Henry Bogdan: From Warsaw To Sofia

The appearance of the Ottoman Turks in the early 14^th century not only accentuated the striking contrasts between the westernized monarchies and the Balkans, but posed a permanent threat to all of centro-Danubian Europe.

The Beginnings of Ottoman Power

The decline of the Byzantine Empire began in 1204 with the conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade. It was not arrested by either the fall of the Roman Empire in 1261, nor the Byzantine restoration that followed. In Europe, the Bulgarian and Serbian subject peoples of Byzantium had succeeded in attaining their freedom, but the real danger to Byzantium as well as to the Slavic states of the Balkans came from Asia. Until the end of the 13^th century, Asia Minor was in the hands of the Seljuk Turks. Around 1300, however, the Seljuks were deposed by a group of Turks from Central Asia, who took their name, Ottomans, from their leader, Osman (1288-1326). Osman and his son, Orkhan (1326-1360) set up a powerful Muslim state in Asia Minor, with an efficient army dominated by an elite corps called the Janissaries. The Ottomans soon relieved the Greeks

of their last holdings in Asia with the seizure of Nicea in 1329, and of Nicomedia in 1337. Confronted by the Ottomans, Byzantium followed a policy of cooperation with the newcomers rather than one of opposition. The usurper John VI, known as John of Cantacuzene, tried to flatter Sultan Orkhan by giving him his daughter in marriage in 1346, and by not hesitating to use the Ottomans against his rival, John V. John VI then paid the Ottomans homage by handing over the fortress of Gallipoli, which gave them a much-desired fortress in Europe. As for the Slavic states of the Balkans, they were generally not powerful enough to successfully resist the Ottoman invasion. The Bulgars, in a period of decline since the end of the 13^th century, were dealt another blow when Murat I (1 359-1 389) took part of Thrace and Macedonia, and established his capital at Andrinople in 1365. The newly-founded Vlach principalities north of the Danube--Wallachia in 1247 and Moldavia in 1352--were still too disorganized to counter the Turks. Only the Serbs possessed any degree of power at that time.

The Peak of Serbian Power

The disintegration of the Byzantine Empire and the eclipse of Bulgaria worked to the advantage of the Serbs in the Balkans. The Nemjanidic dynasty which founded the Serbian state in the early 13^th century had succeeded in keeping Serbia out of the crises that affected the Balkans, and maintained the independence of their principality. Under Stephen VI Uros II (1282-1321) and Stephen VIII Uros III (1321-1331), Serbia extended its authority to include Macedonia and Bulgaria. But it was under Stephen IX Dusan (1333-1355) that Serbia reached its peak. Dusan ruled over an "empire" that included Rascia, Zeta, Macedonia, Albania, and Thessalia up to the Gulf of Corinth. Serbia was freed from the religious yoke of the Patriarch of Constantinople and in 1346, the Archbishop of Pec was raised to the rank of "Patriarch of all Serbs" and was elected solely by Serbian bishops. It was the same patriarch that crowned Uskub Stephen Dusan as Czar of the Serbs and Greeks. Dusan improved the administration of the country and made the laws more just through the imposition of a king's code, the zakonik --a mixture of Serbian customs and Byzantine law. Serbia soon matured into a thoroughly organized feudal society. Enriched by royal donations, the lay nobility and the monasteries enjoyed full authority over the peasants, who tilled the hereditary plots in exchange for rent and services. The king invited "Saxon" colonists from Hungary to work the copper, gold and silver mines, which permitted the minting of Serbian coins. In spite of its power, however, the Serbian state was not strong enough to oppose the Ottomans.

