Once the grand duchy had been established, its particular characteristics would probably have caused less surprise to its subjects than to outsiders. A caste of pagan warriors held sway over a predominantly Christian population that had adopted its Orthodox ties nearly three centuries earlier. Vestal virgins tended the sacred flame in oak groves, while Christian preachers strove alongside them to inculcate a totally different religion and culture. Christianization had been in progress in Europe for more than 1,000 years; as it proceeded, all public manifestations of paganism were generally suppressed. But circumstances in the MDL did not conform to a simple pattern. The arrival of Orthodox Christianity had indeed led to the suppression of the Norse and Slavic variants of paganism. Nevertheless, resistance was protracted; the Balts of the region were not yet affected; and memories of former beliefs must surely have lingered on. Such memories would have functioned in a setting where the paganism of the late Varangian elite probably differed little from the dying Slavic paganism of the populace at large. Pagan practices often went underground or morphed into pseudo-Christian rituals, and the supposedly Christianized people of early White Ruthenia may have passed through several generations during which the continuing pagan religion of their Baltic neighbours would not have looked particularly strange or offensive. Hence, when a Baltic warrior caste stepped into the Varangians’ shoes, there was no violent reaction.
The Ruthenians’ acceptance of Baltic overlordship would have been strengthened by the growing opportunities for territorial expansion and military adventure. At the time of the coronation of Mindaugas, the Mongol Horde ruled supreme at all points to the south. In the following decades, however, Mongol power declined; the ‘Golden Horde’ settled far away on the lower Volga; and Ruthenian princes were tempted to stray, their temerity varying in proportion to their distance from the Mongols’ revenge. The Muscovites, for instance, did not make their decisive bid for freedom until the 1380s. But the princes of southern Ruthenia, in Ukraine, grew restless a century earlier, when the fading of Mongol control created a vacuum into which the warriors of the grand duchy charged with alacrity. Under Grand Duke Gediminas (r. 1316–41), they reached Kiev for the first time, ruling it for several decades in conjunction with the Tartars. In addition, a broad band of territory was annexed stretching from Podolia and Volhynian Lutsk on the Polish border to Chernigov and Bryansk on the confines of Muscovy. Brest on the River Bug was captured, together with the district of Polesie beyond the Bug.
Gediminas is generally taken to have been the founder of the grand duchy’s capital, although it may well have been built on the site of the unidentified Voruta, the principal residence of Mindaugas. According to legend, he had been hunting on the borders of Baltic and Ruthenian settlement and had a dream in which he saw an iron wolf howling on the top of a hill; a shaman told him to erect a castle on a nearby bluff overlooking three rivers. The wooden castle was soon surrounded by houses and streets running down to the River Vilnya. Its earliest mention in the historical record dates from 1323, soon before the grand duke invited foreign traders and craftsmen to live there. Municipal rights on the model of Magdeburg were granted six decades later. For the grand duchy’s original Baltic elite, the city’s name was Vilnius: for the Ruthenians, Vil�nya, like the river: for the Poles, who would soon arrive in force, Wilno.45
Under Grand Duke Algierdas (r. 1345–77), the tempo quickened. Algierdas, one of Gediminas’s seven sons, was a pagan warrior chief par excellence, who appears to have maintained internal peace by dividing his dominions with his brother, Kestutis. He battled the Teutonic crusaders and the Tartar hordes with equal enthusiasm, and twice besieged Moscow. Although held posthumously to have been a champion of Orthodoxy, his marriage to an Orthodox princess, Maria of Vitebsk, had no special significance. In 1349 the lands of ‘Red Ruthenia’ – so-called because they centred on the ‘Red Town’ of Chervien – were divided with Poland. And in 1362, at the Battle of the Blue Water near the Black Sea coast, the supremacy of the Mongol-Tartar Horde was broken for good. The consequences were immense. The grand dukes of Litva took over Kiev permanently, absorbing the southern expanses of Ukraine and putting themselves in a position to influence the metropolitan of Kiev, the highest authority of the Orthodox Church in East Slavdom. In the course of a century of raiding, of castle-building and of rewarding their followers with handsome lands, they came to govern a state that was larger than either France or the Holy Roman Empire, and was going to grow still further.
