About Jadwiga in brief Progress to the Crown William Habsburg in Krakow Gniewosz of Dalewice Jadwiga and Teutonic Knights The Queen's Daily Life Images of the Queen The Queen's Grave Digital documents
Dedicated to Saint Jadwiga the Queen, this website is featuring exhibits from the National Library's impressive resources associated with an exceptional royal figure of 14th century Poland: manuscripts, rare books, serials, iconography and monographs written about her from 19th through 20th centuries. They are diverse, designed for easy access to the key sources of history, scientific study, and blessed memory of Saint Jadwiga. They range over the chronicles of Jan Długosz and Janko of Czarnków, Jagiełło and Jadwiga royal court book accounts or a letter from the Bishop Józef Pelczar, later beatified, to the poet Lucjan Rydel, with references to the queen. This collection also is replete with fictionalized books and theatre plays about the life of the saint, including excerpts from the unfinished play Jadwiga by the painter and playwright Stanisław Wyspiański and the work by another poet and playwright Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz entitled: Jadwiga krolowa Polska : drama muzyczne we 3ch aktach wierszem... (Jadwiga the queen of Poland: a music drama in three acts, in verse).
To display the list of digital documents from this collection click "Publications list" in the menu on the left side of the screen
Presentation of collection: Piotr Suchodolski. English translation: Bohdan Ambroziewicz.
About Jadwiga in brief
Saint Jadwiga the Queen (18 February 1374 - 17 July 1399)
We do not know the exact place or date of birth of Saint Jadwiga. By drawing reasonable inferences from sources, historians most often cite 18 February 1374 as the date of her birth. Incontrovertibly, the queen was born at the turn of 1373 and 1374 (Jan Długosz had wrongly dated her birth in 1371).
Jadwiga (Hedvig) of Anjou (Angevin) was the third daughter of King Louis I of Hungary and Elisabeth of Bosnia. As the two had no male offspring, King Louis made every effort to assure his daughters of royal succession in Hungary and Poland. He initiated negotiations on inter-marrying them: - with the royal court of France, through which Louis hoped to regain the Kingdom of Naples, - with the powerful Luxembourgs and with the Habsburgs whose royal star was slowly rising. Following those arrangements, on 15 June 1378 in the Haimburg castle, the then three and a half years old Jadwiga was betrothed to the eight years old Habsburg scion William (the son of Leopold of Austria). The marriage was to take place upon the children’s maturity (which for girls was then accepted as the age of 12 and for boys the age of 14). After the betrothal ceremony, Louis sent his daughter back to Vienna, where she as Austrian consort was to grow and wait for the crown. However, in 1379 she returned to her parents after the death of her elder sister Catherine, which necessitated a change in the original succession agreements. In 1380, Louis reaffirmed his arrangements with the Habsburgs and chose Jadwiga for the throne of Hungary and her sister Maria for the Polish throne. When Louis died (10/09/1383), plans had to be changed again. The Hungarian lords recognized Maria as the monarch because she was then the eldest of the king’s daughters. Meanwhile, the Poles refused to accept the personal union with Hungary or Sigismund the Luxembourgian - Mary’s husband, as regent, and demanded instead that Jadwiga be sent in.
After the negotiations between Polish knights and Elizabeth of Bosnia and a period of political turmoil in Poland, Jadwiga finally came to Kraków in the autumn of 1384 and at the age of ten, on 16 November 1384 was crowned King (sic!) of Poland in a ceremony in the Wawel Cathedral, performed by Bodzanta Archbishop of Gniezno. William followed Jadwiga into Kraków to consummate the marriage, but Polish lords wished no Habsburg on the Polish throne and separated him from Jadwiga overriding her protests. She later declared her sponsalia invalid.
At about the same time, the prospect of Poland’s union with Lithuania appeared on the political horizon and thus the lords entered into negotiations on the marriage of Jadwiga and the Grand Duke Jagiełło (Jogaila) of Lithuania. On 18 January 1385, a Lithuanian deputation headed by the Grand Duke’s brother, Skirgiełło, arrived in Kraków to ask for Jadwiga’s hand on behalf of their ruler. The marriage was conditioned on the adoption of Christianity by Jagiełło and all Lithuania. On 14 August at Krewo, the Grand Duke reaffirmed his marriage vows. He also pledged to pay the Habsburgs 200 000 florins in compensation for the break-up of the betrothal and to recover the lands lost by Poland. Jagiełło and Jadwiga wed on 18 February 1386 at the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, three days after Jagiełło had been baptized Władysław.