The Balkans in the Hands of the Turks

From secure bases in Thrace, Murat I avoided attacking Byzantium directly, preferring to strike the first blows in the Balkan Slavic states. After 1370, Serbia underwent a period of difficulties culminating in the breakup of the country. The north was retained by Dusan's descendants, and the south remained torn by the internal bickering of the aristocracy. Murat I attacked the Serbs first, and southern Serbia fell without striking a blow; Sofia conceded in 1385 and Nich the following year. Northern Serbia resisted longer but on June 15, 1389, Murat crushed the army of the Serbian prince Lazar on the field of Kosovo. During the course of the battle, Murat was killed and Lazar was taken captive by the Turks and beheaded. Soon after, Bulgaria, which had remained weak during this period, yielded when Tirnovo fell on July 17, 1393. From there, the Turks moved toward the Danube. With the support of Hungarian reinforcements sent by King Sigismund, the Vlach prince, Mircea the Oid, attempted to stop the Turkish army but was defeated. Mircea surrendered to the Turks and was required to pay them a tribute, although he was allowed to keep token political and religious autonomy of his principality. The West was long in reacting. Only Emperor Sigismund took the initiative and mounted a crusade composed of German, Hungarian, and Vlach contingents, as well as a force of 10,000 men sent by the king of France under the command of John the Fearless, son of the Duke of Burgundy. The crusade ended in a bloody defeat at Nicopolis on September 28, 1396. The new sultan, Bayezid, became master of the Balkans. The Ottoman danger, however, was temporarily delayed by a conflict between Bayezid and the Mongol prince Tamerlan Khan in 1402. Bayezid's grandson Murat II (1421-1451) reestablished Ottoman power, and the Serbs and Bulgars who had been briefly emancipated in the early 15^th century yielded to the Ottoman regime again. The Turks, however, met fierce resistance from the Albanians, a people of shepherds isolated in their mountains, and who had been successively subjects of Byzantium, the Bulgars, the Serbs, and from the beginning of the 15^th century, the Ottomans as well. Under the leadership of Skanderbeg, a nobleman and a Turkish government official, Albanian tribes rose and Skanderbeg proclaimed himself Prince of Albania and Epirus. The Albanian uprising coincided with a Hungarian intervention in Serbia under the leader of the Vajda of Transylvania, Janos Hunyadi. It was Hungary's response to the call for a crusade put forth by the Council of Florence in 1439. Hunyadi was successful at Nich in 1443, and pushed the Turks back as far as Sophia. During the battle, however, the king of Bohemia and Hungary, Vladislas I, was killed as was the papal delegate, Cesarini. Almost simultaneously, Skanderbeg was defeated at Kosovo.

Janos Hunyadi reinitiated the struggle in 1448. Defeated at first in

Serbia, between 1448 and 1452 he set up a system of fortresses along the Hungaro-Serbian borders which was dominated by the fortress of Belgrade, entrusted to Hunyadi by the Serbs. After Mohammed II took Constantinople on May 29, 1453--by which time the Turks were in firm control of the Balkans--the Turks launched a major offensive on the West. At the request of Pope Calixtus III and his legate John Capistrano, Hunyadi organized the defense of Belgrade. On August 6, 1456, he successfully withstood Turkish assaults, but both he and Capistrano were wounded. Both died a few days later, but Hungary had earned a reputation as the "Shield of Christianity. " In honor of the victory at Belgrade, the Pope ordered that the bells of all Christian churches ring the midday angelus. The Turks were on the defensive against Matthias Corvinus. Preoccupied as they were with absorbing their last conquest, the Byzantine Empire, the Turks neglected the Balkans. Corvinus briefly recaptured Bosnia in 1463, Moldavia and Wallachia in 1467, and Serbia in 1482, but he was not able to force the Turks out of the Balkans.

The Final Assault of the Turks

After the death of Matthias Corvinus, the regions that he had liberated were quickly recaptured by the Turks. In spite of resistance by the Vlach prince, Vlad the Impaler, Wallachia became a vassal state of the sultan, and was soon followed by Moldavia. In the early 16^th century, the Turks continued their westward advance, reaching the plains of the Sava valley and circumventing the obstacle of the fortress of Belgrade, which they finally managed to take in 1521. The Turks were in a fortunate position. They had as an ally the French king, Francis I, who was involved in a quarrel with Charles V. They also benefited from the weakening of Hungary under the successors of Matthias Corvinus, Vladislav II Jagiello (1490-1516) and his son Louis II (1516-1526), who were embroiled in a struggle with the aristocracy with the peasant revolt of George Dozsa. They were thus unable to resist the Turkish threat without assistance. The two sovereigns also ruled Bohemia, but any assistance they might have wished for was limited by the permanent religious struggles in that country. Louis II appealed to western rulers for help several times, but in vain. The king of France was allied with the Turks, and Emperor Charles V was busy at war against France and also occupied by the religious crisis in Germany. Moreover, by the beginning of the 16^th century the idea of a crusade had been dead for a long time. When the Turks invaded Hungary in 1525, Louis II could offer only weak resistance. The Vajda (viceroy) of Transylvania, John Zapolyai, did not even condescend to reply to his call for help. At the battle of Mohacs on August 29, 1526, the Hungarian army,

