The Extraordinary Expat Women of Mediaeval Poland

saint_hedwig_statue_zabrze.jpg, default, Fragment of statue of St Jadwiga at church of St Jadwiga in Zabrze, 2018, photo: Adrian Tync / Wikimedia.org

#heritage

Many impressive, memorable and curious people contributed to the development of Poland during the Middle Ages, when the Polish people and state emerged between ca. 950 and ca. 1500. Some of the most significant contributors were women. Here, we take a look at their wide-ranging and influential contributions – and the marvellous places which are connected with them on Poland’s map.

Significantly, the most noteworthy women in mediaeval Polish history represent the great diversity of the premodern Polish people and state. Mediaeval and early modern Poland was incredibly and uniquely heterogeneous in terms of ethnicity, language, culture and religion. Its territory was constantly shifting, unpredictably including or excluding different lands and peoples. Indeed, the category ‘Polish’ is almost impossible to define in exclusive terms for the premodern period. Poland’s stand-out female historical figures both reflected and inspired this diversity.

Nowadays, modern curiosity-seekers can investigate and track the legacies of these women at various sites spread across Central Europe, some of them within the boundaries of modern Poland and some of them well beyond those boundaries. They continue to demonstrate the exciting and intriguing diversity of what it has meant to be Polish during the past thousand years. Four examples suffice to reveal this diversity, described here chronologically.

St Jadwiga of Silesia

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Tomb of St Jadwiga in Trzebnica, photo: Łukasz Giza / AG

Picture image

sarkofag_rzezba_sw_jadwiga_ag.jpg

St Jadwiga of Silesia (also referred to as St Hedwig of Silesia) helped shape both the church and the state in mediaeval Poland. She was born in Bavaria in 1174 into the House of Andechs, an influential German noble family that already had properties and titles across different parts of Europe. After receiving a primary education in Franconia, Jadwiga was married in 1186 to Prince Henry of Silesia, an heir to one of the Piast dukes of mediaeval Poland, during a time when the Polish kingdom was fractured into different warring duchies. Even after Henry inherited the Duchy of Silesia in 1201, he fought for 30 years – supported faithfully by Jadwiga – to maintain and reclaim his territory, property, and privileges. When Henry was captured by the Duke of Mazovia in 1529, Jadwiga traveled to Płock and ardently negotiated for his release. In subsequent years as Henry’s consort, Jadwiga became Duchess of Silesia, the Duchess of Greater Poland, and the Duchess of Poland based in Kraków.

Jadwiga and Henry were remarkable for their piety and patronage of the Catholic Church, indeed invigorating mediaeval Christian life in much of Silesia and Poland. They took vows of chastity, adopted austere daily habits, prayed often, attended Mass often, and funded numerous hospitals for the poor and the marginalised. They also founded churches and monasteries throughout their ruled territories. Jadwiga convinced Henry to establish the Trzebnica Abbey in 1202, and after his death in 1238, she became a religious sister there. Then, late in life, she recruited German clergy and German settlers to come to Silesia to develop the region’s religious culture and agriculture. She died in 1243 and almost immediately was recognised for her saintliness. Then she was canonised in 1267.

The events of Jadwiga’s biography nowadays connect some the most beautiful sites in Central Europe. Her birthplace is now Andechs Abbey outside of Munich, which boasts an incredible ornate Baroque church, a renowned brewery and restaurant that brews some of the best beer in the world, and the tomb of famed composer Carl Orff. Notable religious sites she helped found in the territory of modern Poland include Trzebnica Abbey, the abbey in Legnickie Pole, and a church in Nowogród Bobrzański, amongst many others. In 2020, a team working in the crypt of Trzebnica Abbey rediscovered after centuries a silver casket bearing Hewdig’s remains.

Dorotea of Montau

Thumbnail — Blessed Dorota of Mątów, painting by Józef Lapiński, Cathedral of St Mikołaj in Elbląg, photo: Zofia & Marek Bazak / East News

Dorotea (Dorothea or Dorothy) of Montau was a model and inspiration of lay religious devotion for diverse residents of what is today Poland. She was born in Prussia (now northern Poland) in 1347 to recent immigrant parents whom the historical records indicate were some combination of Dutch, German, and Polish. She married an influential townsman of Gdańsk and had nine children, but her husband became abusive, also restricting her religious devotions. After several of their children died, the couple traveled on pilgrimage to various holy sites in Europe, but the abuse of Dorothy continued. Eventually her husband died in 1391, and Dorothy committed herself to a religious life in Kwidzyn until her own death in 1394.

Dorothy led an extraordinarily pious life that inspired onlookers both locally and across Central Europe. As a child she developed stigmata, or wounds corresponding to those of the crucified Jesus Christ. She also adopted penitential practices throughout her life. She attended Mass frequently and encouraged her children to join religious houses. Upon moving to Kwidzyn after her husband’s death, she displayed mystical tendencies, dictated private revelations to the famed theologian Jan of Kwidzyn, received Holy Communion frequently, and lived as a hermit in a tiny cell in the vicinity of the Kwidzyn cathedral, which she did not leave during the final years of her life. She inspired Prussians, Germans and Poles to travel long distances to hear her visions, advice and prayers through a tiny window in her cell wall. She also was immediately venerated for her saintliness upon her death, although she was only beatified (not yet canonised as a saint) in 1976. Polish bishops lobbied the Pope to advance her cause for canonisation for centuries.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Cathedral in Kwidzyn, today the Church of St John the Evangelist, XIX, photo: Mat-matys / Wikimedia.org

Picture image

kwidzyn_katedra_ob._kosciol_p.w._sw._jana_ewangelisty.jpg

Concentrated in Kwidzyn, the modern traces of Dorothy’s life are few, but remarkable. A chapel alongside Kwidzyn’s fortified cathedral, which also includes a dramatic Teutonic castle, reimagines Dorothy’s cell where she lived out her late ascetic life. Historians recently have identified places both within the cathedral and elsewhere where her remains may be located. The brick gothic churches at the center of many towns along the Lower River Wisła also illustrate the sights and smells of the common but vigorous Christian experience of Dorothy’s mediaeval followers.