Jadwiga resided on the Polish throne for 15 years. Initially, due to her young age, politicians in her entourage were actually running the country, but she was quick to demonstrate negotiating and diplomatic talent as she actively engaged in the negotiations between Poland and the knightly Order of Teutons on the issue of restitution to Poland of the province of Dobrzyń that the Teutonic knights had occupied. On that and on other issues she exchanged correspondence with the Order’s Grand Master. She also mediated in Jagiełło’s conciliation with his cousin, Witold, who, together with his spouse, eventually pledged loyalty to the Polish crown. In 1387, she led a Polish expedition to Red Ruthenia to reunite it with Poland.
Jadwiga was devoutly religious and, although a monarch, shunned glamour. When she was about to give birth to her much-desired child, she overruled the advice of her court and had all excess luxuries removed from her chamber in order not to offend the Lord. On 22 June 1399, Jadwiga gave birth to a daughter Elizabeth Bonifiacia, the former name in honor of the girl’s grandmother and the latter to honor her godfather, Pope Boniface IX. Unfortunately, within a month, both the little girl - on 13 July, and her mother - 17 July, died from birth complications. When Jadwiga’s grave was opened in 1887, she was found buried only with a modest wooden scepter, confirming the fact that she had sold her gold royal insignia to finance the Kraków Academy known today as Jagiellonian University.
Jadwiga was also sensitive to the wrongs suffered by her subjects. She became famous for her many intercessions, donations and foundations. Chronicler Długosz recounts how during the royal couple’s first joint visit to Wielkopolska (Western Poland) region, Jagiełło demanded that the Gniezno ecclesiastic chapter provide supplies for him and his retinue. The chapter refused, citing its privilege of immunity. Thus, the king resolved to take by force what he deemed was his due from the chapter estates. Shortly afterwards, local peasants arrived in Gniezno with complaints and pleaded for mercy. Jadwiga ordered restitution of the seized property, though she reportedly said that although the peasants had gotten back what belonged to them, nothing would reward them for the tears they shed.
Jan Długosz, referring to the queen’s death, writes also about the miracles accomplished through her intercessions and about a widespread popular belief in her sainthood. This belief prompted Wojciech Archbishop Jastrzębiec to appoint in 1426 a special board of inquiry into the queen’s virtues and concomitant miracles. On receiving witness testimonies, the board wrote down the list of the miracles and sent it to Rome. Regrettably, only fragments have survived of that list, which originally appeared in Monumenta Poloniae Historia, vol. IV. The money originally raised for the canonization of Saint Jadwiga eventually served to finance the 30-year war instead. It was not until the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries that the efforts to declare Jadwiga Saint resumed. One of the prime movers was Bishop Józef Pelczar, who brought up the case in an audience with Pope Pius X in 1909. Another bishop, Władysław Bandurski, dedicated to her a book he published in 1910. Many articles in the then press and numerous petitions for beatification provide evidence for the cult enjoyed by the queen. These hopes rekindled when a Polish-born pope succeeded to the Holy See. Karol Wojtyła had voiced his dedication to the cause in sermons when he was Archbishop of Kraków and initiated the beatification process of Queen Jadwiga shortly after becoming Pope. She was proclaimed Blessed in 1987, and 10 years later, on 8 June, Pope John Paul II announced during his pilgrimage to Kraków that she was canonized Saint.