including the majority of Magyar aristocracy, was crushed, and Louis II drowned in the Csele creek, pulled down by his armour. As well as its king, Hungary lost its independence that day. From then on, only the Habsburg monarchy, carefully reorganized by Charles V, could stop the Turks.

THE HABSBURGS AGAINST THE TURKS AND THE REFORMATION

Mohacs marked the definitive end of the age of national independent monarchies in Central Europe. Only the great powers of western Europe--France and the Holy Roman Empire--could defend Christianity from the threat posed by the Turkish advance. As France had become a Turkish ally under Francis I, the defense of the Christian world thus fell to the Holy Roman Empire under the reign of the Habsburgs. It was less a matter of reconquest than of salvaging what could still be saved; Hungary was considered lost.

The Consequences of Mohacs

The defeat of the Hungarian Army and the death of King Louis II on the battlefield at Mohacs had two serious consequences. First, Hungary was at the mercy of the Turkish armies. Fortunately, after pillaging and rampaging through the central and southern plains of the country, these armies returned to their bases in the Balkans. Secondly and more significantly, the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary were left vacant with the untimely passing of Louis II. In a Bohemia divided again by religious strife kindled by Luther's ideas, the Diet announced its support for the brother-in-law of the deceased king, Archduke Ferdinand of Habsburg, also brother of Charles V. In Hungary, the succession was a more difficult matter. A diet dominated by the petty gentry designated the Vajda of Transylvania, John Zapolyai, as king, with hopes that this prince who had not participated in the struggle against the Turks would be able to forestall further attacks on the country. Another diet dominated by the high nobility held at Pozsony in 1526, however, decided against the "national" candidate in favor of the "German" one--Ferdinand, already king of Bohemia. While Zapolyai was Hungarian and not in the bad graces of the Turks, Ferdinand of Habsburg was not only related to the deceased king, giving him a certain legitimacy, but also offered greater security to the country. Ferdinand had behind him all the strength of both the Holy Roman Empire and the countries under the crown of Spain. Hungary thus had two kings, each with the support of a part of the country: Zapolyai in Transylvania, and Ferdinand in western and northern Hungary. Each tried energetically to oust his rival. Ferdinand I (1526-1560) took Buda on August 20, 1527, from Sultan Sulijman, who fled to Poland. Zapolyai (1526-1560) allied himself with the Turks, and with their help was able to

establish himself in Transylvania, which he made the base of his power.

The breakup of the Hungarian kingdom after Mohacs altered the status of Transylvania. Until the 16^th century, Transylvania had been an integral part of the Hungarian kingdom, with the same laws and institutions. The presence of a Vajda as representative of the king was explained by the geographical distance between Transylvania and Buda, the center of the state. With Zapolyai, Transylvania became an independent principality, with a diet at Gyulafehervar composed of delegates from the three privileged nationalities--Magyar, Saxon, and Szekely--whose role it was to elect the prince and to assist him through a council elected by the Diet. For two centuries, Transylvania would attempt to become a Hungarian state, yet one independent of the Habsburgs. It was to play the role of a third power between the Habsburgs and the Turks.

Reform and Counter- Reform in Central Europe

The Turkish advance into the Danubian region coincided with the breakup of Christian unity in Central Europe caused by the Protestant Reformation. Moral and religious unity had already been severely shaken in the 15^th century by the heresies of Wiclif and Hus. In the Holy Roman Empire, the need for ecclesiastic reform was almost universally accepted, but the interpretations of the means to attain it differed. In Bohemia, Hussite ideas remained firmly entrenched among a large portion of the population, and the United Brotherhood continued to spread them.