The city of Kiyiv/Kiev was the most ancient and most venerable in the whole of Slavdom. Legend attributes its foundation to the year AD 485, when the valiant Kie and his brothers set up their homes on three adjacent hills beside the Dniepr. In that remote era the various Slavic peoples were as yet undifferentiated. Thanks to modern politics, however, the city of Kiev is more usually associated in people’s minds with ‘ancient Russia’ than with medieval Lithuania; indeed, it is frequently billed as ‘Russia’s birthplace’. So a word of clarification may be in order. When the grand duchy overran it in 1362, the city was a shadow of its former self; its population had greatly declined, and the metropolitan himself was living elsewhere. The cathedral church of St Sophia founded by Yaroslav the Wise, together with its ‘indestructible wall’, which depicted the Virgin Oranta in golden mosaics, was still intact. But recovery from the Mongols’ ravages had been slow, and the city’s political importance was minimal. Nonetheless, the so-called ‘Lithuanian occupation’, which was to last for more than 200 years, was no fleeting episode; and it was undertaken by a successor state to Kievan Rus’ whose rule was perfectly acceptable to most contemporaries. One cannot judge medieval events by the teleological standards of a Russia that had yet to be created.
Muscovy also stood to reap its rewards from the Mongols’ retreat. Following the example of Algierdas, the ruler of Moscow, Dmitri ‘Donskoy’, was expanding his frontiers towards the Don, and preparing to form a coalition of eastern princes that would throw off the ‘Mongol yoke’ for ever. In this way, Moscow and the grand duchy became rivals to inherit the legacy of a divided Rus’.
Despite the waning of the Mongolian threat, however, the grand duchy knew little respite, for the Teutonic Knights were still on the march. Having subdued Prussia and Livonia, the Knights were entering a long period of hostility and intermittent conflict with Poland; their greedy crusading eyes also descended on the defiant paganism of the Lithuanians. The strategic grounds for a rapprochement between the grand duchy and Poland grew ever more apparent.
Unlike most monarchs of the age, the grand dukes of Litva, not being Christians, naturally exhibited no special preference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and they married their daughters to Catholic or to Orthodox princes as convenience dictated. Yet a view has persisted that Grand Duke Gediminas in particular had been grooming his court and country for conversion to Roman Catholicism; it is supported by the phraseology of a letter which Gediminas wrote to the pope in 1322 and which contains an expression of his readiness ‘fidem catholicam recipere’. A recent study, however, concludes that the grand duke’s intentions were strictly limited. The letter was sent in a tricky international phase when he was fighting fiercely against the Catholic Teutonic Order and, at the same time, seeking assistance from Catholic Poland. Gediminas was assuring the pope that he was not anti-Catholic, and that, as a gesture of goodwill, he would admit Dominican and Franciscan missions; but he was not considering wholesale conversion.46 Indeed, he may well have hoped that the Vatican might abolish the Teutonic Order in the way that it had abolished the Knights Templar. Gediminas did not hesitate to execute Catholic priests judged to have insulted the pagan religion, and his own funeral in 1342 displayed all the features of traditional ritual. The grand duke’s body was placed on an open pyre. His favourite servant and his favourite horse were cast into the flames to accompany their master, and a group of German slaves, bound and gagged, were heaped on top for good measure. Algierdas, too, departed this life like his father, with
no hint of Christian sensitivities.