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Progress to the Crown
The coronation of Jadwiga as "Hedvig Rex Poloniae" rather than "Regina Poloniae" followed on many political vicissitudes and arrangements. These events began to unfold still under the reign of Poland’s King Kazimierz (Casimir) the Great. There had been an arrangement whereby the Polish crown was to go to the Hungarian dynasty of Anjou, should the Polish king die without legitimate male offspring, which in fact he did. Before that, a bid to invalidate the king’s marriage with his second wife Adelaide failed and soon it became clear that he would leave no legitimate successor. However, the international royal arrangements specified that only the male offspring of the Angevin (Anjou) Dynasty could gain the Polish crown. That narrowed the choice to Louis or his fraternal nephew Jan, but Jan died early. If Louis had shortly followed him to the grave, the Anjou line would have to bid farewell to the royal succession in Poland as the rights to the Polish throne did not transfer on to his daughters. However, the Hungarian King outlived King Casimir and eventually succeeded to the throne of Poland. His opponents in the Polish Kingdom snubbed him by burying Casimir before Louis arrived. There was also an incident involving an attempt to steal the crown, with chronicler Janko of Czarnków playing a role. Another problem was King Casimir’s last will which gave the regions of Sieradz, Łęczyca, Dobrzyń and a few castle-towns to his grandson and adopted son Kaźko of Słupsk. If that testament turned into reality, Kaźko’s hand as a pretender to the throne would strengthen. However, Louis did his best to nullify Casimir’s last will.
Thus, the Angevin captured the Polish crown but could not rest assured of it as long as Louis of Hungary had no male offspring to secure the succession. Thus as early as in 1351 and then in 1355, he showered privileges on the Polish noble estates to win them over for the candidacy of one of his daughters. In 1351, still while Casimir the Great was bedridden with a grave disease, Polish lords pledged allegiance to Louis in return for his promise not to install Teutons in offices in Poland, and for the financial bounties that the king paid them in appreciation of their foreign war expeditions. Eventually those original arrangements proved somewhat premature. In 1355, Louis promised the envoys from Poland that he would ease the tax burden and confirmed his earlier commitments. As he finally ascended to the Polish throne, Louis continued with similar concessions to assure his daughters of royal succession. In 1374 in Košice (Cassovia), he privileged the knightly estate with a relief from royal treasury obligations, except for two groszy from the peasant-grown crops. In return, the lords assured him of the transfer of the succession rights to his daughters. The clergy initially baulked at the deal, but relented when given similar privileges in 1381. Louis also appreciated the strength of Poland’s individual castle-towns and won their backing with tax breaks. Earlier he had waged an unpardonable fight to get rid of Władysław Biały, the last male scion of the royal Piast dynasty. Louis first obstructed the invalidation of Wladyslaw Biały’s monastic vows and eventually acquired his duchy of Gniewkowo. Kaźko of Słupsk also stopped challenging Louis’s daughters following a reward he received from the king. One way or another, Kaźko, the grandson and adopted son of Casimir the Great, died already in 1377.
The youngest of the monarch’s daughters, Jadwiga (Hedvig), was initially the last candidate as far as the succession to the Polish throne was concerned. However, the course of events inevitably guided her to the crown as her eldest sister Catherine died in 1377 or 1378 and the next in line to succeed Catherine in Hungary was Jadwiga’s elder sister Maria. At that time, Maria remained betrothed to Sigismund of Luxembourg whom the Polish lords did not like. After Louis’s death in 1382, the Hungarians elevated Maria to their throne, a move that substantially dimmed her chances to be crowned in Poland, because after the 12-year reign by the king who resided at the distant court in Buda, the Polish nobles had grown displeased with the Polish-Hungarian royal union. Thus, they began to press for the candidacy of Jadwiga, a solution enabling them to keep their commitments while keeping the Polish throne away from Sigismund of Luxembourg. Moreover, they found it easier to break off the vows of betrothal with the Habsburgs than with the Luxembourgs. By the break-off with the Habsburgs, they cleared the way to their free choice of a husband, the future Polish king, for young crown princess Jadwiga. However, Jadwiga did not take up the Polish throne until the autumn of 1384. The two intervening years from Louis’s death to her arrival in Kraków had seen internal strife, rivalries among various hopefuls for the throne and protracted negotiations with Jadwiga’s mother, Elizabeth. Sigismund of Luxembourg made repeated abortive bids for the Polish crown but the lords of Wielkopolska Land (Greater Poland province) piled tough terms in his way while the lords of Małopolska Province (Lesser Poland) wrote him off out of hand.