In the early 16^th century, the fragile religious peace in Bohemia was shattered by the preachings and writings of Luther and his disciples. Luther's ideas, set forth in his Ninety-five Theses posted in November 1517, called into question both church doctrine on salvation and the authority of the Pope and the church hierarchy. His ideas were very similar to those expressed by Hus over a century earlier. Condemned by Rome in 1520, Luther's ideas resounded throughout the Empire and launched a lively polemic. Many German princes took advantage of the situation to secularize the holdings of the Church, as the Czech lords had done a century earlier. In Bohemia and Hungary, Lutheran thought was well received at the court of Louis II, encouraged by Queen Maria. Lutheranism developed rapidly in Bohemia, uniting Germans and Czechs formerly divided by Hussite ideas. Some of the Utraquistes who had been reconciled with Rome after the agreement of 1436 came over to Luther's position, proclaiming the Scriptures to be the only source of faith. In spite of certain differences, Bohemian Lutherans and the United Brotherhood settled on a compromise in 1542. It appeared that the reformation had triumphed. Despite some difficulties, the United Brotherhood remained active, particularly in the cultural field. Their bishop Jan Blahoslav (1523-1571) was an active humanist. He founded a school and

a printing press at Ivancine, where a Czech grammar book, the Bible of Kralice, and numerous works of religious music were published.

As a German in Hungary, Luther initially was not well received. Only the German communities in the cities paid any attention to his ideas. In Transylvania, the city of Brasso (Kronstadt), in which many Saxon colonists resided, was the first city to turn to Lutheranism largely through the efforts of John Honterus. The mining cities of Upper Hungary, also inhabited by German colonists, followed shortly thereafter. Finally, at the moment when the Turkish armies were about to descend on Hungary, the Reformation made its appearance among the Hungarian populations on the plains of the Tisza and the Transdanubia. The Reformation was even more successful after 1553 in its Calvinist form. In the part of Hungary that remained in the hands of the Habsburgs and particularly in the areas occupied by the Turks, Calvin's ideas spread rapidly. The Turks assisted their spread by weakening the Habsburgs. In the Middle of the 16^th century, the city of Debrecen became the spiritual center of Hungarian Calvinism, under the direction of Martin Kalmancsehi, former canon of Gyulafehervar, who preached reform among the Hungarians of Transylvania. Protestants rapidly became a majority in Transylvania, where Church properties were quickly secularized. Side by side, Hungarian Calvinism and German Lutheranism opposed a Catholicism that was clearly diminished in size and influence, but that retained firm bases of support. In Transylvania, the Reformation proved to be tolerant, and the Diet of Torda proclaimed freedom of religion in 1558. In Hungary as in Bohemia, the Reformation showed intellectual leanings, favoring the vernacular language instead of Latin. In 1591, the humanist reformer Gaspar Heltai finished his translation of the Bible into Hungarian. Numerous Protestant colleges opened, some in Transylvania, others in Habsburg- Hungary, or in territory occupied by the Turks. The most famous were those at Sarospatak (still in use today), at Debrecen, and at Papa.

Rome did not stand idly by watching the fragmentation of western Christianity--particularly at a moment when Islam was gaining firm ground in the Danubian countries. In the Holy Roman Empire, the Peace of Augsburg concluded in 1555 formally recognized the Lutherans. The Habsburgs, however, in their role as traditional defenders of the Catholic faith, had not given up the desire of destroying Protestantism in their hereditary possessions--by force if necessary. Rome chose to act more by persuasion, countering the Protestant Reformation with the Counter- Reformation, which was essentially a Catholic Reformation. Elaborated at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and entrusted to the Jesuits, the Counter-Reformation successfully won back a number of followers and positions that had been lost, notably in southern Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland.

