Casimir III the Great

Freed from his old enemy, Casimir could add Galicia and Volhynia to his kingdom in the following year.

in organising these two districts he emphasised the community of interests of the tribes united under his sceptre thus he had two codes consisting of a mixture of customary and written law drawn up for great and little poland the king established a royal supreme court at cracow the decisions of which guaranteed a uniform development of national law in like manner casimir devoted himself to establishing the legal status of the many german settlements in his kingdom he codified their law which was generally that of the city of magdeburg he set up a supreme court for his german subjects which did away with appeals to magdeburg and freed casimir's kingdom from annoying foreign dependence furthermore the king showed great zeal in spreading the elements of a higher civilisation among his people by attracting german immigrants and by furthering trade and commerce this he did by providing for the safety of the highways and by making coins weights and measures conform to a uniform standard but casimir paid particular attention to the peasantry which the noble landowners oppressed severely however even casimir the great did not succeed in checking the baneful development of those social conditions which had always been the great economic sore of the country while the great barons gradually rose to the rank of princes the great mass of the lower nobility the real fibre of the realm sank to an inferior class they made leagues and combated the high nobility and tried to augment their position by preying on the lower orders the servitude of the peasantry thus became the curse of poland for it cut the largest part of the people off from every participation in the national life thus depriving the latter of the one source which might have regenerated it the slav has never desired or been able to develop independently a civic life the results in this field in poland are in part the work of german settlers and in part a product of all sorts of artificial means which ceased to be efficient as soon as the artificial care was withdrawn in spite therefore of good beginnings no extensive city life ever flourished in poland the peasants themselves had no possible way of becoming free or even half free this condition of servitude gave rise to evils which undermined the polish state to such an extent that it finally succumbed to a national catastrophe the stimulating rule of casimir appears on the intellectual side in his foundation of the university of cracow in his sway seemed the more meritorious because the house of the piasts became extinct in him and was replaced by foreign dynasties the king designated his nephew louis the great of hungary as his successor in thirteen fifty five the polish magnates acknowledged him as heir-presumptive but with this reservation that a change in the succession be permissible if casimir should still have legitimate issue louis too had to make concessions he surrendered the right to levy new taxes promised to be satisfied with the old royal income and to observe the laws and liberties of the kingdom during a so-called progress the king and his train were no longer to live off the estates of the nobility and clergy free of charge furthermore the nobility was henceforth to receive pay for foreign military service a measure which sadly restricted the royal power after casimir had died in thirteen seventy louis of hungary received the crown in cracow but in thirteen seventy four he had to make further concessions to the magnates at caschau which established the predominance of the nobility for the future the privilege of bearing arms was restricted to the nobility it alone was eligible to the higher offices of state and its estates were freed from all taxes and dues louis of hungary consented to all the demands of the nobility so as to secure the succession to one of his daughters the question of succession however proved the source of new disasters for louis who was often forced to leave the kingdom transferred the regency to his mother elizabeth through her partiality to the hungarians she drove the polish vassals to open revolt the citizens of the capital also rebelled and murdered the hated hungarian councillors the regent fled to hungary mazovia revolted from poland while robbery and feuds raged within nevertheless louis continued to solicit the succession of his oldest daughter maria who was married to sigismund son to the emperor charles the fourth and margrave of brandenburg he had just won over the polish magnates when he died in thirteen eighty two immediately bitter dissension broke out a large part of the nobility demanded of marya above all that she should make poland her home they formed a confederacy to carry out their will in reality they desired separation from hungary as did a party in that country savage party conflicts ensued in consequence finally the queen-widow elizabeth of hungary found means to win both parties she advocated the succession of hedwig the younger daughter of louis to the polish throne after bitter party struggles which brought civil war on some parts of the country the parties reached an understanding on this basis In the summer of 1384 Hedwig was crowned Queen of Poland at Krakow.

The ambitious and crafty Jagiełło, Grand Duke of Lithuania, soon sued for the hand of the Queen, who was only 13 years old.

Besides the conversion of his people, he offered the consolidation of Lithuania and Poland.

It was under Vladislav's rule that large numbers of German Jews, whose communities had been destroyed by crusaders on their way to the Middle East, were welcomed into Poland, which soon became the largest Jewish community in Europe.

In the next tutorial, we'll look at the reigns of Vladislav's sons, the era of King Casimir the Great, and at the Jagiellonian dynasty, which would rule both Poland and Lithuania up through the 16th century.

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Jadwiga became known as a patron of hospitals and schools.

She funded the university, which had been established by Casimir the Great, and encouraged the use of Polish rather than Latin in religious services.

When her sister Mary, whom Louis had made Queen of Hungary, died in 1395, Vladislav came close to invading it on behalf of his wife, who was supposed to inherit it, but the Hungarian nobles objected, and in the end, Mary's husband was allowed to continue as king.

Jadwiga died in 1399, shortly after giving birth, but her husband remained king for another 35 years, and the Union of Poland and Lithuania continued on in one form or another until early modern times.

He eventually became fluent in at least eight languages and had a competency in several others.

Jagiellonian University was the oldest university in Poland, dating back to its founding in 1364 by King Casimir the Great.

After Carroll attended the university for a year, Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, marking the beginning of World War II.

On November 6, 1939, the Gestapo gathered 180 professors and staff of the university and arrested them.

population come to that area? Jews lived in Poland for about 1,000 years.

But the big wave of Jews comes to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under King Casimir the Great.

Basically, the Crusades are tearing through Western Europe.

Jews are getting blamed for all sorts of diseases and plagues.

They're getting kicked out of Germany.

And Casimir the Great invites Jews into Poland, and he offers them religious freedom.

And in part, he... sees this almost like as an economic development thing, but also he's like a pretty enlightened monarch as people go, you know, as monarchs go at that time.

And Jews really flourish in the early days of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.

I was like, I wonder what was going on there.

Cheryl Waitley said Poland was less densely populated, had less trade connectivity, and King Casimir III closed the borders and set up stringent isolation measures.

Huh.

How about that? So I guess that that can work.