At their convention in t he town of Radomsko on 25 November 1382, the lords of the two provinces recognized the rights of Louis’s both daughters to the throne, over and against minority opposition represented by Archbishop Bodzanta and Wielkopolska Starost Domarat, who interpreted the Košice arrangements in favor of Sigismund of Luxembourg. At their separate convention in Wiślica, Malopolska lords accepted the resolutions of the Radomsko convention. Present at the Wiślica assembly were representatives of Elizabeth of Bosnia who had called on the lords not to pledge allegiance to anybody (not even Sigismund) and thanked them for their fidelity in her daughters. That event in fact set the stage for the decline of the unpopular Starost Domarat and prompted Archbishop Bodzanta to change his mind. At the same time, Wielkopolska was the scene of civil strife known as the war of Grzymała nobles’ family line against the Nałęcz line. Duke Siemowit IV of Mazovia saw the war as an opportunity to pave his way to the Polish throne. That prompted the lords to press even more strongly for an unambiguous declaration of the Hungarian side as to the future of the Polish crown. At the following assembly in Sieradz in February 1383, Elizabeth of Bosnia relieved the lords of any pledges they had made to Maria and her husband, and promised to send Jadwiga to Poland after Easter of that year. She proposed that after the coronation, her daughter would return to Buda for a period of three years to mature. The Poles said they would reply to that offer by March 28th. However, before that deadline passed, the nobles held another assembly in Sieradz to find the followers of Duke Siemowit in majority. The Siemowit supporters, led by Archbishop Bodzanta, wanted to arrange for the marriage of the duke and Jadwiga, thereby installing the Mazovian prince as the legitimate ruler of Poland. However, their aspirations hit a snag when Jan Tęczyński, the castellan of Wojnice and Kraków reminded the gathering that they first had to keep the pledges they had made to Jadwiga. The convention ended with its members demanding that Jadwiga should arrive in Poland by May 10th, or else they would consider themselves relieved of their pledges. In addition, they demanded the restitution to the Crown of Red Ruthenia, which Louis had promised before acceding to the Polish throne. Meanwhile, Duke Siemowit was scheming to abduct Jadwiga during her journey to Poland, but Malopolska lords foiled the plot. The duke, however, did not give up and convened another assembly of the nobility in Sieradz in June. Though his followers at the convention proclaimed him king, Archbishop Bodzanta refused to crown him. On the other side of the story, Jadwiga failed to arrive in Poland at the appointed time, her mother citing flooding of the roads as an excuse. She also mollified the confused Polish envoys with gifts and had them agree to the postponement of the date for Jadwiga’s arrival to Poland to November 11th . But that deadline was not kept either. Another deputation to Hungary, this time led by the Kalisz Voivode Sedziwoj of Szubin, did not help. In fact, the envoy’s actions even put him at risk of imprisonment by Elizabeth. Faced with this, the nobles held another assembly in Radomsko in March 1384 and adopted an Act of Confederacy, which historians now see as evidence of political prudence and maturity of the then knightly elite. The nobles set up a body of central administration of the kingdom and agreed on a common policy. The state security was in the hands of the starosts assisted by a council of knights and burghers (urban middle class). Their decision was not to contact the Hungarians and to extend the wait for Jadwiga’s arrival until May. Meanwhile, Elizabeth continued to play for time and negotiated with Polish lords at Lubowla (Lubovńa) as a force of Polish knights waited for Jadwiga in vain in the town of (Nowy) Sącz (Novyj Sanc). Eventually the nobles called another assembly in Sieradz in September to elect a king. However, the Kalisz Voivode Sedziwoj of Szubin again went against the tide and led another deputation to Hungary. What arguments he used to convince Elizabeth remains mystery, but the fact was that she did send her daughter to Poland in the autumn of the same year. Finally, the coronation of Jadwiga Angevin took place in Krakow on 13 October 1384.
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William Habsburg in Krakow
A few times in our history, a scion of the Habsburg line nearly got the Polish throne. The first who missed it by a thread was William Habsburg. When he was 8 years old on 15 June 1376, he was married to Jadwiga in the Haimburg castle. The marriage could have been recognized as legit had it been consumed after the couple came of age. Until that time, Jadwiga was to stay and mature at the Vienna court. However, events took a different course, opening an avenue to the Polish throne before the young Angevin princess. In the new reality, William’s family had sought confirmation of the original arrangements and received it. Thus, Jadwiga’s mother Elizabeth played both sides. On the one hand, she promised her daughter’s hand to the Habsburgs, while, on the other hand, she took care not to enrage the Polish lords. Finally, when the push came to shove, she consented to her daughter’s journey to Krakow, where on 16 October 1384 Bodzanta Archbishop of Gniezno crowned Jadwiga King of Poland (in regem).
