Part 59

"About the end of the 12th century a new and singular species of magistracy was introduced into the Lombard cities. During the tyranny of Frederic I. [Frederick Barbarossa] he had appointed officers of his own, called podestas, instead of the elective consuls. It is remarkable that this memorial of despotic power should not have excited insuperable alarm and disgust in the free republics. But, on the contrary, they almost universally, after the peace of Constance, revived an office which had been abrogated when they first rose in rebellion against Frederic. From experience, as we must presume, of the partiality which their domestic factions carried into the administration of justice, it became a general practice to elect, by the name of podesta, a citizen of some neighbouring state as their general, their criminal judge, and preserver of the peace. … The podesta was sometimes chosen in a general assembly, sometimes by a select number of citizens. His office was annual, though prolonged in peculiar emergencies. He was invariably a man of noble family, even in those cities which excluded their own nobility from any share in the government. He received a fixed salary, and was compelled to remain in the city after the expiration of his office for the purpose of answering such charges as might be adduced against his conduct. He could neither marry a native of the city, nor have any relation resident within the district, nor even, so great was their jealousy, eat or drink in the house of any citizen. The authority of these foreign magistrates was not by any means alike in all cities. In some he seems to have superseded the consuls, and commanded the armies in war. In others, as Milan and Florence, his authority was merely judicial."

_H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 69._

PODIEBRAD, George, King of Bohemia, A. D. 1458-1471.

POINT PLEASANT, Battle of.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

POISSY, The Colloquy at.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1560-1563.

POITIERS: Original names.

Limonum, a town of the Gauls, acquired later the name of Pictavi, which has become in modern times Poitiers.

POITIERS:A. D. 1569. Siege by the Huguenots.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

POITIERS, Battle of.

A battle was fought September 19, 1356, near the city of Poitiers, in France, by the English, under the "Black Prince," the famous son of Edward III., with the French commanded personally by their king, John II. The advantage in numbers was on the side of the French, but the position of the English was in their favor, inasmuch as it gave little opportunity to the cavalry of the French, which was their strongest arm. The English archers won the day, as in so many other battles of that age. The French were sorely beaten and their king was taken prisoner.

_Froissart, Chronicles, (translated by Johnes), book 1, chapters 157-166._

See FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360.

POITIERS, Edict of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1577-1578.

POITOU: Origin of the name.

See PICTONES.

POITOU: The rise of the Counts.

See TOULOUSE: 10-11th CENTURIES.

POITOU: The Counts become Dukes of Aquitaine or Guienne.

See AQUITAINE: A. D. 884-1151.

POKANOKETS, WAMPANOAGS, The.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636; AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY; NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1674-1675, 1675, 1676-1678.

POLA, Naval battle of (1379).

See VENICE: A. D. 1378-1379.

POLAND: Start--------

POLAND. The Name.

"The word Pole is not older than the tenth century, and seems to have been originally applied, not so much to the people as to the region they inhabited; 'polska' in the Slavonic tongue signifying a level field or plain."

_S. A. Dunham, History of Poland, introduction._

POLAND: The ancestors of the race.

See LYGIANS.

POLAND: Beginnings of national existence.

"The Poles were a nation whose name does not occur in history before the middle of the tenth century; and we owe to Christianity the first intimations that we have regarding this people. Mieczislaus [or Miceslaus] I., the first duke or prince of the Poles of whom we possess any authentic accounts, embraced Christianity (966) at the solicitation of his spouse, Dambrowka, sister of Boleslaus II., duke of Bohemia. Shortly after, the first bishopric in Poland, that of Posen, was founded by Otho the Great. Christianity did not, however, tame the ferocious habits of the Poles, who remained for a long time without the least progress in mental cultivation. Their government, as wretched as that of Bohemia, subjected the great body of the nation to the most debasing servitude. {2546} The ancient sovereigns of Poland were hereditary. They ruled most despotically, and with a rod of iron; and, although they acknowledged themselves vassals and tributaries of the German emperors, they repeatedly broke out into open rebellion, asserted their absolute independence, and waged a successful war against their masters. Boleslaus, son of Mieczislaus I., took advantage of the troubles which rose in Germany on the death of Otho III., to possess himself of the Marches of Lusatia and Budissin, or Bautzen, which the Emperor Henry II. afterwards granted him as fiefs. This same prince, in despite of the Germans, on the death of Henry II. (1025), assumed the royal dignity. Mieczislaus II., son of Boleslaus, after having cruelly ravaged the country situate between the Oder, the Elbe, and the Saal, was compelled to abdicate the throne, and also to restore those provinces which his father had wrested from the Empire. The male descendants of Mieczislaus I. reigned in Poland until the death of Casimir the Great (1370). This dynasty of kings is known by the name of the Piasts, or Piasses, so called from one Piast, alleged to have been its founder."

