POLAND 645 just judge, peace-loving knight, and careless ruler," Poland was almost annihilated by the great invasion of the Mongols. The decay of the country was general. The heirs of Con- rad subdivided his possessions. Various west- ern districts were pledged for loans or ceded to neighboring German princes, and the Bo- hemians occupied portions of Silesia. German settlers denationalized parts of their adopt- ed land. German warriors and adventurers flocked to the shores of the Baltic, where the Teutonic knights allied themselves with the knights sword-bearers of Livonia for com- mon crusading wars on the confines of Poland. The Jews, too, who in the time of the crusades were driven by persecution from Germany, retained in Poland the language which they had adopted on the banks of the Rhine and Danube. Tartars, Ruthenians, and Lithuani- ans made occasional incursions. Ladislas the Short, a grandson of Conrad, succeeded in re- storing order and the unity of the larger part of the country (Silesia subjecting itself to the Bohemian kings) ; made Cracow its permanent capital, where he was solemnly crowned in 1319; reformed judicial abuses ; abolished nu- merous illegally acquired privileges ; convened an assembly of senators, chancellors, and oth- er nobles for legislative purposes at Chenciny in 1331, which is regarded as the first Polish diet (sejm) and in alliance with the powerful prince of Lithuania, Gedimin, carried on a vigorous war against the Teutonic knights. He urged its continuance in his last advice; but peace was the foremost desire of his son Casimir III., the Great (1333-"TO), who made Poland powerful and flourishing. Humane and enlightened above his age, though profligate, he earned the title of u king of the peasants," protected the Jews, had a double code of laws promulgated by the diet of Wislica in 1347, and founded the university of Cracow. But he also took care to strengthen and extend his power. He built cities and fortresses, and after the death without issue of Boleslas of Maso- via, who reigned over Halicz (Galicia), annexed his vast possessions to the Polish crown. His death closed the long reign of the Piast dy- nasty. Casimir's nephew, Louis the Great of Hungary, possessed the title of Polish king, legally conferred by the diet, but hardly de- served it, his policy remaining exclusively Hun- garian. His younger daughter Hedvig, a girl distinguished by beauty as well as piety, was ac- knowledged after his death ( 1 382), and, follow- ing the advice of the Polish statesmen, gave her hand to Jagellon or Jagiello, grand duke of Lithuania. This pagan prince was baptized as Ladislas (II.), and promised to convert his peo- ple, in which he was assisted by the zeal of Hed- vig, and to unite his possessions with Poland. These comprised Lithuania proper, Samogitia (N". of the Niemen), Polesia (on both sides of the Pripetz), Volhynia, Podolia, and Ukraine, and in extent exceeded the territories of Po- land, though surpassed by it in population, wealth, and culture. The promised union of the two powerful states was executed gradually and with difficulty. Jagellon (1386-1434) war- red successfully against the Teutonic knights, routing them at Griinwald in 1410. After his death, however, his elder son Ladislas III. was acknowledged only in Poland, the Lithuani- ans preferring to be ruled separately under the younger, Casimir. Both were still under guar- dianship. Ladislas was subsequently elected king of Hungary, and in a second expedition against the Turks fell in the bloody battle of Varna in 1444. His brother Casimir IV. reigned over both Lithuania and Poland (1444- '92). After several campaigns against the Teu- tonic knights, he compelled them, in the peace of Thorn (1466), to surrender the territories of Dantzic, Culm, and Ermeland to Poland, keeping the eastern part of Prussia as vassals of that crown. Under him the diets were or- ganized by the introduction of regular repre- sentation. Refinement and luxury spread over the country, but the peasantry were more and more oppressed. Three sons of Casimir reign- ed after him: John Albert, Alexander, and Sigismund I. The last of them was the hap- piest king of his age (1506-'48). He was be- loved by the people and obeyed by the nobility. Poland enjoyed peace, prosperity, and order, while the rest of Europe was distracted by wars. In a war with Muscovy, however, Smo- lensk was lost. A large part of the Teutonic order having adopted the tenets of Luther, their last grand master Albert of Brandenburg, Sigismund's nephew, was established, as vassal of the latter, duke of eastern Prussia at Ko- nigsberg in 1525, the western part of that coun- try, with Dantzic, remaining in the immediate possession of Poland, under the name of Roy- al Prussia. A peace with the Turks secured the suzerainty of Poland over Moldavia. His son, Sigismund II. Augustus, proved a worthy successor of his father as soon as he was de- livered from the pernicious influence of his mother Bona, an Italian princess, who finally withdrew with her rich treasures to her native country. The reform of the republic, as the state was called, now became one of the prin- cipal objects of the diets, another being the final union of Lithuania with the crown. To achieve both, the king and the nobles were in- defatigable in their endeavors. The Lithuanian lords, however, who gloried in princely titles and enjoyed great feudal privileges, were slow in submitting to the Polish equality of nobles. The union was finally proclaimed by the diet of Lublin in 1569. Ostrogski, Czartoryski, and other powerful Lithuanians signed it. Lithu- ania ceased to be a hereditary possession of the house of Jagellon, but was to form a common republic with Poland, under the rule of an elective king, with a common diet and senate. The two component parts, however, the grand principality and the crovn, maintained their separate titles, armies, finances, and statutes. Podlachia, Volhynia, and Ukraine were trans-
