Everything about Alexander Jagiellon totally explained
Alexander Jagiellon (
Lithuanian:
Aleksandras Jogailaitis;
Polish:
Aleksander Jagiellończyk;
5 August 1461 –
19 August 1506), Grand Duke of
Lithuania and later also King of
Poland; he was the fourth son of
Casimir IV Jagiellon. He was elected Grand Duke of Lithuania on the death of his father (
1492), and King of Poland on the death of his brother
Jan I Olbracht (
1501).
Biography
Alexander's shortage of funds immediately made him subservient to the Polish Senate and nobility (
szlachta), who deprived him of control of the mint (then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue for the Polish kings), curtailed his prerogatives, and generally endeavored to reduce him to a subordinate position. For want of funds, Alexander was unable to resist the Grand Master of the
Teutonic Knights or prevent Grand Duke of Muscovy
Ivan III from ravaging
Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the
Tatars. The most the Grand Duke of Lithuani could do was to garrison
Smolensk and other strongholds and employ his wife Helena, the Tsar's daughter, to mediate a truce between his father-in-law and himself after the disastrous
Battle of Vedrosha (1500). In the terms of the truce, Lithuania had to surrender about a third of its territory to the nascent expansionist Russian state.
During his reign, Poland suffered much humiliation at the hands of her subject principality,
Moldavia. Only the death of
Stephen, the great
hospodar of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her own on the
Danube River; while the liberality of
Pope Julius II, who issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favor of Poland and granted Alexander
Peter's Pence and other financial help, enabled him to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic Order.
Alexander Jagellon never felt at home in Poland, and bestowed his favor principally upon his fellow Lithuanians, the most notable of whom was the wealthy Lithuanian magnate
Michael Glinski, who justified his master's confidence by his great victory over the Tatars at
Kleck (
August 5,
1506), news of which was brought to Aleksander on his deathbed in
Vilnius. There is some evidence that he'd at least one son, leading to a surviving Jagiellon branch, although this isn't conclusive.
It is important to note that Alexander Jagellon was the last known ruler of the
Gediminids dynasty to have maintained the family's ancestral
Lithuanian language. From his death, Polish became the sole language of the family, thus fully
Polonizing the
Jagiellon family.
Ancestors
Gallery
Image:Senatus.JPG|King Alexander in Polish Senate, 1506.
Image:Kanclerz.jpg|Alexander and his kanclerz Jan Łaski.
Image:Vilnius.Sv.Onos baznycia.Saint Ann's church2.jpg|Gothic St. Anne's Church in Vilnius was constructed on his initiative in 1495-1500.
Image:Krakow Wawel 20070804 0930.jpg|In 1504 he ordered to rebuild the Wawel in a Renaissance style.
Further Information
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