_W. Koch, History of Revolutions in Europe, chapter 4._

ALSO IN: _S. A. Dunham, History of Poland, chapters 1-2._

POLAND: A. D. 1096. The refuge of the Jews.

See JEWS: 11-17th CENTURIES.

POLAND: A. D. 1240-1241. Mongol invasion.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294.

POLAND: 13-14th Centuries. Growing power and increasing dominion. Encroachments on Russia.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.

POLAND: A. D. 1333-1572. The union with Lithuania and the reign of the Jagellon dynasty. Conquest of Prussia and its grant to Grandmaster Albert.

Casimir III., or Casimir the Great, the last Polish king of the Piast line, ascended the throne in 1333. "Polish historians celebrate the good deeds of this king for the internal prosperity of Poland—his introduction of a legal code, his just administration, his encouragement of learning, and his munificence in founding churches, schools, and hospitals. The great external question of his reign was that of the relations of Poland to the two contiguous powers of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights of Prussia and the Baltic provinces. On the one hand, Poland, as a Christian country, had stronger ties of connexion with the Teutonic Knights than with Lithuania. On the other hand, ties of race and tradition connected Poland with Lithuania; and the ambitious policy of the Teutonic Knights, who aimed at the extension of their rule at the expense of Poland and Lithuania, and also jealously shut out both countries from the Baltic coast, and so from the advantages of commerce, tended to increase the sympathy between the Poles and the Lithuanians. A happy solution was at length given to this question. Casimir, dying in 1370, left no issue but a daughter, named Hedvige; and the Crown of Poland passed to his nephew Louis of Anjou, at that time also King of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.

Louis, occupied with the affairs of Hungary, neglected those of Poland, and left it exposed to the attacks of the Lithuanians. He became excessively unpopular among the Poles; and, after his death in 1384, they proclaimed Hedvige Queen of Poland. In 1386, a marriage was arranged between this princess and Jagellon, Duke of Lithuania—Jagellon agreeing to be baptized, and to establish Christianity among his hitherto heathen subjects. Thus Poland and Lithuania were united; and a new dynasty of Polish kings was founded, called the dynasty of the Jagellons. The rule of this dynasty, under seven successive kings (1386-1572) constitutes the flourishing epoch of Polish history, to which at the present day the Poles look fondly back when they would exalt the glory and greatness of their country. … The effect of the union of Poland and Lithuania was at once felt in Europe. The first Jagellon, who on his baptism took the name of Uladislav II., and whom one fancies as still a sort of rough half-heathen by the side of the beautiful Polish Hedvige, spent his whole reign (1386-1434) in consolidating the union and turning it to account. He defended Lithuania against the Tartar hordes then moving westward before the impulse of the conquering Tamerlane. But his chief activity was against the Teutonic Knights. … He engaged in a series of wars against the knights, which ended in a great victory gained over them at Tannenburg in 1410. By this victory the power of the knights was broken for the time, and their territories placed at the mercy of the Poles. During the reign of Uladislav III., the second of the Jagellons (1434-1444), the knights remained submissive, and that monarch was able to turn his arms, in conjunction with the Hungarians, against a more formidable enemy—the Turks—then beginning their invasions of Europe. Uladislav III. having been slain in battle against the Turks at Varna, the Teutonic Knights availed themselves of the confusion which followed, to try to recover their power. By this time, however, their Prussian subjects were tired of their rule; Dantzic, Elbing, Thorn, and other towns, as well as the landed proprietors and the clergy of various districts, formed a league against them; and, on the accession of Casimir IV., the third of the Jagellons, to the Polish throne (1447), all Western Prussia revolted from the knights and placed itself under his protection. A terrific war ensued, which was brought to a close in 1466 by the peace of Thorn. By this notable treaty, the independent sovereignty of the Teutonic order in the countries they had held for two centuries was extinguished—the whole of Western Prussia, with the city of Marienburg, and other districts, being annexed to the Polish crown, with guarantees for the preservation of their own forms of administration; and the knights being allowed to retain certain districts of Eastern Prussia, only as vassals of Poland. Thus Poland was once more in possession of that necessity of its existence as a great European state—a seaboard on the Baltic. Exulting in an acquisition for which they had so long struggled, the Poles are said to have danced with joy as they looked on the blue waves and could call them their own. Casimir IV., the hero of this important passage in Polish history, died in 1492; and, though during the reigns of his successors—John Albertus (1492-1501), and Alexander (1501-1506)—the Polish territories suffered some diminution in the direction of Russia, the fruits of the treaty of Thorn were enjoyed in peace. In the reign of the sixth of the Jagellonidæ, however—Sigismund I. (1506-1547)—the Teutonic Knights made an attempt to throw off their allegiance to Poland. {2547} The attempt was made in singular circumstances, and led to a singular conclusion. The grand-master of the Teutonic order at this time was Albert of Brandenburg …, a descendant [in the Anspach branch] of that astute Hohenzollern family which in 1411 had possessed itself of the Marquisate of Brandenburg. Albert, carrying out a scheme entertained by the preceding grand-master, refused homage for the Prussian territories of his order to the Polish king Sigismund, and even prepared to win back what the order had lost by the treaty of Thorn. Sigismund, who was uncle to Albert, defeated his schemes, and proved the superiority of the Polish armies over the forces of the once great but now effete order. Albert found it his best policy to submit, and this he did in no ordinary fashion. The Reformation was then in the first flush of its progress over the Continent, and the Teutonic Order of Knights, long a practical anachronism in Europe, was losing even the slight support it still had in surrounding public opinion, as the new doctrines changed men's ideas. What was more, the grand-master himself imbibed Protestant opinions and was a disciple of Luther and Melancthon. He resolved to bring down the fabric of the order about his ears and construct for himself a secular principality out of its ruins. Many of the knights shared or were gained over to his views; so he married a princess, and they took themselves wives—all becoming Protestants together, with the exception of a few tough old knights who transferred their chapter to Mergentheim in Würtemberg, where it remained, a curious relic, till the time of Napoleon. The secularization was formally completed at Cracow in April, 1525. There, in a square before the royal palace, on a throne emblazoned with the arms of Poland and Lithuania—a white eagle for the one, and a mounted knight for the other—the Polish king Sigismund received … the banner of the order, the knights standing by and agreeing to the surrender. In return, Sigismund embraced the late grand-master as Duke of Prussia, granting to him and the knights the former possessions of the order, as secular vassals of the Polish crown. The remainder of Sigismund's reign was worthy of this beginning; and at no time was Poland more flourishing than when his son, Sigismund II., the seventh of the Jagellonidæ, succeeded him on the throne. During the wise reign of this prince (1547-1572), whose tolerant policy in the matter of the great religious controversy then agitating Europe is not his least title to credit, Poland lost nothing of her prosperity or her greatness; and one of its last transactions was the consummation of the union between the two nations of Poland and Lithuania by their formal incorporation into one kingdom at the Diet of Lublin (July 1, 1569). But, alas for Poland, this seventh of the Jagellonidæ was also the last, and, on his death in 1572, Poland entered on that career of misery and decline, with the reminiscences of which her name is now associated."