However, William did not give up and followed Jadwiga into Poland, which exasperated the Polish lords, among them the Kraków castellan Dobiesław of Kurozwęki. They feared that the Habsburg could frustrate their incipient negotiations with the Lithuanian Duke Jagiełło, but none had the courage for a showdown with the queen who clearly favored the young Habsburg scion. Moreover, William hauled with him substantial treasures and a retinue of knights evidently in the belief that he would stay on and ascend to the Polish throne in Kraków. He also had some allies on the Polish side, among them the Kraków Chamberlain Gniewosz of Dalewice. All he needed was to consume his nuptials with Jadwiga. Although Dobiesław of Kurozwęki barred William from the castle, the young Habsburg found other ways to meet with Jadwiga. The queen, accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting, came to dance receptions in the Franciscan monastery where William resided. In his Liber beneficiorum the chronicler Długosz informs us that they even cohabited in Krakow for a time of two weeks. When the news reached Kraków that Jagiełło was on his way to take the throne, Jadwiga and William resolved to consume their marriage, but could not, because the Polish lords promptly forestalled them and expelled William from the royal castle. Jadwiga found it hard to accept and even hacked at the locked castle gate with an axe. Eventually she gave up, persuaded by one of the knights, Dymitr of Goraj, and slowly reconciled herself to her destiny. Meanwhile, William was scared enough to leave Kraków for Austria. But still before the coronation of Jagiełło, he again sneaked into Poland’s capital, this time disguised as a merchant and without entourage. His hideout at the Morsztyn house was compromised and, according to Długosz, he had to dash away into a chimney duct to narrowly escape capture. After that incident, he lost all hope and left Poland for good.
That is how chronicler Jan Długosz describes the whole story, his account being the most extensive extant record. It is not the only record, though. We find information about the failure to legitimize the marriage of William and Jadwiga in other sources, such as the Calendar of the Kraków Chapter, Catalogue of the Abbots of Żagań or the Szamotulski Compendium omnium. In 1386 Bishop Raguzy Mafiolus decreed the marriage of Władysław Jagiełło to Jadwiga as legit and consumed, which he could not have done, had William been the first to earn his nuptial spurs. The Długosz account of William’s second clandestine trip to Krakow has not been corroborated by any other historical source. If the Polish side had not doubts about the validity of Jadwiga’s marriage to Jagiełło, Poland’s northern neighbors, the Prussians, believed otherwise. The Teutonic Knights pushed their raison d’état to claim that William was the lawful husband of the Polish queen. Similarly, they did not recognize the Lithuanian ruler on the Polish throne, or the union between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This position is reflected on the pages of Annales Thoruneses, Chronicle of Johan Possilge, Detmar Chronicle of Luebeck and in the Satire by John Falkenberg. A similar story appears in Austrian sources, which mostly concur that Polish lords chased William away from Poland and were out to kill him. These sources also often err in claiming that William did sit on the throne in Kraków.
Let us consider what really happened to William after his Kraków adventure. The duke did not enter into a new marriage contract until as late as in 1401 or two years after the Polish queen’s death. Thus, we could conclude that William had desisted from marrying another woman, even though his marriage with Jadwiga was decreed invalid and the Pope gave him dispensation. Romantic novels attribute that behavior to the great love that William felt for Jadwiga. However, there is a more pragmatic interpretation as well. A marriage with the Angevin sitting on the throne in Poland was tantamount to acquiring kingship. Apparently William could not shake off his dream of ruling Poland until Jadwiga’s death and enjoyed a powerful support for his scheme from the Knights of Teutons. The Order’s Grand Master, Konrad von Jungingen and William kept exchanging correspondence in that matter. Konrad kept William updated on the situation in Poland. He also tempted him to reassert his rights to the Polish throne after Jadwiga’s death. Thus, it is more likely that politics rather than love had motivated William’s behavior. So much for the historical sources. As regards the fictionalized accounts, the theme of the unfortunate love affair involving the 12-year-old crown princess and the young prince made a perfect story for novels and theatre plays.
