St Hedwig (1374-1399) Polish queen
The tomb
of Queen Hedwig lies in the Cathedral of Saints Wenceslas and
Stanisalus on the Wawel Hill in Cracow.
Through her marriage with
Jagiello, duke of Lithuania, she was able to extend Christianity in the
regions east of Poland and support the churches there.
She was canonised
by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Cracow in 1997.
Betrothal to the heir of Austria at the age of one
Hedwig
(Jadwiga) was the daughter of the king of Hungary and Poland and when
she was one year old she was betrothed to Wilhelm, the Hapsburg heir of
Austria.
She went to Vienna to learn the way of the Austrian court, but
when her elder sister Catherine died, her father chose Hedwig as his
heir to the throne of Hungary.
He died when she was eight, but the
Hungarians preferred her sister, Maria, who had already been accepted as
queen of Poland by the nobles.
Maria was then rejected by both
countries and the archbishop of Krakow crowned Hedwig as "Jadwiga, king
of Poland" (meaning she was the heir and not just the king's consort) in
1384, when she was ten.
Married to Jagiello at twelve
The Polish nobles
then set aside the vows made by proxy between her and Wilhelm and
decided that she should marry Jagiello, duke of Lithuania and Ruthenia,
who promised to become a Christian.
The wedding took place in Krakow
Cathedral in February 1386, after Jagiello and his brothers and the
leading Lithuanian nobles were baptised. She was twelve and he was
thirty-six. Jagiello was crowned king of Poland as Ladislaus (Władysław)
II.
As a monarch, young Hedwig probably had little actual power, but
she was actively engaged in her kingdom's political, diplomatic and
cultural life and acted as the guarantor of Ladislaus's promises to
reclaim Poland's lost territories.
Slanders
The Hapsburgs circulated rumours that
she and Wilhelm had already consummated a marriage when he had visited
her to persuade her to marry him. These rumours were spread abroad by
the Teutonic Knights, and she was denounced as an adulteress and a
bigamist.
They were even repeated in the writings of the scholar Aeneas
Silvius Piccolomini, who later became Pope Pius II (1458-64), and great
damage was done to her reputation outside Poland.
Christianisation of Lithuania
Jagiello/Ladislaus
II decreed that the people of Lithuania should be baptised, and while
not actually employing force, they were baptised even though the
missionaries could not speak the language.
A diocese was established in
Vilnius and Hedwig supported it with church plate and vestments.
Jagiellonian University
She financed a
scholarship for twenty Lithuanians to study at Charles University in
Prague to help strengthen Christianity in their country, and she also
founded a bishopric in Vilnius.
Among her most notable cultural legacies
was the restoration of the Kraków Academy, which in 1817 was renamed
Jagiellonian University in honour of the couple.
Ecumenism in Cracow
Hedwig also had the ambition
to unite Latin and Orthodox Christians. To promote this, she brought
monks from Prague who used a Slavonic rite.
She also introduced a
college of psalmists who took turns to sing psalms without interruption
in the cathedral, except during services.
She also organised perpetual
adoration there. Although the Teutonic Knights invaded Lithuania, Hedwig
sought always to negotiate a diplomatic peace.
Hedwig died in childbirth: Jagiello continues to rule for 35 years
In
1399 Hedwig was expecting a baby.
The baby was born prematurely and
died after three weeks.
Hedwig herself died four days later.
Jagiello
continued to rule Poland as Ladislaus II until his death 35 years later.
Canonisation by Pope John Paul II in 1997
The
cause for Hedwig's canonisation was introduced in 1426, but she had to
wait until the first Polish Pope, John Paul II, beatified her in 1986
and canonised her on his visit to Krakow in 1997.