry, and to convert Prussia into a hereditary duchy for himself. The Estates of the land then met at Königsberg and took the oath of allegiance to the new duke and this transition did not, however, take place without protest
23.
Teutonic Order
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The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious order founded as a military order in the 12th century in Acre. Purely religious since 1929, it still confers limited honorary knighthoods, the order was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals. Formed in the year 1190 in Acre, in the Levant, after Christian forces were defeated in the Middle East, the Order moved to Transylvania in 1211 to help defend the South-Eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Kipchaks. Starting from there, the Order created the independent Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, adding continuously the conquered Prussians territory, the Order theoretically lost its main purpose in Europe with the Christianization of Lithuania. However, it initiated numerous campaigns against its Christian neighbours, the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Novgorod Republic. The Teutonic Knights had an economic base, and so hired mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies. In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald, however, the capital of the Teutonic Knights was successfully defended in the following Siege of Marienburg and the Order was saved from collapse. In 1515, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I made an alliance with Sigismund I of Poland-Lithuania. Thereafter, the empire did not support the Order against Poland, in 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg resigned and converted to Lutheranism, becoming Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. Soon after, the Order lost Livonia and its holdings in the Protestant areas of Germany, the Order did keep its considerable holdings in Catholic areas of Germany until 1809, when Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Order lost its last secular holdings. However, the Order continued to exist as a charitable and ceremonial body and it was outlawed by Adolf Hitler in 1938, but re-established in 1945. Today it operates primarily with charitable aims in Central Europe, the Knights wore white surcoats with a black cross. A cross pattée was sometimes used as their coat of arms, the motto of the Order was, Helfen, Wehren, Heilen. The full name of the Order in German is Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem or in Latin Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Hierosolymitanorum, thus, the term Teutonic refers to the German origins of the order in Latin. It is commonly known in German as the Deutscher Orden, historically also as Deutscher Ritterorden, Deutschherrenorden, Deutschritterorden or Die Herren im weißen Mantel. However, based on the model of the Knights Templar, it was transformed into an order in 1198. It received papal orders for crusades to take and hold Jerusalem for Christianity, during the rule of Grand Master Hermann von Salza the Order changed from being a hospice brotherhood for pilgrims to primarily a military order. The Order was founded in Acre, and the Knights purchased Montfort, northeast of Acre, the Order also had a castle at Amouda in Armenia Minor
24.
East Prussia
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East Prussia was a province of Prussia from 1773–1829 and from 1878–1945. East Prussia was the part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast. East Prussia enclosed the bulk of the lands of the Baltic Old Prussians. During the 13th century, the native Prussians were conquered by the crusading Teutonic Knights, the indigenous Balts who survived the conquest were gradually converted to Christianity. Because of Germanization and colonisation over the centuries, Germans became the dominant ethnic group, while Poles. From the 13th century, East Prussia was part of the state of the Teutonic Knights. After the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466 it became a fief of the Kingdom of Poland, in 1525, with the Prussian Homage, the province became the Duchy of Prussia. The Old Prussian language had become extinct by the 17th or early 18th century, because the duchy was outside of the core Holy Roman Empire, the prince-electors of Brandenburg were able to proclaim themselves King of Prussia beginning in 1701. Between 1829 and 1878, the Province of East Prussia was joined with West Prussia to form the Province of Prussia, the Kingdom of Prussia became the leading state of the German Empire after its creation in 1871. Following Nazi Germanys defeat in World War II in 1945, war-torn East Prussia was divided at Joseph Stalins insistence between the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of Poland, the capital city Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946. The German population of the province was evacuated during the war or expelled shortly thereafter in the expulsion of Germans after World War II. An estimated 300,000 died either in war time bombings raids or in the battles to defend the province. Upon the invitation of Duke Konrad I of Masovia, the Teutonic Knights took possession of Prussia in the 13th century, local Old-Prussian and Polish toponyms were gradually Germanised. Its defeat was formalised in the Second Treaty of Thorn in 1466 ending the Thirteen Years War, together with Warmia it formed the province of Royal Prussia. Eastern Prussia remained under the Knights, but as a fief of Poland,1466 and 1525 arrangements by kings of Poland were not verified by the Holy Roman Empire as well as the previous gains of the Teutonic Knights were not verified. The Teutonic Order lost eastern Prussia when Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach converted to Lutheranism, Albert established himself as the first duke of the Duchy of Prussia and a vassal of the Polish crown by the Prussian Homage. Walter von Cronberg, the next Grand Master, was enfeoffed with the title to Prussia after the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, in 1569 the Hohenzollern prince-electors of the Margraviate of Brandenburg became co-regents with Alberts son, the feeble-minded Albert Frederick. The Administrator of Prussia, the grandmaster of the Teutonic Order Maximilian III, when Maximilian died, Alberts line died out, and the Duchy of Prussia passed to the Electors of Brandenburg, forming Brandenburg-Prussia
25.