The Counter-Reformation was most violent in Bohemia, because of the radical position adopted by the reformers and because under the pretext of religious reform, royal authority was called into question. At the beginning of the reign of Ferdinand I, religious peace ruled in Bohemia. Conflict broke out, however, when the king decided to raise an army without consent from the Diet in order to combat the German Protestants of the Smalkald League. Prague and most of the cities rose up declaring themselves for the League, and after defeating the German Protestants in 1547, King Ferdinand punished the rebellious cities harshly. He took away their hard-won privileges, installed Catholic administrators, and deprived them of their wealth by confiscating the land they owned in the flat country and giving it to the Catholic nobility. Taking advantage of his position, in 1554 Ferdinand successfully convinced the Diet to vote for the hereditary monarchy of the Habsburgs in Bohemia. Also concerned with reestablishing the position of the Catholic Church, the king abandoned the policy of tolerance he had practiced up until then. The United Brotherhood and the Utraquistes converted to Lutheranism were severely persecuted, as were their sympathizers. Taking over the business of restoration, in 1556 the Jesuits opened a university, the Clementium, in Prague. In Moravia they founded the colleges of Olomouc in 1566 and Brno in 1572. Jesuit colleges welcomed the sons of noble families, and these later became the zealous propagators of the Catholic Reformation. The successors to Ferdinand, Maximilian II (1564-1576) and Rudolph II (1576-1612) carried on the efforts against heresy. However, in 1575 a Czech Confession modeled on the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 was accepted by the king, and established a climate of relative tolerance. In Hungary, on the other hand, tolerance dominated in all areas, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation moved more slowly and with a much more tolerant attitude, even when it gained the upper hand in the 17^th century.

Conflict with the Turks

In early 1529, the Turks reappeared in Hungary and established firm bases on the South Hungarian plain. They benefited appreciably from the support of the national king, John Zapolyai. On August 18, 1529, "king" Zapolyai paid homage to Sultan Suliman II. His hostility to the Habsburg King Ferdinand led him to offer Hungary to the Turks, and it was in his name that the Turks made war on the country, "liberating" Buda on September 7. Only western Hungary and the mountainous regions of the north and northwest remained under the Habsburgs. Nevertheless, despite the Hungarian captain Jurisich's victory over the Turks at Koszeg between August 10-29, 1532, Ferdinand I was forced to negotiate. Like his Transylvanian rival, he became a vassal of the sultan with

jurisdiction over the part of Hungary that he controlled. He and Zapolyai quickly realized that their rivalry profited only the Turks, and in 1538 they concluded the Peace of Nagyvarad. The agreement stipulated that upon Zapolyai's death the crown would return to the Habsburgs, but that during his life Zapolyai would retain the title in Transylvania. At the death of Ferdinand I, his successor, Maximilian (1564-1576) alone held the title of King of Hungary, while Zapolyai's son John-Sigmund became Prince of Transylvania. For the second half of the 16^th century, the Habsburgs attempted to contain the advance of the Turks, with moderate success. At the close of the 16^th century, the Habsburgs consolidated their position as defenders of Catholicism and champions of the struggle against Islam. They reigned uncontested over the parts of Bohemia and Hungary which were not controlled by the Turks. It was the beginning of a multinational empire possessing enough power from its Germanic possessions to seriously consider clearing the Turks out of the Danubian basin.

A HAVEN OF PEACE: POLAND IN THE 15^TH AND 16^TH CENTURIES

Poland Under the First Jagiellons (1382-1572)

Upon the death of Louis d'Anjou, Poland was again confronted with the problem of succession. The deceased king had promised his daughter, Hedwig, to the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Jagiellon. Hedwig was proclaimed queen at the age of 10 in 1384, and she brought to the throne her husband, who was baptized with the name of Ladislas II (Wladyslaw II). Under Hedwig and Ladislas II (1386-1434), a union was affected between Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The union fostered the spread of Christianity in Lithuania, where the bishopric of Wilno was founded. It also allowed the Lithuanians to escape the grasp of the Teutonic Knights, who attempted to intervene and were defeated at the battle of Tannenberg. The Polono -Lithuanian victory regained Lithuania an access to the Baltic Sea. The Polono-Lithuanian union continued after the death of Ladislas II. His son, Ladislas III (1434-1444), who also reigned over Hungary after 1440, took part in the struggle against the Turks and died in the disastrous battle at Varna. He was succeeded by Ladislas II's other son Casimir IV Jagiellon (1444-1492), who battled the Teutonic Knights from 1454 to 1466. With the Peace of Torun, Casimir IV regained Pomerania between the Oder and the Vistula rivers. Poland also recovered an important maritime outlet, the port of Gdansk.