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Gniewosz of Dalewice
Jan Długosz’s Chronicle contains an interesting account of relationships between Jadwiga and Jagiełło. The chronicler recounts that the royal couple experienced some difficult moments in their union. One of the snags arose from the rumor that Jadwiga secretely trysted in Kraków with William Habsburg of Austria while Jagiełło was away. The rumor reached the king when he returned from Lithuania to the Wawel Castle in 1388. According to Jan Długosz, the monarch got angry with his spouse, but courtiers interceded and mollified him. However, the relationship must have been strained, as, by the chronicler, one year later the court again had to reconcile the disaffected royal couple. This time, the courtiers resolved to put an end to the conflict by persuading Jadwiga and Jagiełło to disclose their informants. Both pointed their finger at Gniewosz of Dalewice, a Polish knight and courtier, who had spread the gossip to keep the royal spouses at loggerheads. Eventually the case was brought before a Sejm tribunal where Gniewosz pleaded guilty and asked for a lenient sentence within the limits of the law. The tribunal granted his plea and sentenced him to “barking off” his lies in public. Thus Gniewosz had to publicly prone under the table and announce, “What I told about the queen was a dogly lie”, and, in fact, bark several times. Afterwards, according to Jan Długosz, the marital union of the royal couple passed on in concord and love. Later, however, historian R. Maurer following her cross-examination of other sources challenged the story recounted by the Polish chronicler.
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Jadwiga and Teutonic Knights
The queen enjoyed respect among the grand masters of the Monastic Teutonic Order who often consulted with her on difficult matters. She spoke German and had a knack for diplomacy, astutely using her skills in the negotiations with the Prussian northern neighbors of the Polish Kingdom. The abundant correspondence between Queen Jadwiga and the grand masters of the Order of Virgin Mary is preserved on the pages of Codex epistolaris Vitoldi Magni and Lites ac res gestae inter Polonos Ordinemque Cruciferorum. Particularly prominent in this correspondence was the issue of restitution of the Dobrzyń Land bordering on Teutonic Prussia. Jadwiga got intensely involved in that case. The Teutonic Order raised their claim to the loan they once had extended to Władysław Opolczyk, the Duke of Dobrzyń, Kujawy and Opole, and believed that the Duke himself should decide on who the collaterized property should go to. Before that, Jadwiga’s father, Louis the Hungarian, had appointed Władysław Opolczyk his count palatinate (governor) of Poland. Polish lords disliked Opolczyk and eventually the king had to recall him, but comforted him with the fiefdom of the Dobrzyń Land, among other things. Opolczyk, on the other hand, lawlessly pledged the land for a loan from the Teutons. Jadwiga later held a conference on that issue with Grand Master Konrad von Jungingen and his Komturs (regional commanders) in Inowrocław in 1397. According to Dlugosz’s chronicle, the Knights of the Cross found many excuses to reject the generous and equitable terms offered by the queen. Disillusioned with he talks and losing her patience, Jadwiga is said to have burst with scathing remarks about her interlocutors. She also foretold an outbreak of war after her death, when nobody would be around any more to prevent it.
On other occasions, the grand masters of Teutons also asked Jadwiga for safe-conduct writs for their emissaries and for the guarantees of safe passage to Kraków for their merchants. After the queen’s demise, Konrad von Jungingen wrote letters to William Habsburg to brief him on the situation in Poland and prompt him to renew the bid for the Polish crown. Jadwiga also became a major cause of the conflict between King Jagiełło and the grand master, after the Teutons had spread innuendos about Jadwiga and William to tarnish her name before the Council of Constance.
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The Queen's Daily Life
Unfortunately, we know little about Jadwiga’s life in the intervening time after she took over the Polish throne and before her marriage to Jagiełło. When she was crowned king of Poland she was barely 11. Separated from her mother and her familiar environment, she must have continued her education under pressure to demonstrate early maturity, though there are no available historical insights into that intriguing period. On the bright side, the minutiae of Queen Jadwiga’s and King Jagiełło’s daily life reach to us uniquely over the centuries through the extant book accounts of their court.
