Union with Lithuania

The Union of Krewo 14 August treaty

Jogaila undertakes to accept baptism, marry Jadwiga and bind Lithuania to the Crown; the baptism and the wedding follow in February 1386, the coronation early in March. It creates the largest political body in Europe at the time — and removes the Teutonic Order’s pretext for war.

Red Ruthenia returns to the Crown 26 September turning point

Queen Jadwiga’s expedition takes Halych Ruthenia and Lviv back from Hungary, which had held them since Casimir the Great’s death. At Lviv, Prince Petru of Moldavia does homage to Jogaila. Red Ruthenia stays Polish until the First Partition.

The Battle of Grunwald 15 July battle

The combined Polish-Lithuanian army destroys the Teutonic field army; the Grand Master and almost the entire command are killed. The Order survived another century but never regained the initiative.

The First Peace of Thorn 1 February treaty

Malbork was not taken after Grunwald, and the peace is modest: Poland regains Dobrzyń Land, Lithuania Samogitia for the lifetimes of Jogaila and Vytautas, and the Order pays a hundred thousand threescore of Prague groschen. The Order’s state survives, but its power is broken.

The Union of Horodło 2 October treaty

The union confirms the Grand Duchy as a separate state under Vytautas, and forty-seven Polish clans adopt forty-seven Catholic Lithuanian boyar families into their coats of arms. The Lithuanian elite begins to become part of the Polish nobility.

The Treaty of Melno 27 September treaty

After the short Gollub War the Order renounces Samogitia for good and gives Nieszawa to Poland. The frontier of Prussia with Poland and Lithuania, fixed by Lake Melno, will last almost five hundred years.

The Privilege of Jedlnia 4 March constitution

In return for the nobles accepting his sons as heirs to the throne, Jogaila promises that none of them will be imprisoned without a court’s sentence — neminem captivabimus nisi iure victum. Confirmed at Kraków in 1433, the privilege guarantees personal inviolability more than two centuries before England’s Habeas Corpus Act.

The Battle of Varna 10 November battle

Władysław III, King of Poland and Hungary, leads a crusade against the Ottomans and is killed at Varna; his body was never found. The union with Hungary falls apart, and Poland waits three years for his brother Casimir, Grand Duke of Lithuania, who accepts the crown only in 1447.

Prussia is incorporated 6 March turning point

At the request of the Prussian Confederation, which has renounced its allegiance to the Order, Casimir IV issues at Kraków the act incorporating Prussia into the Crown. It begins the Thirteen Years’ War, which will bring Poland Gdańsk Pomerania, Chełmno Land and Warmia.

The Statutes of Nieszawa 12 November constitution

The nobles gathered for the war with the Order extract privileges from Casimir Jagiellon; in the Greater Poland text the king promises that he will neither call out the levy nor make a new law without the consent of the land dietines. Power shifts from the magnates to the middling nobility — towards the system the general sejm will complete in 1493.

The Second Peace of Thorn 19 October treaty

After the Thirteen Years’ War Poland recovers Gdańsk Pomerania with Gdańsk and Malbork, and what is left of the Order’s state becomes a fief. For the first time since 1308 Poland holds the lower Vistula all the way to the sea.

The first two-chamber sejm 18 January constitution

The general sejm at Piotrków, traditionally counted the first to sit in two chambers (some historians argue for that of 1468): beside the senate sit envoys elected by the land dietines. So begins the parliament without whose consent the king will not be able to make law.

The Statutes of Piotrków 1 June constitution

The Piotrków sejm lets only one peasant a year leave a village and forbids townsmen to buy land. The nobility closes the way up to the other estates; later laws, such as Toruń’s of 1520 fixing a day of labour service a week, turn free rent-paying peasants into serfs.

The Truce of Moscow loss

Lithuania ends its war with Ivan III with a six-year truce, leaving Muscovy close to a third of its territory: Chernihiv, Novgorod-Siversky, Starodub and Bryansk. The frontier moves towards the Dnieper, and Moscow begins to claim all of the old Rus.

The Nihil novi statute 30 May constitution

From now on the king cannot legislate without the sejm’s consent. It is the beginning of the nobles’ democracy — a constitution that gives Poland a century of strength and then paralyses it.

Smolensk is lost 31 July loss

After a siege and an artillery bombardment the garrison of Smolensk, pressed by the townspeople, surrenders the city to Vasily III. The victory at Orsha a few weeks later does not win it back: Smolensk returns to the Commonwealth only in 1611.

The Prussian Homage 10 April treaty

Albrecht of Hohenzollern, the last Grand Master to rule in Prussia, secularises the Order’s state and pays feudal homage to Sigismund the Old as Duke of Prussia. That fief eventually became the Prussia that partitioned Poland.

Mazovia joins the Crown 10 March turning point

After the last duke, Janusz III, dies, Sigismund the Old takes Mazovia, the last Piast duchy still ruled apart; it is formally incorporated into the Crown in 1529. Warsaw becomes a royal town, and seventy years later the capital.

Livonia submits to Sigismund Augustus 28 November treaty

Threatened by Muscovy, the Livonian Order places itself under Sigismund Augustus: Livonia passes under Lithuania’s rule, and the last master, Gotthard Kettler, becomes Duke of Courland as a vassal of the king.

The Great War with the Order war

A war over Samogitia in which Poland and Lithuania fight the Order together for the first time. After Grunwald Malbork cannot be taken, and the First Peace of Thorn gives little — Samogitia to Lithuania for the lifetimes of Jogaila and Vytautas, Dobrzyń Land to Poland — but the Order’s military strength is broken and the indemnity ruins its treasury.

The Lithuanian civil war civil war

After Vytautas dies, Švitrigaila, backed by the Order, and Sigismund Kęstutaitis, backed by Poland, fight for Lithuania. Wiłkomierz (1435) decides the war, and the Peace of Brześć Kujawski that year ends the war with the Order, in which Poland’s Hussite allies had reached the Baltic.

The Thirteen Years’ War war

The Prussian estates renounce their allegiance to the Order and hand the country to Casimir Jagiellon. After the defeat at Chojnice the war is decided by money and mercenaries: Poland buys Malbork from the Order’s own unpaid soldiers, and the victory at Świecino in 1462 opens the way to the Second Peace of Thorn.

The war for the Seversk lands war

Ivan III, to whom the border princes defect, routs the Lithuanians on the Vedrosha. The truce of 1503 leaves Muscovy the Chernihiv and Seversk lands, close to a third of the Grand Duchy.

The war with Muscovy over Smolensk war

Vasily III attacks Lithuania, joined to the Crown at the time in the person of Sigismund the Old, and in 1514, at the third siege, takes Smolensk. The great victory at Orsha a few weeks later reverses nothing: the truce of 1522 leaves the city to Muscovy for almost a hundred years.

The Prussian War war

Grand Master Albert of Hohenzollern refuses homage and seeks help from the Empire; the mercenaries who reach Gdańsk in 1520 melt away unpaid. The Truce of Thorn in 1521 freezes the war for four years; it ends with the Prussian Homage, in which the Order’s state becomes a secular duchy and a Polish fief.

The Livonian War war

Ivan the Terrible invades Livonia, and the last master of the Livonian Order places the country under Sigismund Augustus. Lithuania, which loses Polotsk in 1563, looks for safety in union with the Crown. Stephen Báthory retakes Polotsk, captures Velikiye Luki and besieges Pskov; the truce of Yam-Zapolsky in 1582 ends the Commonwealth’s war and leaves it Livonia. A year later Muscovy makes peace with Sweden too.