| Jadwiga of Poland |
Jadwiga, Queen of Poland |
| Queen of Poland |
| Born |
February 18 1374(1374--), Buda |
| Died |
July 17 1399 (aged 25), Kraków, Poland |
| Beatified |
August 8, 1986, Kraków, Poland |
| Canonized |
June 8, 1997, Kraków, Poland |
| Major shrine |
Wawel Cathedral, Kraków, Poland |
| Feast |
July 17 |
| Attributes |
Royal dress and shoes |
| Patronage |
Queens, united Europe |
 Saints Portal |
- This article is about the 14th-century queen and saint. For the 13th-century saint of the same name, St. Hedwig of Andechs (Święta Jadwiga Śląska), see
Hedwig of Andechs.
Saint Jadwiga (February 18, 1374 – July 17, 1399) was a Polish monarch who reigned
from 1384 to 1399, and is venerated by the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Hedwig (Jadwiga) the Queen. She is the Patron Saint of queens, and of United Europe.
She is known in German as Hedwig, in Lithuanian as Jadvyga, in Hungarian as
Hedvig, and in Latin as Hedvigis.
Childhood
Jadwiga was the youngest daughter of Louis I of Hungary and of Elizabeta Kotromanic. Jadwiga could claim descent from the House of
Piast, the ancient native Polish dynasty on both her mother's and her father's side. Her paternal grandmother
Elisabeth of Cuyavia was the daughter of King Władysław I the Elbow-high, who had reunited Poland in 1320.
Jadwiga was brought up at the royal court in Buda and Visegrád, Hungary. In 1378 she was betrothed
(sponsalia de futuro) to Habsburg scion William of Austria, and spent about a year at the imperial court in Vienna, Austria. Jadwiga's father Louis had, in 1364 in Kraków, during festivities known as the Days of Kraków, also made an
arrangement with his former father-in-law Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV to inter-marry their future children: Charles' son and future Holy Roman
Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg was engaged and married, as a child, to
Louis' daughter and future Queen Mary. One of Louis' original plans had been to leave
the kingdom of Poland to Mary, whose marriage with Sigismund was more relevant to this end as Sigismund was an heir in his own
right to Poland and was intended to inherit Brandenburg, nearer to Poland than to Hungary. Jadwiga's destiny as Austrian consort
was to fit better for Hungary, an immediate neighbor of Austria.
Jadwiga was well-educated and a polyglot, speaking Latin, Bosnian, Hungarian,
Croatian, Polish, German, interested in the arts, music, science, and court life. She was also known for her piety and her
admiration for Saints Mary, Martha, and
Bridget of Sweden, as well as her patron saint, Hedwig of Andechs.
Reign
Jadwiga. From
Królowie Polscy (Polish Kings),
Łódź,
1900.
Until 1370, Poland had been ruled by the native Piast Dynasty. Its last king, Casimir
III [1], had
left no legitimate son and considered his male grandchildren either unsuited or too young to reign. He therefore decided that his
surviving sister Elizabeth of Poland and her son, Louis I of Hungary, should succeed him. Louis was proclaimed king, while
Elizabeth held much of the practical power until her death in 1380.
When Louis died in 1382, the Hungarian throne was inherited by his eldest surviving daughter
Mary, under the regency of their Bosnian mother. In Poland, however, the lords of Lesser
Poland (Poland's virtual rulers) did not want to continue the personal union with
Hungary, nor to accept Mary's fiancé Sigismund as regent, whom they expelled from the
country. They therefore chose as their new monarch Mary's younger sister, Jadwiga. After two years' negotiations with Jadwiga's
mother, Elizabeth of Bosnia, who was regent of Hungary, and a civil war in Greater Poland
(1383), Jadwiga finally came to Kraków and at the age of ten, on
November 16, 1384, was crowned King of Poland — Hedvig
Rex Poloniæ, not Hedvig Regina Poloniæ. The masculine gender of her title was meant to emphasize that she
was monarch in her own right, not a queen consort.