Though far from complete, these fragmentary treasury entries provide many clues. The first edition of the court accounts published by Count Aleksander Przeździecki in 1854 was far from perfect. The publication, which appeared under the title The household of Jadwiga and Jagiełło, based on treasury registers 1388-1417, was only a selection of documents that the count considered the most curious. Nevertheless, it came as a revelation to the historians’ community. The imperfections and low press run of that edition were behind a subsequent, improved attempt to publish the records. The work came from the historic Academy of Learning and its scholarly editor was Franciszek Piekosiński. The Academy published the records in full in the Latin original and complemented them with newly uncovered accounts. F. Piekosiński’s edition appeared in print in 1896 as part of the collected study Monumenta Medii Aevii Historia, vol. XV.
Jadwiga and Jagiełło frequently travelled for official and economic reasons. Jagiełło repeatedly toured Poland and Lithuania on official royal business. He seldom kept his wife company except in wintertime, when travel was hard. Economic factors also prompted frequent migrations of royal residence. Once the substantial stocks of resources required by the royal court had run short in one venue, the court moved to another place. For example, in 1393 the royal couple and their guest Skirgiełło almost cut short their stay at the Niepołomice castle for that very reason, namely the scarcity of money in the castle’s stewardship purse for provisioning the court. Jadwiga was on the point of leaving Niepołomice back for the Wawel Castle when somehow the problem disappeared, enabling the monarchs to spend more time together at the Niepołomice retreat.
Jadwiga and Jagiełło usually dined at separate tables and among different entourages. The king ate in a male company and the queen mainly together with women, such as ladies-in-waiting, female retainers, wives and daughters of her guests. Sometimes, she invited to her table church notables, magnates and envoys. She usually had a separate table set up for the poor. Her diet consisted of meat varieties replaced by fish dishes during the Lent. The menu was mostly beef, veal, mutton, poultry of all varieties, and less often, game, mainly hare. Her fish menu featured salmon, roach, bream, herring and eel, sometimes crayfish. Also preserved to our times are a few names of the courses prepared for the royal couple and their court. For example, the menu served to Jagiełło included a plate of “geese tribe”, a poultry and fish jelly and “pirogi” (stuffed dumplings). The latter was the favorite course of the king and his Lithuanian and Ruthenian companions and was a new dish for the Polish court. Jadwiga preferred pear-garnished or pear-stuffed poultry or pancakes with apple slices and plums. The court was not averse to vegetables, of which cabbage was the most popular. Other vegetables served on the royal table were turnip, onions, peas, parsley, beets, cucumbers, cress, radishes, horseradish, garlic, leeks, dill, mustard seed, lentil and carrots. The queen liked fresh cucumbers and fruits. Like her husband, she relished pears, sour cherries and plums. The main beverage on the royal table was beer, though Italian, French and Austrian wines also appeared at times. As we know, Jagiełło shunned alcohol and preferred water and milk instead. The court usually dined twice a day, the first meal being breakfast and the second dinner, both equally copious. At times Jadwiga arranged for the third meal of supper in a small company of courtiers. In the Lent season, they restricted meals to one a day and Jagiełło often fasted on bread and water alone. Certainly, not all mouths of the court had access to the mentioned dishes. Bread was the main food for lesser courtiers and Jadwiga paid special care to its quality.
What made the court of Jadwiga and Jagiełło special was its multiculturalism, which was quite phenomenal in Europe at that time. Converging on that single place were Catholics, Eastern Orthodoxy or maybe even heathens. There were Poles, Lithuanians and Ruthenians which reflected cultural, religious and heritage diversities of the courtiers. Evidently, the court coped with that diversity well and promoted respect for different religious practices. The ripple effect of that was a change in the structure of court officials, with some of those positions, such as the office of Equerry or the Master of the Royal Hunt, disappearing altogether.
Not missing from the court were representatives of the then intellectual elite, such as Mateusz (Matthew) of Kraków, a renowned scholar of theology, later the Bishop of Worms and the rector of the University of Heidelberg. The queen’s court chancellor was Piotr Wysz, later the bishop of Kraków and Poznań. He was a man of excellent education, a doctor of law who studied in Prague and Padua. He helped to reorganize the revived Kraków Academy was became its first chancellor. Another visitor to the queen’s court was Hieronymus of Prague, one of the major Bohemian reformers alongside Jan Hus.