St Jadwiga of Poland

St Jadwiga of Poland (also known as St Hedwig of Poland) enabled perhaps the most transformative political transition in Polish history. She was born in Buda (modern Budapest) in 1373/4 to King Louis I of Hungary and Poland and his wife, Elisabeth of Austria. Both parents were descended from the ancient Polish Piast house, and they named their daughter after Jadwiga of Silesia. When Louis died in 1382, Jadwiga’s older sister Mary was crowned king of Hungary.

The Polish nobility, though, would only accept a successor who resided in Poland. In 1384, they agreed to accept Jadwiga, who subsequently traveled to Kraków and also was crowned king. These two sisters were simultaneously kings in their own right, a unique occurrence in the Middle Age in Europe (although historians are still debating the exact nature of this title). But in 1386, Jadwiga agreed to marry Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania, as negotiated by the Polish nobility, which became monumental. The pagan duke converted to Christianity as a part of the arrangement, and thus the last pagan prince in Europe adopted Christianity and proceeded to Christianise Lithuania. Thereafter Jadwiga and Jogaila ruled the Kingdom of Poland jointly until her early death in 1399.

Jadwiga was an impressive monarch by her own merit. She led armed forces into her sister’s Hungarian territory – after her sister’s death – and convinced the locals to support her rule. She advocated for peasants’ wellbeing and soothed lords who were not pleased by Jogaila’s coronation. And she helped negotiate a solution to strife between the Kingdom of Poland and their great rival, the Teutonic Knights. Much of this she did because her husband Jogaila did not speak the same language. Still, they ruled agreeably and effectively. Jadwiga was crucial to the continuation of the Kingdom of Poland from the Middle Ages as well as to the establishment of the Jagiellonian Dynasty, which would last until the late 16th century, despite not leaving Jogaila with an heir to the throne upon her death. She also became a saint, canonised in 1997.

Like her namesake, Jadwiga’s life touched numerous beautiful places on the Central European landscape. She was born in Buda Castle, but she also lived in Vienna as a child, when it seemed she would be married to a German prince. Her Polish coronation occurred in Wawel Castle, and there she spent much of her royal life. She last met her sister in the picturesque castle town Stará Ľubovňa in modern Slovakia. She also led royal negotiations with the Teutonic Knights in Włocławek. Finally, she died due to complications from childbirth in Wawel Castle, and her tomb (with her infant daughter) lies in Wawel Cathedral.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria

Empress Elisabeth of Austria was the mother of kings and saints. She was born in 1436 into a powerful but complicated Central European family, different members of which competed for various royal and imperial crowns during the mid-15th century. She was orphaned young, and then spent much of her childhood in different strongholds of the Holy Roman Empire in Austria. Her family was an attractive ally for European princes, and so in 1454, she was married to King Kazimierz IV of Poland (also known as Casimir IV). Despite her family connections, she was not an eager political player, but her familial role became crucial to the Polish monarchy and the Jagiellonian Dynasty. She died in 1515, with the Kingdom of Poland much stronger and better positioned in Central Europe than when she had become queen half a century earlier.

Elisabeth is renowned for what her children were able to achieve, and she played a strong role in their formation and advancement. She gave birth to 13 children, and 11 survived to become adults. As a deft manager of marriage diplomacy, she strategically arranged the marriages of several of her daughters, building or securing alliances of both prosperity and power. Even more impressively, though, four of her sons became kings. Władysław (Vladislav) became King of Bohemia and Hungary, and Jan Olbracht (John Alber), Aleksander (Alexander), and Zygmunt (Sigismund) all became King of Poland in succession. Meanwhile, Fryderyk (Frederick) became Archbishop of Gniezno, Primate of Poland, and Kazimierz (Casimir) became a contemporary saint in 1521. Her daughters Jadwiga, Zofia (Sophia), Anna, Barbara, and Elisabeth all married important princes of Central Europe.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Władysław II Jagiełło, from images of Polish kings by Aleksander Lesser, 19th century, photo: National Library Polona

Picture image

wladislaus_ii_of_poland.jpg

The queen’s legacy still stretches far and wide. She spent much of her orphaned childhood at stronghold in Austria, including Forchtenstein Castle, Graz, Wiener Neustadt. After her marriage, her royal life brought her to much of Poland and Lithuania. But then her children influenced politics, religion and society throughout and beyond Central Europe for a century. Without her immediate progeny, the Jagiellonian Dynasty might have died out in the 15th century – and not for lack of trying.

These four mediaeval women were by no means typical. They had position and privilege to varying degrees, and most of their elite experiences would have been unimaginable for the vast majority of their contemporaries. But they were impressively diverse, especially when compared to a modern conception of what it means to be Polish. Nonetheless they were crucially and quintessentially Polish as it pertained to the premodern people and state. Mediaeval and early modern Poland was perhaps the most diverse polity in Europe. Its extraordinary women reflected that characteristic, and they also contributed greatly to it.

Written by Bryan Kozik, Aug 2021

Language English

golden age

golden age of the polish republic

polish history

16th century polish history

The Golden & Silver Ages