_Poland: her History and Prospects (Westminster Review, January, 1855)._

ALSO IN: _H. Tuttle, History of Prussia, to Frederick the Great, chapter 4._

_S. A. Dunham, History of Poland, book 1, chapter 3._

POLAND: A. D. 1439. Election of Ladislaus III. to the throne of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.

POLAND: A. D. 1471-1479. War with Matthias of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1471-1487.

POLAND: A. D. 1505-1588. Enslavement of the peasantry.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: POLAND.

POLAND: A. D. 1573. Election of Henry of Valois to the throne. The Pacta Conventa.

On the election of Henry of Valois, Duke of Anjou, to the Polish throne (see FRANCE: A. D. 1573-1576), he was required to subscribe to a series of articles, known as the Pacta Conventa (and sometimes called the Articles of Henry), which were intended to be the basis of all future covenants between the Poles and their elective sovereigns. The chief articles of the Pacta Conventa were the following:

"1. That the king should not in the remotest degree attempt to influence the senate in the choice of a successor; but should leave inviolable to the Polish nobles the right of electing one at his decease.

2. That he should not assume the title of 'master' and 'heir' of the monarchy, as borne by all preceding kings.

3. That he should observe the treaty of peace made with the dissidents.

4. That he should not declare war, or dispatch the nobles on any expedition, without the previous sanction of the diet.

5. That he should not impose taxes or contributions of any description.

6. That he should not have any authority to appoint ambassadors to foreign courts.

7. That in case of different opinions prevailing among the senators, he should espouse such only as were in accordance with the laws, and clearly advantageous to the nation.

8. That he should be furnished with a permanent council, the members of which (16 in number; viz. 4 bishops, 4 palatines, and 8 castellans) should be changed every half year, and should be selected by the ordinary diets.

9. That a general diet should be convoked every two years, or oftener, if required.

10. That the duration of each diet should not exceed six weeks.

11. That no dignities or benefices should be conferred on other than natives.

12. That the king should neither marry nor divorce a wife without the permission of the diet.

The violation of any one of these articles, even in spirit, was to be considered by the Poles as absolving them from their oaths of allegiance, and as empowering them to elect another ruler."

_S. A. Dunham, History of Poland, book 2, chapter 1._

POLAND: A. D. 1574-1590. Disgraceful abandonment of the throne by Henry of Valois. Election of Stephen Batory. His successful wars with Russia, and his death. Election of Sigismund III., of Sweden.