Duchy of Masovia
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The Duchy of Masovia with its capital at Płock was a medieval duchy formed when the Polish Kingdom of the Piasts fragmented in 1138. It was located in the historic Masovian region of northeastern Poland, Masovia was reincorporated into the Jagiellon Polish kingdom in 1526. The lands of the Masovians east of the Vistula river had been conquered by Duke Mieszko I of Poland, the Diocese of Płock had been established in 1075. His Masovian realm also comprised the adjacent lands of Kuyavia in the west, in 1233 Konrad gave Kuyavia to his second son Casimir I, while Masovia passed to the first-born Boleslaus I upon his death in 1247, succeeded by the youngest brother Siemowit I the next year. When the kingdom was restored in 1295 by the coronation of Duke Przemysł II of Greater Poland. The Dukes of Masovia also ruled the Duchy of Belz until 1462, after the establishment of the Rawa and Płock Voivodeships, in 1495 the last surviving son of Boleslaus IV, Duke Konrad III Rudy, once again united the remaining Masovian lands under his rule. However, the line of the Masovian Piasts became extinct upon the death of his son Janusz III, in 1526. Parts of the region of neighboring East Prussia received settlers. By the 18th century the portion of East Prussia in which they settled was sometimes referred to as Masuria, and inhabited by a Protestant population of Germans and Poles
26.
Janusz III of Masovia
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Janusz III of Masovia, was a Polish prince member of the House of Piast in the Masovian branch. He was a Duke of Czersk, Warsaw, Liw, Zakroczym and Nur during 1503-1524 jointly with his brother, and sole ruler during 1524-1526 as the last male member of the Masovian Piasts. He was the son of Konrad III the Red and his third wife Anna, a daughter of Mikolaj Radziwiłł the Old, Voivod of Vilnius. After the death of their father on 28 October 1503, Janusz III and his younger brother Stanisław inherited his domains, Janusz III and his brother took the government in 1518, due to the constant riots of the local nobility. Despite this, Anna Radziwiłł retained the power in Masovia until her death in 1522. In the same year when they attained their majority, both attended the wedding ceremony of King Sigismund I the Old with Bona Sforza in Kraków. As Polish vassals, during 1519-1520 Janusz III and his brother participated in the Polish-Teutonic War sending auxiliary troops to the Polish King. Despite being the co-ruler of their domains, Janusz III didnt participate in the government until Stanisławs death on 8 August 1524, in 1525, Janusz III forbade the Lutheranism in his domains, under penalty of confiscation of property and death. Like his brother, Janusz III quickly became known for his love to drink and his dissolute lifestyle probably contributed with is early death, who took place in the night of 9 to 10 March 1526. He was buried at St. Johns Archcathedral, Warsaw, with his death, the male line of Masovian Piasts, originating with Siemowit III became extinct. The death of both brothers caused unrest, and accusations that they were murdered became widespread, eventually, King Sigismund I himself looked into the matter, and concluded that there was no foul play. The Polish king refused to recognize their demands, and stood by the agreements that made him the heir to the Duchy, the Duchy, which would become a significant asset of the Polish Jagiellon dynasty, would retain some autonomy until 1576. He is one of the characters on the painting by Jan Matejko. Samuel Orgelbrand, Encyklopedja Powszechna, S. Orgelbranda Synów, p.54 Józef Szujski, Historyi polskiéj treściwie opowiedzianéj ksiąg dwanaście,1880, p.167
27.
Piast dynasty
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The Piast dynasty was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented Polish monarch was Prince Mieszko I, the Piasts royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of king Casimir III the Great. Branches of the Piast dynasty continued to rule in the Duchy of Masovia, the Piasts intermarried with several noble lines of Europe, and possessed numerous titles, some within the Holy Roman Empire. However, the term Piast Dynasty was not applied until the 17th century, in a historical work the expression Piast dynasty was introduced by the Polish historian Adam Naruszewicz, it is not documented in contemporary sources. The first Piasts, probably of Polan descent, appeared around 940 in the territory of Greater Poland at the stronghold of Giecz, shortly afterwards they relocated their residence to Gniezno, where Prince Mieszko I ruled over the Civitas Schinesghe from about 960. The name Polani, from Slavic, pole, did not appear until 1015, the Piasts temporarily also ruled over Pomerania, Bohemia and the Lusatias, as well as Ruthenia, and the Hungarian Spiš region in present-day Slovakia. The ruler bore the title of a duke or a king, depending on their position of power. The Bohemian Přemyslid dynasty, the Hungarian Arpads and their Anjou successors, the Kievan Rus, later also the State of the Teutonic Order, the Piast position was decisively enfeebled by an era of fragmentation following the 1138 Testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty. Numerous dukes like Mieszko III the Old, Władysław III Spindleshanks or Leszek I the White were crowned, only to be overthrown shortly afterwards. After the Polish royal line and Piast junior branch had died out in 1370, the Masovian branch of the Piasts became extinct with the death of Duke Janusz III in 1526. The last ruling duke of the Silesian Piasts was George William of Legnica who died in 1675 and his uncle Count August of Legnica, the last male Piast, died in 1679. The last legitimate heir, Duchess Karolina of Legnica-Brieg died in 1707 and is buried in Trzebnica Abbey, nevertheless, numerous families, like the illegitimate descendants of the Silesian duke Adam Wenceslaus of Cieszyn, link their genealogy to the dynasty. About 1295, Przemysł II used a coat of arms with a white eagle – a symbol later referred to as the Piast coat of arms or as the Piast Eagle, Piast kings and rulers of Poland appear in list form in the following table. For a list of all rulers, see List of Polish monarchs
28.