As child monarch of Poland, Jadwiga had at least one relative in Poland (all her immediate family having remained in Hungary):
her mother's childless uncle, Władysław of Kujawy (d. 1388), Prince
of Gniewkowo.
Soon after Jadwiga's coronation, new suitors for Jadwiga's hand appeared: Duke Siemowit IV of Masovia and Grand Duke Jogaila [2]of Lithuania, the latter supported by the lords of Lesser Poland. In
1385 (when Jadwiga was eleven years old) William of
Austria came to Kraków to consummate the marriage and present the lords with a fait accompli. His plan, however,
failed and William was expelled from Poland while Jadwiga declared her sponsalia invalid. William later married Jadwiga's
cousin and rival, Joan II of Naples. That same year (1385), Jogaila and the lords of Lesser Poland signed the Union of Krewo
whereby Jogaila pledged to adopt Latin Christianity and unite Lithuania with Poland in exchange for Jadwiga's hand and the Polish
crown. Twelve-year-old Jadwiga and 36-year-old Jogaila — who had earlier been baptized Władysław — wed in March 1385 at Kraków. This was followed by Jogaila's coronation as King of Poland,
although Jadwiga retained her royal rights. In 1386, Jadwiga's mother Elizabeth and her sister
Queen Maria of Hungary were kidnapped, probably on the order of Maria's husband and consort Sigismund.
In January of 1387, Elizabeth was strangled, while Maria was released in July of the same year,
by the effort of future Frankopan family and Jadwiga's
adopted maternal uncle King Tvrtko of Bosnia. Maria died in 1395, heavily pregnant but under suspicious
circumstances.
As a monarch, Jadwiga probably had little actual power. Nevertheless, she was actively engaged in her kingdom's political,
diplomatic and cultural life and acted as the guarantor of Władysław’s promises to reclaim Poland’s lost territories. In
1387, Jadwiga led two successful military expeditions to reclaim the province of Halych in Red Ruthenia, which had been retained by Hungary in a dynastic
dispute at her accession. As she was an heiress to Louis I of Hungary herself, the
expeditions were for the most part peaceful and resulted in Petru I of Moldavia
paying homage to the Polish monarchs in September 1387.[1] In 1390 she began a correspondence with the Teutonic Knights, followed by personal meetings in which she opened diplomatic negotiations
herself.
Most political responsibilities, however, were probably in Władysław's hands, with Jadwiga attending to cultural and
charitable activities.[1] She sponsored
writers and artists and donated much of her personal wealth, including her royal insignia, to charity, for purposes including the
founding of hospitals. She financed a scholarship for twenty Lithuanians to study at Charles' University in Prague to help strengthen
Christianity in their country, to which purpose she also founded a bishopric in Vilnius. Among
her most notable cultural legacies was the restoration of the Academy of Kraków, which in 1817 was renamed Jagiellonian University in honour of the couple.[2] Jadwiga had many Latin books translated into Polish for her people.
Death and inheritance
Coat of Arms of Anjou-Sicily, Poland, Hungary, Dalmatia
On June 22, 1399 Jadwiga gave birth to a daughter, baptized
Elizabeth Bonifacia. Within a month, both the girl and her mother had died from birth complications. They were buried together in
Wawel Cathedral. Her death undermined Jogaila's position as King of Poland, but he
managed to retain the throne until his death 35 years later.
It is not easy to state who was Jadwiga's heir in line of Poland, or Poland's rightful heir, since Poland had not used
primogeniture, but kings had ascended by some sort of election. There were descendants of superseded daughters of
Casimir III of Poland (d. 1370), such as his
youngest daughter Anna, Countess of Celje (d. 1425 without surviving issue), and her daughter Anna of Celje
(1380–1416) whom Władisław II Jagiełło married next,who had a
daughter Jadwiga of Lithuania born in 1408. Jadwiga died in 1431, reputedly poisoned by Sophia, Wladislaw's last wife, after a
faction of Polish nobles supported Jadwiga against Sophia's sons.Emperor
Sigismund himself was an heir of Casimir III, as eldest son of his mother Elisabeth of Pomerania, who was since 1377 the only surviving child
of Elisabeth of Poland, herself daughter of Casimir III from his first marriage with Gediminaitis Aldona of Lithuania. The family possession of the principality of Kuyavia belonged to Sigismund, who was the heir with the strongest hereditary claims. However, the leaders of
the country wanted to avoid Sigismund and any personal union with Hungary.
