Union of Krewo
The Union of Krewo is the personal union agreed in 1385 between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the corresponding document was discovered in 1837. The Krewo castle was located on historic Lithuanian territory that today in Belarus is and Krewa ( Belarusian Крэва ) is called. The Union of Krewo was followed by other formulations of the Polish-Lithuanian unions .
This personal union came about through the marriage of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila with the minor Polish Queen Hedwig , as a result of which Jogaila ascended the Polish throne as Władysław II Jagiełło .
The document was signed on August 14, 1385 and contained the following points:
- the marriage contract
- the conversion of the pagan Jogaila and the Lithuanian nobility to Catholic Christianity
- compensation of 200,000 florins to Duke Wilhelm of Austria , who was already engaged to Hedwig
- the return of Lithuanian occupied territories to Poland and the release of Christian prisoners of war
- the cession of the southern regions of Lithuania to the Polish crown.
The result was Jogaila's baptism and coronation in 1386. He took the Christian name Władysław in honor of the grandfather of his bride, King Władysław I. Ellenlang , the penultimate Piast in the royal line. Jagiełło, the Polonized version of his name, did not appear until later.
The Polish nobility had long been dissatisfied with the dynastic connection to Hungary , but with Lithuania they had common interests in relation to the Teutonic Order and the rising Grand Duchy of Moscow . In the Battle of Tannenberg , the German Order was defeated by the united Polish-Lithuanian army.
While Jogaila and Hedwig ruled over Poland as monarchs of equal rank, Lithuania was ruled from 1401 by Jogaila's cousin Vytautas , who pursued an independent policy under the nominal supremacy of the Polish king. The relationship was formulated in another treaty, the Union of Horodło 1413. The Jagiellonian dynasty goes back to Jogaila .
The personal union installed in Krewo was expanded into a real union in the Lublin Union in 1569, with the foreseeable extinction of the Jagiellonians , which culminated in the creation of the state of Poland-Lithuania .