Jan Tarnowski
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Jan Amor Tarnowski was a Polish nobleman, knight, military commander, military theoretician, and statesman of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. He was Grand Crown Hetman from 1527, and was the founder of the city of Tarnopol, where he built the Ternopil Castle and the Ternopil Pond. Tarnowski was born in 1488, the son of Jan Amor Junior Tarnowski, castellan of Kraków and he was a scion of an important family clan started in the mid-14th century by Spycimir Leliwita, castellan of Kraków. Tarnowski had five half-siblings from his fathers first marriage, Jan Amor the Elder, Jan Aleksander, Katarzyna, Zofia and he had also five half-sisters from his mothers first marriage. He spent his earliest years in Rożnowo and Stare Sioło and he was originally intended to become a priest, but after his fathers death in 1500, his mentor Maciej Drzewiecki convinced Barbara of Rożnowo to abandon this plan. In 1501, Tarnowski was sent to the court, but on 17 June 1501, king John I Albert died and he returned to Rożnowo. In 1508, Tarnowski fought against Muscovy in the battle of Orsza, in 1509, against Moldavia in the battle of Chocim, in 1512, he was involved in the battle of Łopuszna, in which the Tatars were defeated by the Polish forces. He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and in 1518 became a knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and he travelled extensively across Europe, and was knighted by king Manuel I of Portugal for his services against the Moors in Africa. Tarnowski was the owner of Tarnów, Wiewiórka, Rożnów, Przeworsk, in 1522, he became castellan of Wojnicz, in 1527, voivode of the Ruthenian Voivodeship, in 1535, voivode of the Kraków Voivodeship. In 1536, he became castellan of Kraków and starost of Sandomierz, Stryj, Żydaczów, Dolina, Sandecz, Chmielnów, Lubaczów, in 1521, he participated in the Ottoman-Habsburg wars. He was among the first Hetmans of the Polish Army after its great reforms and he led the Polish Army to many victories, among them the battles of Obertyn against the Moldavians in 1531, and of Starodub against the Muscovites in 1535 during the Muscovite wars. Tarnowski developed, among other things, horse artillery, field hospitals financed by the government, headquarters services, throughout his entire service as a hetman, he preached a doctrine of flexibility. Poet Jan Kochanowski wrote a poem O śmierci Jana Tarnowskiego and he is also one of the characters depicted in Jan Matejkos painting Prussian Homage. In about 1511, Tarnowski married Barbara Tęczyńska, daughter of Mikołaj Tęczyński and she was the niece of his first mothers husband. After her death, Tarnowski married Zofia Szydłowiecka in 1530 and he had four children, among them Zofia Tarnowska and Jan Krzysztof Tarnowski. Terminatio ex itinerario, fragmenty ogł. K. Hartleb Itinerarium J. Tarnowskiego z pobytu w Ziemi Św,1518, Kwartalnik Historyczny 1930, rękopis, Biblioteka Czartoryskich, Teki Naruszewicza nr 33, r. 1518, Pouczenie hetmana podskarbiemu koronnemu dane, powst,1528, ogł. S. Kutrzeba Polskie ustawy i artykuły wojskowe od XV do XVIII wieku, Kraków 1939, PAU Archiwum Komisji Historii Wojskowej nr 3, s. 38-394 speeches from 1537, in Stanisław Orzechowski Annales, Dobromil 1611 and later editions 2 speeches, in A. Małecki Wybór mów staropolskich, Kraków 1860, Biblioteka Polska, series V, book 6-8, s
29.
Moldavia
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Moldavia is a historical region, and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river. The western half of Moldavia is now part of Romania, the eastern side belongs to the Republic of Moldova, the original and short-lived reference to the region was Bogdania, after Bogdan I, the founding figure of the principality. Dragoș was accompanied by his female hound called Molda, when reached the shores of an unfamiliar river. The dogs name would have given to the river and extended to the country. The old German Molde, meaning open-pit mine the Gothic Mulda meaning dust, dirt, a Slavic etymology, marking the end of one Slavic genitive form, denoting ownership, chiefly of feminine nouns. In several early references, Moldavia is rendered under the composite form Moldo-Wallachia, Ottoman Turkish references to Moldavia included Boğdan Iflak and Boğdan. See also names in other languages, the name of the region in other languages include French, Moldavie, German, Moldau, Hungarian, Moldva, Russian, Молдавия, Moldaviya, Turkish, Boğdan Prensliği, Greek, Μολδαβία. The inhabitants of Moldova were Christians, archaeological works revealed the remains of a Christian necropolis at Mihălășeni, Botoșani county, from the 5th century. The place of worship, and the tombs had Christian characteristics, the place of worship had a rectangular form with sides of 8 and 7 meters. Similar necropolis and place of worship were found at Nicolina, in Iași The Bolohoveni, the chronicle shows that this land is bordered on the principalities of Halych, Volhynia and Kiev. Archaeological research also identified the location of 13th-century fortified settlements in this region, Alexandru V. Boldur identified Voscodavie, Voscodavti, Voloscovti, Volcovti, Volosovca and their other towns and villages between the middle course of the rivers Nistru/Dniester and Nipru/Dnieper. The Bolohoveni disappeared from chronicles after their defeat in 1257 by Daniil Romanovichs troops, in the early 13th century, the Brodniks, a possible Slavic–Vlach vassal state of Halych, were present, alongside the Vlachs, in much of the regions territory. On the border between Halych and the Brodniks, in the 11th century, a Viking by the name of Rodfos was killed in the area by Vlachs who supposedly betrayed him. In 1164, the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, was prisoner by Vlach shepherds around the same region. In 1342 and 1345, the Hungarians were victorious in a battle against Tatar-Mongols, the Polish chronicler Jan Długosz mentioned Moldavians as having joined a military expedition in 1342, under King Władysław I, against the Margraviate of Brandenburg. In 1353, Dragoș, mentioned as a Vlach Knyaz in Maramureș, was sent by Louis I to establish a line of defense against the Golden Horde forces of Mongols on the Siret River and this expedition resulted in a polity vassal to Hungary, centered around Baia. His realm extended north to the Cheremosh River, while the part of Moldavia was still occupied by the Tatar Mongols. After first residing in Baia, Bogdan moved Moldavias seat to Siret, disfavored by the brief union of Angevin Poland and Hungary, Bogdans successor Lațcu accepted conversion to Roman Catholicism around 1370, but his gesture was to remain without consequences
30.