Other descendants of Władisław the Short (through Silesian dukes of Swidnica) included the then Emperor Wenceslas, king of Bohemia, who died without issue in 1419, as well as Silesian dukes of Opole and Sagan.
Male-line Piasts were represented most closely by Dukes of Masovia, one of whom had
aspired to marry Jadwiga in 1385. Also various princes of Silesia were of Piast descent, but they had been largely pushed aside
since the exile of Vladislas II, Duke of Cracow.
Jadwiga's husband Vladislav Jagello kept her kingdom, and mostly because no claimant with clearly better stature appeared, he
was never ousted, not even after the death of his second wife. He was eventually succeeded in Poland by sons of his last wife,
who were not related to the earlier Polish rulers.
Legends and veneration
From the time of her death, Jadwiga was widely considered a saint. Numerous legends about
miracles were recounted to justify her sainthood. The two best-known are those of "Jadwiga's cross" and "Jadwiga's foot."
Jadwiga often prayed before a large black crucifix hanging
in the north aisle of Wawel Cathedral. During one of these prayers, the Christ on the cross is said to have spoken to her. The
crucifix, "Saint Jadwiga's cross," is still there, with her relics beneath it.
According to another legend, Jadwiga took a piece of jewelry from her foot and gave it to a poor stonemason who had begged for
her help. When the queen left, he noticed her footprint in the plaster floor of his workplace, even though the plaster had
already hardened before her visit. The supposed footprint, known as "Jadwiga's foot," can still be seen in one of Kraków's
churches.
Exhumations and sarcophagus
Jadwiga's body has been exhumed at least three times. The first time was in the
17th century, in connection with the construction of a bishop's sarcophagus next to Jadwiga's grave. The next exhumation took place
in 1887. Jadwiga's complete skeleton was found, together with a mantle and hat. Jan Matejko
made a sketch of Jadwiga's skull, which later helped him paint her portrait (see above).
On July 12, 1949, her grave was again opened. This time she was
reburied in a sarcophagus paid for by Karol Lanckoroński, which had been
sculpted in white marble in 1902 by Antoni Madeyski. The queen is depicted with a dog, a symbol
of fidelity, at her feet. The sarcophagus is oriented with Jadwiga's feet pointing west,
unlike all the other sarcophagi in the cathedral. On display next to the sarcophagus are the modest wooden orb and scepter with which the queen had been buried (she had sold
her jewels to finance the renovation of the Jagiellonian University).
Veneration
Despite widespread veneration for Jadwiga in Poland, it was only on June 8, 1979, that Pope John Paul II prayed at her sarcophagus; and the
Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Discipline of the Sacraments officially affirmed her beatification on
August 8, 1986. The Pope canonized Jadwiga in Kraków on June 8, 1997.
Ancestors
Notes
- ^ a b (Polish) Paweł Jasienica (1988). "Władysław Jagiełło", Polska Jagiellonów. Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut
Wydawniczy, 80-146. ISBN 83-06-01796-X.
- ^ (English) Stanisław Waltos (2004). The Past and the Present. Jagiellonian University's web page. Jagiellonian University. Retrieved on
2006-08-04.
References
Further reading
- Heinze, Karl (December 8, 2003). Baltic Sagas. Virtualbookworm
Publishing. ISBN 1-58939-498-4.
- Lukowski, Jerzy; Hubert Zawadzki (September 20, 2001). A Concise History of
Poland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55917-0.
- Turnbull, Stephen; Richard Hook (May 30, 2003). Tannenberg 1410. Osprey
Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-561-9.
See also
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