Religious life in Litva, therefore, was far from straightforward. On the surface, there appeared to be a high degree of tolerance. Muslim Tartar communities were welcomed. So, too, were Jewish Karaites from Crimea, and special provisions were made for Catholic knights to marry the daughters of the grand duke’s pagan entourage. Under the surface, however, there were ugly tensions. In 1347, when Vilnius was still a pagan capital, three Christian Ruthenian brothers – Anthony, John and Eustaphy – were put to death for some minor insubordination. These three ‘Vilna Martyrs’ were duly revered by the Orthodox faithful, and their relics preserved in the Trinity church.47
When Grand Duke Jogaila (r. 1377–1434) mounted the throne still a bachelor, he knew that any marriage he might make would be overshadowed by strategic considerations. He had no special love for the Poles, worshippers of ‘the German God’ and a target for his raiding parties. His first inclination was to explore the possibility of marrying a princess from Moscow. Yet in 1382 a prime opportunity occurred. Louis of Anjou, king of Poland and Hungary, died suddenly without male issue; Louis’s younger daughter Jadwiga (or Hedwig) was designated by the magnates of Poland as the prospective successor and rex:
In 1385, as soon as Jadwiga arrived in Cracow, the Lithuanian matchmakers made their first approaches. A conjugal and a political union were proposed. It was a decisive moment in the life of two nations… The Polish barons, too, had their reasons. After thirteen years of Angevin rule, they were not now disposed to submit to the first man, who by marrying Jadwiga, could impose himself on them. [Further] having rejected Louis’s elder daughter, Maria, on the grounds that she was [betrothed] to Sigismund of Brandenburg, they could hardly accept Jadwiga’s present fiancé, Wilhelm von Habsburg, Prince of Austria… The Lithuanian connection was much more interesting. Jadwiga could be told to do her duty. Maidenly and ecclesiastical reticence could be overcome.
On 14 August 1385, therefore, at Kreva (Krewo) in White Ruthenia, an agreement was signed, in which the Polish barons persuaded Jogaila to concede a number of very advantageous undertakings. In return for the hand of Jadwiga, the Lithuanian prince was ready to accept Christian baptism, to convert his pagan subjects to Roman Catholicism, to release all Polish prisoners and slaves, to co-ordinate operations against the Teutonic Knights, and to associate the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the Kingdom of Poland in a permanent union. On this basis, in February 1386 a great assembly of Polish barons and nobility at Lublin elected Jogaila, whom they knew as ‘Jagiełło’, as their king.48
The grand duchy was embarking on a Polish–Lithuanian orientation that would accompany it for as long as it lasted. ‘For four long generations spanning 186 years, Jogaila and his heirs [would drive] the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Litva in harness, like a coach-and-pair. They presided over an era when the Lithuanian and Ruthenian elite [would be] polonized, and the Poles [would accede] to the problems of the east.’49 For much of that time it appeared that the Jagiellons were building one of Europe’s strongest monarchies.
The consequences of the Union of Kreva were felt more immediately in the grand duchy than in the Kingdom of Poland. The pagan religion of the Lithuanian elite was prohibited. The sacred groves were felled. The pagan priests and vestal virgins were banished, and mass Christian baptisms were enacted in the River Vilnya on the orders of the now Catholic monarch. Henceforth, Roman Catholicism became the official religion of court circles in Vilnius, and increasingly of the more ambitious nobles. Adopted by a substantial minority of the grand duchy’s population, it existed in uneasy cohabitation with the Byzantine Orthodoxy of the majority. At the same time, traditional political culture was undermined. In theory, the grand duke lost none of his autocratic powers; in practice, he was obliged to grant wide privileges to influential subjects, who quickly learned the habits of their more rebellious Polish counterparts.