Grand Duchy of Moscow
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The Grand Duchy of Moscow, or Grand Principality of Moscow, was a late medieval Rus principality centered on Moscow and the predecessor state of the early modern Tsardom of Russia. The state originated with Daniel I, who inherited Moscow in 1283, eclipsing and it later annexed the Novgorod Republic in 1478 and the Grand Duchy of Tver in 1485. After the Mongol invasion of Rus, Muscovy was a vassal to the Mongol ruled Golden Horde until 1480. By his marriage to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, he established Muscovy as the state of the Roman Empire. Ivans successor Vasili III also enjoyed success, gaining Smolensk from Lithuania in 1512. Vasilis son Ivan IV was an infant at his fathers death in 1533 and he was crowned in 1547, assuming the title of tsar together with the proclamation of Tsardom of Russia. As with many states the country had no particular official name. The Duke of Moscow or the Sovereign of Moscow were common short titles, in rivalry with other duchies Moscow dukes also designated themselves as the Grand Dukes, claiming a higher position in the hierarchy of Russian dukes. During the territorial growth and later acquisitions, the title became rather lengthy. Since the 14th century various Moscow dukes added of all Rus to their titles, after the title of Russian metropolitans, Dmitry Shemyaka was the first Moscow duke who minted coins with the title the Sovereign of all Rus. Under the Polish-Lithuanian influence the country began to be called Muscovy in Western Europe, the first appearances of the term were in an Italian document of 1500. Initially Moscovia was the Latinized name of the city of Moscow itself, not of the state, later it acquired its meaning and has been used alongside of the older name. The term Muscovy persisted in the West until the beginning of the 18th century and is used in historical contexts. When the Mongols invaded the lands of Kievan Rus in the 13th century, the first ruler of the principality of Moscow, Daniel I, was the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky of Vladimir-Suzdal. He started to expand his principality by seizing Kolomna and securing the bequest of Pereslavl-Zalessky to his family, daniels son Yuriy controlled the entire basin of the Moskva River and expanded westward by conquering Mozhaisk. He then forged an alliance with the overlord of the Rus principalities, Uzbeg Khan of the Golden Horde, the Khan allowed Yuriy to claim the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir-Suzdal, a position which allowed him to interfere in the affairs of the Novgorod Republic to the north-west. Yuriys successor, Ivan I, managed to retain the title of Grand Duke by cooperating closely with the Mongols and by collecting tribute and taxes from other Rus principalities on their behalf. This relationship enabled Ivan to gain regional ascendancy, particularly over Moscows chief rival, the city of Tver
31.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
32.
Greek Orthodox Church
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Historically, the term Greek Orthodox has also been used to describe all Eastern Orthodox Churches in general, since Greek in Greek Orthodox can refer to the heritage of the Byzantine Empire. Over time, most parts of the liturgy, traditions, and practices of the church of Constantinople were adopted by all, thus, the Eastern Church came to be called Greek Orthodox in the same way that the Western Church is called Roman Catholic. Orthodox Churches, unlike the Catholic Church, have no Bishopric head, such as a Pope, however, they are each governed by a committee of Bishops, called the Holy Synod, with one central Bishop holding the honorary title of first among equals. Greek Orthodox Churches are united in communion with other, as well as with the other Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Eastern Orthodox hold a doctrine and a common form of worship. The most commonly used Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church was written by Saint John Chrysostom, others, are attributed to St. Basil the Great, St. James, the Brother of God and St. The majority of Greek Orthodox Christians live within Greece and elsewhere in the southern Balkans, but also in Lebanon, Cyprus, Anatolia, European Turkey, and the South Caucasus. In addition, due to the large Greek diaspora, there are many Greek Orthodox Christians who live in North America, Orthodox Christians in Finland, who compose about 1% of the population, are also under the jurisdiction of a Greek Orthodox Church. Thus, they may attend services held in Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic, the Church conducts its liturgy in Koine Greek in the areas of Albania populated by the ethnic Greek minority, alongside the use of Albanian throughout the country. The Greek and Eastern Churches online Constantelos, Demetrios J. Understanding the Greek Orthodox church, its faith, history, the Orthodox Eastern Church Hussey, Joan Mervyn. The orthodox church in the Byzantine empire online Kephala, Euphrosyne, the Church of the Greek People Past and Present Latourette, Kenneth Scott. Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, II, The Nineteenth Century in Europe, The Protestant,2, 479-484, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, IV, The Twentieth Century in Europe, The Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Churches McGuckin, John Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, media related to Greek Orthodox Church at Wikimedia Commons
33.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
34.