Under the first Jagiellons, Poland and Lithuania became an enormous

state that reached from the Baltic to the steppes of the Ukraine. The cities, long populated by foreigners--mostly Germans--slowly became more Polish. The best example of this is the capital of Krakow, where by the end of the 15^th century the Polish element had become a majority. Crakow was also the cultural capital of the country with a university founded in 1364. In the 15^th century, Krakow's intellectuals distinguished themselves in theology, mathematics, and particularly in astronomy. Gakow's native son Nicolas Copernicus made the city famous in the early 16^th century. By the mid-17^th century, over 700 attended the University of Krakow. The organization of the state was refined under Casimir Jagiellon. Along with the functions of the king and the high dignitaries of the kingdom--including the Archbishop Primate, entrusted with the continuity of the state in case of a power vacuum--Casimir Jagiellon established rules for the operation of the Diet. It was to be made up of two assemblies, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, both elected by the nobility. A principle was established requiring the unanimous consent of the senators and deputies for any new law, public or private. This provision was to cripple the operation of the Diet in years to come.

Poland's Golden Age

The military victories of the first Jagiellons gave Poland the strength to stand as an independent great power against the Holy Roman Empire and the Teutonic Knights in the west and in the north, and against the Tartars and the rising Muscovite state in the east. They also afforded the country an era of peace in the 16^th century, which fostered the birth and development of a brilliant civilization. The absence of problems of succession and the advance toward a dynastic monarchy strengthened institutional stability. Although the first two successors to Casimir Jagiellon, Albert (1492-1501) and Alexander (1501-1506) reigned only briefly, Sigismund I (1506-1548) reigned long enough to prepare the way for a hereditary monarchy. Sigismund had only one son, and in 1530 had him recognized as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Sigismund Augustus (1548-1572) inherited both crowns without difficulty upon his father's death, and the union of Poland and Lithuania was consolidated. In fact, Sigismund Augustus had the Diet of 1569 adopt the Union of Lublin, a decision that made Poland and Lithuania a united and indivisible state. The consolidation was not complete as each of the two parts kept their own legal and judicial systems as well as their own armies, but a republic was formulated with a common sovereign elected by a Sejm (Diet) representing both nations. The resulting Great Poland encompassed more than 325,000 sq. miles of territory, contained nearly eight million inhabitants, and lasted for nearly two centuries. As was the Habsburg monarchy's formation at the same time,

Poland was a multinational state in which the Polish majority coexisted with urban-based Germans, as well as with Lithuanians and Ukrainians. In the 16^th century, Poland was profoundly affected by the Reformation. The Lutheran reform movement first reached the northern towns with their German populations. In 1525, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Albert of Brandenberg, secularized the property of his order and took the title of Duke of Prussia, vassal of the Polish king. Within a few years, all of the towns on the Baltic coast had become Lutheran. At first, King Sigismund I was opposed to the Reformation. In 1526, he crushed a Lutheran sedition at Gdansk, but the development of the Reformation was so obvious that a climate of tolerance slowly took shape. German Poles and Polish intellectuals accepted nearly all of the principles of the Reformation. As in Hungary, the Germans followed Luther while Calvin's ideas found more of a following among the Poles. By the middle of the 16^th century, Poland was a multi-religious state where, as in Transylvania, tolerance became official in 1572. Despite condemnation by the Catholic clergy, mixed marriages were frequent and accepted by the civil authorities. And when Henry of Valois was elected King of Poland in 1573, he took on the cause of preserving religious peace. Ironically, he was the brother of the French king Charles IX, who ordered the St. Bartholomew Day massacre. Before receiving the royal crown, however, Henry announced "I will see that peace reigns among those whom religion brings into discord." As tolerance was the official policy, the Catholic Church attempted to recover lost territories through peaceful means. The Bishop of Varmy, Stanislas Hosius, was the main architect of the Polish Counter-Reformation. In 1551 he published the Confession of Catholic faith, in which he advocated the principle doctrines of Catholicism. Hosius became a cardinal in 1560, participated in the Council of Trent, and subsequently moved to Rome. At his request, the Jesuits entered Poland in 1564 and reestablished the reputation of the University of Krakow. Colleges were founded throughout the country, notably at Wilno, Poznan, and Warsaw. The Catholic reconquest was facilitated by the activities of a number of preachers, one of the most eloquent and active of which was the Jesuit P. Skarga (1536-1612). The Catholic Church tried to bring Poland's new subjects, the Orthodox Ukrainians, back into the fold of the Roman church. The resulting Compromise of Brest-Litovsk gave birth to the Uniate Church, which recognized the authority of the Pope while keeping the Greek rites. The climate of tolerance favored the development of humanism and scientific advancement. King Sigismund, who had married an Italian princess, Bona Sforza, was a well educated patron of the arts and letters, as was his son Sigismund Augustus. The University of Krakow came into its hour of glory with the accomplishments of the School of Astronomy,