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Images of the Queen
Regrettably, there are no extant likenesses of Queen Jadwiga dating back to her reign, or rather none that would tell us what she exactly looked like. Although there is her counterfeit as the saint on the silver coffin of St. Simeon at Zadar, but being quite sketchy and poorly wrought, it gives us no clue to the queen’s facial features. Elizabeth of Bosnia had that coffin made in 1380 as a gift of thanks to St. Simeon, with the images of the Hungarian queen and her daughters engraved in silver. Jadwiga’s counterfeit in the form of a vague outline also appears on the royal seal that she used for major official duties. In all, we do not know what the only royal saint of Poland exactly looked like.
Of some interest is the image of Queen Jadwiga appearing in Series ducem ac regem Polonorum a Lecho I ad Augustum II penned by A. Barbey. Published in 1702, the work contains illustrations by Benoit Farjat. In Lucjan Rydel’s words, Queen Jadwiga’s portrayal there reminds him of an image of the Italian Madonna. In the illustration, she is wearing the crown over a scarf covering her hair. Her head is in a slight tilt, her eyes gazing into the distance. This image appears on a circular medallion.
Particularly replete with the visualizations of Jadwiga was the end of the 19th and initial decades of the 20th century, a period when her cult came back to life in connection with the efforts to have her beatified. The National Library has collected numerous images of the queen dating back to that period, as well as copies of her earlier likenesses. One such copy is Jadwiga’s likeness on the arras tapestry presenting the genealogy of the Habsburg line. The tapestry dates back to the 15th century, reflecting the period’s artistic convention and hence probably bearing little resemblance to the reality. It simply is the artist’s quite liberal visualization. Interestingly, Jadwiga is depicted there as William Habsburg’s wife.
Particularly captivating is the portrayal of Poland’s queen in the painting by Marcello Bacciarelli, where Jadwiga with a gentle face is looking into the distance. Her wispy lips curve into a delicate smile and her entire person emanates peace. This subtle image of the queen is in contrast to how Jan Matejko painted her - with a stronger face and a more majestic, tougher body frame.
Jadwiga’s images presented on this site are only a small part of all available visualizations of the saint queen. Her versatile personality, fascinating biography and sainthood has inspired many artists. This collection presents the queen’s counterfeits from the resource of the Iconography Division of the National Library in Warsaw.
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The Queen's Grave
After Jadwiga died, her body rested in a tomb in the Wawel Cathedral. The tomb has not survived intact. Its cover slab suffered first damage in mid 17th century in connection with the construction of Bishop Piotr Gembicki’s sarcophagus next to it. The works left much debris in the queen’s grave. Workers covered the fractured slab with wooden planks and laid them over with a new floor.
That elevated floor of the presbytery, the effect of the Gembicki sarcophagus works, caught the eye of the Cathedral restoration committee late in the 19th century. Professor Sławomir Odrzywolski, who made the detailed drawings of the cathedral, investigated the spot to discover inscribed letters referring to the graves of Queen Jadwiga, Cardinal Fryderyk Jagiellonian and Bishop Gembicki. In 1887, he ordered a full-scale exploration of what really was under the floor and thus led to the uncovering of Jadwiga’s tomb. The team examining the grave consisted of Professor Odrzywolski, painter Jan Matejko, Professor Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, August Sokołowski, Count Konstanty Przeździecki and Professor Izydor Kopernicki. They found Jadwiga’s skeleton, a wooden scepter and what remained of her mantle and hat, but no crown. They took measurements of Jadwiga’s skull and the painter Jan Matejko made a sketch of it. Based on the measurements, Professor I. Kopernicki announced that the skull belonged to about a 30-year-old woman.
On 12 July 1949, another opening of Jadwiga’s grave took place in the presence of Duke Leon Cardinal Sapieha, other church notables and professors of the Jagiellonian University. They said a prayer over her bones and had them moved to the Cathedral’s treasury. The Catholic Church passed a decree threatening to excommunicate whoever would dare to appropriate any of the queen’s remains. After another period of research, the queen’s relics rested in a new sarcophagus in the Cathedral. The reburial was a solemn ceremony filled with the knell of the famed Cathedral bell Sigismund. No one has opened the sarcophagus ever since.
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