Order of the Golden Fleece
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It became one of the most prestigious orders in Europe. The chaplain of the Austrian branch is Cardinal Graf von Schönborn and it is restricted to a limited number of knights, initially 24 but increased to 30 in 1433, and 50 in 1516, plus the sovereign. The Orders first King of Arms was Jean Le Fèvre de Saint-Remy, so that those knights and gentlemen who shall see worn the order. Should honor those who wear it, and be encouraged to employ themselves in noble deeds, the bishop of Châlons, chancellor of the Order, rescued the fleeces reputation by identifying it instead with the fleece of Gideon that received the dew of Heaven. He was succeeded as king by Philip V, a Bourbon, in either case the sovereign, as Duke of Burgundy, writes the letter of appointment in French. These, and other awards by Joseph, were revoked by King Ferdinand on the restoration of Bourbon rule in 1813, napoleon created by Order of 15 August 1809 the Order of the Three Golden Fleeces, in view of his sovereignty over Austria, Spain and Burgundy. This was opposed by Joseph I of Spain and the new order was never awarded, in 1812 the acting government of Spain awarded the order to the Duke of Wellington, an act confirmed by Ferdinand on his resumption of power, with the approval of Pope Pius VII. Wellington therefore became the first Protestant to be awarded the Golden Fleece and it has subsequently also been awarded to non-Christians, such as Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand. There was another crisis in 1833 when Isabella II became Queen of Spain in defiance of Salic Law that did not allow women to become heads of state and her right to award the Fleece was challenged by Spanish Carlists. Sovereignty remained with the head of the Spanish house of Bourbon during the republican and Francoist periods and is today by the present King of Spain. Knights of the Order are entitled to be addressed with the style His/Her Excellency in front of their name, King Juan Carlos I of Spain – Former Sovereign of the Order as King of Spain from 1975 to 2014. The problem of inheritance was avoided on the accession of Maria Theresa in 1740 as sovereignty of the Order passed not to herself but to her husband. Sovereignty remains with the head of the House of Habsburg, which was handed over on 20 November 2000 by Otto von Habsburg to his elder son, die Schatzkammer in Wien, Symbole abendländischen Kaisertums. Der Schatz des Ordens vom Goldenen Vlies, ISBN 3-7017-0541-0 Boulton, DArcy Jonathan Dacre,1987
35.
John I Albert
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John I Albert was King of Poland and Duke of Głogów. John was the son of Casimir IV, King of Poland. As crown prince, he distinguished himself by his brilliant victory over the Tatars at Kopersztyn, in 1490, the Hungarian nobility proclaimed John King of Hungary at the Rákos diet. He was, however, defeated by his brother, King Vladislaus II of Hungary, in 1492, John succeeded his father as King of Poland thanks to the key intervention of his brother Friedrich Jagiellon, archbishop of Kraków and archbishop of Gniezno. Friedrich achieved the coronation of John, John desired to pose as the champion of Christendom against the Ottoman Turks. Circumstances seemed, moreover, to favor him, as suzerain of Moldavia, John was favorably situated for attacking the Turks. Whatever the reason, the Poles entered Moldavia not as friends but as foes, when the new Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Friedrich Wettin von Sachsen, refused to render homage to the Polish crown, John compelled him to do so. His intention to further humiliate the Teutonic Order was stymied by his sudden death in 1501. History of Poland Piotrków Statutes V. Czerny, the Reigns of Jan Olbracht and Aleksander Jagiellon. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
36.