exemplified by Copernicus. Nicolas Copernicus was born in Torun in 1473, and was considered the archetypal Renaissance man after having studied in Krakow, Prague, Padua, Bologna, and Ferrara. Copernicus held doctorates in canon law and in medicine, but is best known for his treatise De Revolutionibus Oribium Celestium, in which he put forth the idea of a helio-centric solar system as well as a modified view of orbital rotation. Copernicus was also interested in economics, and laid the groundwork for a study on monetary systems which foreshadowed the subsequent works of Gresham. The University of Krakow also was an active center in the field of ancient and eastern languages, and led the publication of works on history and geography. The spiritual and intellectual wealth of Poland in the 16th century was matched by obvious economic prosperity. The Polish aristocracy continued with a policy pioneered in the 14th century of systematically clearing and developing land. As tax moneys did not match the increase in prices, the nobility imposed a compulsory labor duty instead. In the 16th century, wealthy Polish businessmen moved into the area of grain, exporting Polish grain to Mediterranean Europe and in particular to the cities of northern and northwestern Europe. The port of Gdansk blossomed accordingly. Mining industries, on the other hand, underwent a prolonged period of economic stagnation.

Successes of the Counter-Reformation

The death of Sigismund Augustus, last of the Jagiellon family, put an end to the attempt to establish a hereditary monarchy in Poland. Led by John Zamoyski, the gentry won the right for all nobles of any rank to participate directly in the royal election. After eliminating a Habsburg prince, the Diet offered the throne to the brother of the king of France, Prince Henry of Valois, in 1573. King Henry spent little time in his kingdom, and even less after the death of his brother, when he returned to France to reign as Henry III. The crown was finally offered to Stefan Batory ( 1 575- 1 587), who was able to bring his adversaries together in order to maintain the policy of tolerance. He did, however, give the Counter-Reformation his full support as well as increasing donations to the Jesuits. Many noble families who had accepted the Reformation at the beginning of the 16th century returned to the Catholic Church. Through Stefan Batory, the Jesuits' educational efforts were very successful. The college at Wilno became a university run by the Jesuits, and was attended not only by Catholic students but by Protestants and Uniates as well. Still, the success of the Counter-Reformation never brought on a persecution of the Protestants: they were allowed to keep their churches and

schools. Protestant culture also experienced a period of brilliance toward the end of the century, due largely to the existence of a literary society grouped around the Italian humanist, Lelio Sozzino, a resident of Krakow since 1579. His disciples, known as the Polish Brethren, founded a center of protestant culture complete with schools and a printing press in the village of Krakow, near Sandomir. There, they developed original ideas on war and on the freedom of conscience--ideas which made them more humanists in the tradition of Erasmus than religious militants. By then, however, without persecutions or a war of religion, Poland had become a Catholic country. At the close of the 16th century, what we call Eastern Europe was completely fragmented. The Balkans and part of Hungary were in the hands of the Turks, while the rest of Hungary and the kingdom of Bohemia had been integrated into the Habsburg monarchy--the single western Christian bulwark standing against the Turks. Only Poland had managed to remain independent and even thrive during the period. To the diversity of political experience was added the disintegration of a long-standing religious unity that had spiritually and morally united Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland. From then on, divisive forces seemed destined to overcome desire for reunification--probably the most decisive factor governing the fate of nations in this part of Europe.

Henry Bogdan: From Warsaw To Sofia