The minting of coinage, however, has traditionally been one of the marks of sovereignty, and the grand duchy was no exception. Until recently, it was thought that the first coins could be dated to the early fourteenth century, but analysis of a major hoard discovered in the grounds of the lower castle at Vilnius has confirmed that the first minting took place under Jogaila in 1387. The triangular silver alloy kapros, which at first sight appear to be more primitive and older, actually date from the fifteenth century. Henceforth, the coinage regularly bore the emblem of the grand duchy – the mounted rider known as the vytis or pahonia – which has continued in use to the present day.50
Jogaila’s cousin Vytautas (1350–1430) caused constant trouble in the grand duchy for decades. Already disaffected before the Union with Poland, he was imprisoned in the castle of Kreva, during negotiations there with the Poles, won the sympathy of many boyars, that is, of senior members of the grand ducal entourage,* escaped and took refuge with the Teutonic Knights; he may even have toyed with the idea of an alliance with Muscovy. But he was lured back to obedience by Jogaila, signed the Union of Kreva, accepted baptism and actively supported the Christianization campaign. Shortly afterwards, however, he fell out with Jogaila yet again, this time over the grant of the Duchy of Trakai to someone else. He fled once more to Prussia, and remained the focus of dissent throughout the 1390s. Only defeat by the Tartars tamed his opposition, and thanks to the Vil’nya-Radom Act of 1401 (see below) he was able to emerge as Jogaila’s partner and near-equal, running the grand duchy while Jogaila ran the kingdom. In 1408, he recovered Smalensk at the third attempt before loyally leading the grand duchy’s army into battle alongside the Poles. Nonetheless, he jealously guarded Lithuania’s separate status for a further thirty years, gaining the epithet of ‘Vytautas the Great’ and becoming an international figure. He received the obeisance of Tartar khans and Russian princes, exacted rich tribute from Novgorod, and conducted diplomatic relations with both the pope and the German emperor. At the time of his death in 1430, news spread that he had been planning to have himself crowned as ‘king of Lithuania’.51
The death of Vytautas led first to civil war and then to reconciliation under the main branch of the Jagiellonian dynasty. The civil war lasted throughout the 1430s as Jogaila’s brother battled with a brother of Vytautas, while the Teutonic Knights did their best to meddle. At one point, it was announced that the grand duchy had been annexed by Poland. Yet Jogaila’s passing defused tensions. One of his young sons, Władysław III (r. 1434–44), took the throne of Poland under the guidance of the great Cardinal Oleśnicki, who dominated the royal court, while Jogaila’s younger son, Kazimierz Jagiellończyk (1427–92), was brought up to rule the grand duchy. In the end, weary of bloodshed, the boyars of Litva acclaimed the thirteen-year-old Jagiellończyk grand duke in 1440 without seeking Polish approval. Their choice proved judicious. The young prince grew into one of the great father-figures of medieval Europe. He added the throne of Poland to his position in the grand duchy after his crusader-brother was killed by the Turks at Varna in 1444, and, by marrying a Habsburg, was able to place his numerous sons and daughters in positions of influence far and wide. Apart from rescuing the Polish-Lithuanian Union, he oversaw the rise of Jagiellons to the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary. Indeed, for a time in the late fifteenth century, the prospects of the Jagiellonian dynasty looked considerably stronger than those of their Habsburg relatives.
Notwithstanding stresses and strains, therefore, the dual state proved more resilient than many had feared. It adjusted to successive crises, its constitutional structures evolving accordingly:
The [Act] of Kreva was abrogated by Jadwiga’s death [in 1400], but the political arguments which inspired it remained operative throughout the Jagiellonian era. On every occasion that difficulties arose, the Polish-Lithuanian Union was renewed on terms of ever increasing intimacy…
The first stage [had been] effected in 1401. As Jogaila and Jadwiga were childless, it was necessary to design the machinery of a future succession. Meeting in their separate camps at Radom and Vilna the Polish and L
ithuanian barons agreed that nothing should be decided in future without mutual consultation. In the so called ‘Vilna-Radom Act’, Jogaila’s cousin Vitautas (Witold) was to rule Lithuania for life… If Jogaila were to die without natural heirs, the future of his two realms was to be determined by common assent.
The second stage was effected in an agreement signed at Horodło in Volhynia on 2 October 1413. Here, in effect, the Polish lords and Lithuanian boyars formed themselves into a joint estate. Among the many provisions it was agreed that matters of concern touching both countries should be settled in joint assemblies of the nobility, and that the Polish lords should participate in the electoral confirmation of the Lithuanian Grand Duke…
Most remarkable, however, was the spirit in which the agreements were reached… The Polish nobility were obtaining a permanent stake in the internal affairs of their partners: the Lithuanians were receiving a guarantee of the separate identity of their state. Cynics would say that in such circumstances it is easy to be noble-minded. Even so… the words of the Preamble to the Act of Horodło are worth noting: ‘Whoever is unsupported by the mystery of Love’, it began, ‘shall not achieve the Grace of salvation… For by Love, laws are made, kingdoms governed, cities ordered, and the state of the commonweal is brought to its proper goal. Whoever shall cast Love aside, shall lose everything.’ In later times, when a weakened Polish-Lithuanian state became… the prey of stronger enemies, these words served… as a reminder of the Union’s high founding principles.
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