Vladislaus II of Hungary
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Vladislaus II, also known as Vladislav II, Władysław II or Wladislas II, was King of Bohemia from 1471 to 1516, and King of Hungary and Croatia from 1490 to 1516. As the eldest son of Casimir IV Jagiellon, he was expected to inherit Poland, George of Poděbrady, the Hussite ruler of Bohemia, offered to make Vladislaus his heir in 1468. Poděbrady needed Casimir IVs support against the rebellious Catholic noblemen and their ally, Matthias Corvinus, the Diet of Bohemia elected Vladislaus king after Poděbradys death, but he could only rule Bohemia proper, because Matthias occupied Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia. Vladislaus tried to reconquer the three provinces with his fathers assistance, but Matthias repelled them, Vladislaus and Matthias divided the Lands of the Bohemian Crown in the Peace of Olomouc in 1479. The Estates of the realm had strengthened their position during the war between the two kings, Vladislauss attempts to promote the Catholics caused a rebellion in Prague and other towns in 1483, forcing him to acknowledge the dominance of the Hussites in the municipal assemblies. The Diet confirmed the right of the Bohemian noblemen and commoners to freely adhere either to Hussitism or Catholicism in 1485, after Matthias Corvinus seized Silesian duchies to grant them to his illegitimate son, John Corvinus, Vladislaus made new alliances against him in the late 1480s. Vladislaus laid claim to Hungary after Matthiass death, the Diet of Hungary elected him king after his supporters defeated John Corvinus. The other two claimants, Maximilian of Habsburg and Vladislauss brother, John Albert, invaded Hungary, but they could not assert their claim and he settled in Buda, enabling the Estates of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia to take full charge of state administration. In Hungary, Vladislaus always approved the decisions of the Royal Council and they even annexed territories in Croatia after annihilating the united army of the Croatian barons in the Battle of Krbava Field in 1493. Vladislaus was the eldest son of Casimir IV, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania and she was the daughter of Albert, King of the Romans, Hungary and Bohemia. Vladislaus was born in Kraków on 1 March 1456 and his mother and father laid claim to Hungary and Bohemia after her childless brother, Ladislaus the Posthumous, died on 23 November 1457. However, their claims were ignored in both Hungary and Bohemia, the Diet of Hungary elected Matthias Corvinus king on 24 January 1458. The Bohemian Estates of the realm proclaimed the Hussite George of Poděbrady king on 2 March, Vladislaus was his fathers heir in Poland and Lithuania. Casimir IV wanted to prepare all his sons for ruling a realm, the historian Jan Długosz was Vladislauss tutor. Pope Paul II excommunicated George of Poděbrady in late 1466 and proclaimed a crusade against him, the Czech Catholic noblemen rose up against the heretic Poděbrady and sought assistance from Matthias Corvinus. Matthias declared war in March 1468 and invaded Moravia, on 16 May 1468, Poděbrady offered Casimir IV to make Vladislaus his heir if Casimir mediated a peace treaty between Bohemia and Hungary. Matthias refused Casimirs offer, but Poděbrady forced him to sign a truce in early 1469, fearing of losing Matthiass support, the Catholic nobles proclaimed him king of Bohemia in Olomouc on 3 May. After Poděbrady repeated his offer of bequeathing Bohemia to Vladislaus, Casimir IV entered into negotiations with the Holy Roman Emperor, Poděbrady died on 22 March 1471
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Hungary
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Hungary is a unitary parliamentary republic in Central Europe. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a member state of the European Union. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken language in Europe. Hungarys capital and largest metropolis is Budapest, a significant economic hub, major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs and Győr. His great-grandson Stephen I ascended to the throne in 1000, converting the country to a Christian kingdom, by the 12th century, Hungary became a middle power within the Western world, reaching a golden age by the 15th century. Hungarys current borders were established in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon after World War I, when the country lost 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, following the interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary became a state of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a four-decade-long communist dictatorship. On 23 October 1989, Hungary became again a democratic parliamentary republic, in the 21st century, Hungary is a middle power and has the worlds 57th largest economy by nominal GDP, as well as the 58th largest by PPP, out of 188 countries measured by the IMF. As a substantial actor in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds 36th largest exporter and importer of goods, Hungary is a high-income economy with a very high standard of living. It keeps up a security and universal health care system. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and part of the Schengen Area since 2007, Hungary is a member of the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the AIIB, the Council of Europe and Visegrád Group. Well known for its cultural history, Hungary has been contributed significantly to arts, music, literature, sports and science. Hungary is the 11th most popular country as a tourist destination in Europe and it is home to the largest thermal water cave system, the second largest thermal lake in the world, the largest lake in Central Europe, and the largest natural grasslands in Europe. The H in the name of Hungary is most likely due to historical associations with the Huns. The rest of the word comes from the Latinized form of Medieval Greek Oungroi, according to an explanation the Greek name was borrowed from Proto-Slavic Ǫgǔri, in turn borrowed from Oghur-Turkic Onogur. Onogur was the name for the tribes who later joined the Bulgar tribal confederacy that ruled the eastern parts of Hungary after the Avars. The Hungarians likely belonged to the Onogur tribal alliance and it is possible they became its ethnic majority. The Hungarian endonym is Magyarország, composed of magyar and ország, the word magyar is taken from the name of one of the seven major semi-nomadic Hungarian tribes, magyeri
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Bohemia
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Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech lands in the present-day Czech Republic. Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg Monarchy, after World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia. Between 1938 and 1945, border regions with sizeable German-speaking minorities of all three Czech lands were joined to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland, in 1990, the name was changed to the Czech Republic, which become a separate state in 1993 with the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Until 1948, Bohemia was a unit of Czechoslovakia as one of its lands. Bohemia was bordered in the south by Upper and Lower Austria, in the west by Bavaria and in the north by Saxony and Lusatia, in the northeast by Silesia, and in the east by Moravia. In the 2nd century BC, the Romans were competing for dominance in northern Italy, the Romans defeated the Boii at the Battle of Placentia and the Battle of Mutina. After this, many of the Boii retreated north across the Alps, much later Roman authors refer to the area they had once occupied as Boiohaemum. The earliest mention was by Tacitus Germania 28, and later mentions of the name are in Strabo. The name appears to include the tribal name Boi- plus the Germanic element *haimaz home and this Boiohaemum was apparently isolated to the area where King Marobods kingdom was centred, within the Hercynian forest. The Czech name Čechy is derived from the name of the Slavic ethnic group, the Czechs, Bohemia, like neighbouring Bavaria, is named after the Boii, who were a large Celtic nation known to the Romans for their migrations and settlement in northern Italy and other places. Another part of the nation moved west with the Helvetii into southern France, to the south, over the Danube, the Romans extended their empire, and to the southeast in Hungaria, were Sarmatian peoples. In the area of modern Bohemia the Marcomanni and other Suebic groups were led by their king Marobodus and he took advantage of the natural defenses provided by its mountains and forests. In late classical times and the early Middle Ages, two new Suebic groupings appeared to the west of Bohemia in southern Germany, the Alemanni, many Suebic tribes from the Bohemian region took part in such movements westwards, even settling as far away as Spain and Portugal. With them were also tribes who had pushed from the east, such as the Vandals, other groups pushed southwards towards Pannonia. These are precursors of todays Czechs, though the amount of Slavic immigration is a subject of debate. The Slavic influx was divided into two or three waves, the first wave came from the southeast and east, when the Germanic Lombards left Bohemia. Soon after, from the 630s to 660s, the territory was taken by Samos tribal confederation and his death marked the end of the old Slavonic confederation, the second attempt to establish such a Slavonic union after Carantania in Carinthia. Other sources divide the population of Bohemia at this time into the Merehani, Marharaii, Beheimare, Christianity first appeared in the early 9th century, but only became dominant much later, in the 10th or 11th century
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Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
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Sigismund von Luxembourg was the leader of the last West European Crusade - the Crusade of Nicopolis of 1396. Afterwards he founded the Dragon Order to fight the Turks and he was regarded as highly educated, spoke several languages and was an outgoing person who also took pleasure in the tournament. He was named after Saint Sigismund of Burgundy, the saint of Sigismunds father. From Sigismunds childhood he was nicknamed the fox in the Crown of Bohemia. King Louis named him as his heir and appointed him his successor as King of Hungary, King Wenceslaus also gave him Neumark to facilitate communication between Brandenburg and Poland. Instead, the landlords of Lesser Poland gave it to Marys younger sister Jadwiga I of Poland, on the death of her father in 1382, his betrothed, Mary, became queen of Hungary and Sigismund married her in 1385 in Zólyom. The next year, he was accepted as Marys future co-ruler by the Treaty of Győr, Sigismunds mother-in-law was strangled, while Mary was liberated. Having secured the support of the nobility, Sigismund was crowned King of Hungary at Székesfehérvár on 31 March 1387. Having raised money by pledging Brandenburg to his cousin Jobst, margrave of Moravia, the central power was finally weakened to such an extent that only Sigismunds alliance with the powerful Czillei-Garai League could ensure his position on the throne. The restoration of the authority of the administration took decades of work. Not until 1395 did Nicholas II Garay succeed in suppressing them, Mary died heavily pregnant in 1395. To ease the pressure from Hungarian nobles, Sigismud tried to employ foreign advisors, which was not popular, however, this was not applied to Stibor of Stiboricz, who was Sigismunds closest friend and advisor. On a number of occasions, Sigismund was imprisoned by nobles, in 1396 Sigismund led the combined armies of Christendom against the Turks, who had taken advantage of the temporary helplessness of Hungary to extend their dominion to the banks of the Danube. This crusade, preached by Pope Boniface IX, was popular in Hungary. Sigismund set out with 90,000 men and a flotilla of 70 galleys, after capturing Vidin, he camped with his Hungarian armies before the fortress of Nicopolis. Sultan Bayezid I raised the siege of Constantinople and, at the head of 140,000 men, the disaster in Nicopolis angered several Hungarian lords, leading to instability in the kingdom. However, he was unable to support Wenceslaus when he was deposed in 1400, on his return to Hungary in 1401, Sigismund was imprisoned once and deposed twice. In 1401 Sigismund helped an uprising against Wenceslaus, during the course of which the Bohemian king was taken prisoner, and Sigismund ruled Bohemia for nineteen months
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Vilnius
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Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania and its largest city, with a population of 542,664 as of 2015. Vilnius is located in the southeast part of Lithuania and is the second largest city in the Baltic states, Vilnius is the seat of the main government institutions of Lithuania as well as of the Vilnius District Municipality. Vilnius is classified as a Gamma global city according to GaWC studies and its Jewish influence until the 20th century has led to it being described as the Jerusalem of Lithuania and Napoleon named it the Jerusalem of the North as he was passing through in 1812. In 2009, Vilnius was the European Capital of Culture, together with the Austrian city of Linz, the name of the city originates from the Vilnia River. The city has also known by many derivate spellings in various languages throughout its history. The most notable names for the city include, Polish, Wilno, Belarusian, Вiльня, German, Wilna, Latvian, Viļņa, Russian, Вильнюс, Yiddish, ווילנע , Czech. A Russian name from the time of the Russian Empire was Вильна/Вильно, the name Vilna is still used in Finnish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Hebrew. Wilna is still used in German, along with Vilnius, the neighborhoods of Vilnius also have names in other languages, which represent the languages spoken by various ethnic groups in the area. Historian Romas Batūra identifies the city with Voruta, one of the castles of Mindaugas, during the reign of Vytenis a city started to emerge from a trading settlement and the first Franciscan Catholic church was built. These letters contain the first unambiguous reference to Vilnius as the capital, According to legend, Gediminas dreamt of an iron wolf howling on a hilltop and consulted a pagan priest for its interpretation. He was told, What is destined for the ruler and the State of Lithuania, is thus, the Iron Wolf represents a castle and a city which will be established by you on this site. This city will be the capital of the Lithuanian lands and the dwelling of their rulers, the location offered practical advantages, it lay within the Lithuanian heartland at the confluence of two navigable rivers, surrounded by forests and wetlands that were difficult to penetrate. The duchy had been subject to intrusions by the Teutonic Knights, Vilnius was the flourishing capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the residence of the Grand Duke. Gediminas expanded the Grand Duchy through warfare along with strategic alliances and marriages, at its height it covered the territory of modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Transnistria, and portions of modern-day Poland and Russia. His grandchildren Vytautas the Great and Jogaila, however, fought civil wars, during the Lithuanian Civil War of 1389–1392, Vytautas besieged and razed the city in an attempt to wrest control from Jogaila. The two later settled their differences, after a series of treaties culminating in the 1569 Union of Lublin, the rulers of this federation held either or both of two titles, Grand Duke of Lithuania or King of Poland. In 1387, Jogaila acting as a Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland Władysław II Jagiełło, the city underwent a period of expansion. The Vilnius city walls were built for protection between 1503 and 1522, comprising nine city gates and three towers, and Sigismund August moved his court there in 1544
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Nihil novi
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Nihil novi nisi commune consensu is the original Latin title of a 1505 act or constitution adopted by the Polish Sejm, meeting in the royal castle at Radom. Nihil novi effectively established nobles democracy in what came to be known as the Polish Commonwealth of the Nobility and it was a major component of the evolution and eventual dominant position of the Polish parliament. Nihil novi, in this sense, is interpreted in the vernacular as Nothing about us without us. The Latin expression, nihil novi, had appeared in the Vulgate Bible phrase, nihil novi sub sole. The Sejms 1505 Act of Nihil novi nisi commune consensu marked an important victory for Polands nobility over her kings. Nihil novi is often regarded as initiating the period in Polish history known as Nobles Democracy, the act of Nihil novi was signed by King Alexander Jagiellon on 3 May 1505 in a Sejm session held at the royal castle in Radom. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Szlachta privileges Norman Davies, Gods Playground, A History of Poland in Two Volumes, volume I, The Origins to 1795, New York, Columbia University Press,1982, ISBN 0-231-05351-7. Sebastian Piątkowski, Radom, zarys dziejów miasta, Radom,2000, adam Zamoyski, The Polish Way, A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture, New York, Hippocrene Books,1994, ISBN 0-7818-0200-8
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Sejm
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The Sejm of the Republic of Poland is the lower house of the Polish parliament. It consists of 460 deputies elected by ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland. In the Kingdom of Poland, Sejm referred to the entire three-chamber parliament of Poland, comprising the house, the upper house. It was thus a three-estate parliament, since the Second Polish Republic, Sejm has referred only to the lower house of the parliament, the upper house is called the Senat Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. Sejm stems from an Old Slavic word meaning gathering and its origin was the Kings Councils, which gained power during the time of Polands fragmentation. The Sejm in Łęczyca was the most notable of these councils and it forbade arbitrary sequestration of supplies in the countryside and takeover of bishopric lands after the death of a bishop. These early Sejms were not an event, they convened at the Kings behest. After the 1493 Sejm in Piotrków, it became a regularly convening body, the bicameral system was also established there. The Sejm now comprised two chambers, the Senat of 81 bishops and other dignitaries, and the Chamber of Envoys, over time, the envoys in the lower chamber grew in number and power as they pressed the king for more privileges. The Sejm eventually became more active in supporting the goals of the privileged classes when the King ordered that the landed nobility. Its chambers reserved the final decisions in legislation, taxation, budget, and treasury matters, foreign policy, until the end of the 16th century, unanimity was not required, and the majority-voting process was the most commonly used system for voting. Later, with the rise of the Polish magnates and their increasing power, additionally, if the envoys were unable to reach a unanimous decision within six weeks, deliberations were declared void and all previous acts passed by that Sejm were annulled. From the mid-17th century onward, any objection to a Sejm resolution, by either an envoy or a senator, automatically caused the rejection of other, previously approved resolutions. This was because all resolutions passed by a session of the Sejm formed a whole resolution. It is estimated that between 1493 and 1793, a Sejm was held 240 times, the total sum of which was 44 years. The Chamber of Envoys, despite its name, consisted not only of 77 envoys from the hereditary nobility, all deputies were covered by Parliamentary immunity, with each individual serving for a term of office of six years, with half of the deputies being elected every two years. Candidates for deputy had to be able to read and write, the legal voting age was 21, except for those citizens serving in the military, the personnel of which were not allowed to vote. Parliamentary sessions were initially convened every two years, and lasted for 30 days, however, after many clashes between liberal deputies and conservative government officials, sessions were later called only four times
