The first major study of the early Reformation and the Polish monarchy for over a century, this volume asks why Crown and church in the reign of King Sigismund I (1506-1548) did not persecute Lutherans. It offers a new narrative of Luther's dramatic impact on this monarchy - which saw violent urban Reformations and the creation of Christendom's first Lutheran principality by 1525 - placing these events in their comparative European context. King Sigismund's realm appears to offer a major example of sixteenth-century religious toleration: the king tacitly allowed his Hanseatic ports to enact local Reformations, enjoyed excellent relations with his Lutheran vassal duke in Prussia, allied with pro-Luther princes across Europe, and declined to enforce his own heresy edicts. Polish church courts allowed dozens of suspected Lutherans to walk free. Examining these episodes in turn, this study does not treat toleration purely as the product of political calculation or pragmatism. Instead, through close analysis of language, it reconstructs the underlying cultural beliefs about religion and church (ecclesiology) held by the king, bishops, courtiers, literati, and clergy - asking what, at heart, did these elites understood 'Lutheranism' and 'catholicism' to be? It argues that the ruling elites of the Polish monarchy did not persecute Lutheranism because they did not perceive it as a dangerous Other - but as a variant form of catholic Christianity within an already variegated late medieval church, where social unity was much more important than doctrinal differences between Christians. Building on John Bossy and borrowing from J.G.A. Pocock, it proposes a broader hypothesis on the Reformation as a shift in the languages and concept of orthodoxy.

Remembering the Jagiellonians is the first study of international memories of the Jagiellonians (1386-1596), one of the most powerful but lesser known royal dynasties of Renaissance Europe. It explores how the Jagiellonian dynasty has been remembered since the early modern period and assesses its role in the development of competing modern national identities across Central, Eastern and Northern Europe. Offering a wide-ranging panoramic analysis of Jagiellonian memory over five hundred years, this book includes coverage of numerous present-day European countries, ranging from Bavaria to Kiev, and from Stockholm to the Adriatic. In doing so, it allows for a large, multi-way comparison of how one shared phenomenon has been, and still is, remembered in over a dozen neighbouring countries. Specialists in the history of Europe are brought together to apply the latest questions from memory theory and to combine them with debates from social science, medieval and early modern European history to engage in an international and interdisciplinary exploration into the relationship between memory and dynasty through time. The first book to present the Jagiellonians' supranational history in English, Remembering the Jagiellonians opens key discussions about the regional memory of Europe and considers the ongoing role of the Jagiellonians in modern-day culture and politics. It is essential reading for students of early modern and late medieval Europe, ninteenth-century nationalism and the history of memory.

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the career of Fryderyk Jagiellon (1468-1503) arguably the most powerful churchman in medieval or early modern Central Europe. Royal prince, bishop of KrakA(3)w, Polish primate, cardinal, regent and brother to the rulers of Hungary, Poland, Bohemia and Lithuania, Fryderyk was a leading dynastic politician, diplomat, ecclesiastic and cultural patron, and a pivotal figure in three Polish royal governments. Whereas Polish historians have traditionally cast Fryderyk as a miscreant and national embarrassment, this study argues that he is in fact a figure of fundamental importance for our understanding of church and monarchy in the Renaissance, who can enhance our grasp of the period in a variety of ways. Jagiellon's career constitutes an ambitious state-building programme - executed in the three spheres of government, ecclesiastical governance and cultural patronage - which reveals the multi-dimensional ways in which Renaissance monarchies might exploit the local church to their own ends. This book also offers a rare English language insight into the development of the Reformation in central Europe, and an analysis of the reigns of Kazimierz IV (1447-92), Jan Olbracht (1492-1501), Aleksander (1501-6), Poland's evolving constitution, her foreign policy, Jagiellonian dynastic strategy and, above all, the tripartite relationship between church, Crown and state.

Remembering the Jagiellonians is the first study of international memories of the Jagiellonians (1386-1596), one of the most powerful but lesser known royal dynasties of Renaissance Europe. It explores how the Jagiellonian dynasty has been remembered since the early modern period and assesses its role in the development of competing modern national identities across Central, Eastern and Northern Europe. Offering a wide-ranging panoramic analysis of Jagiellonian memory over five hundred years, this book includes coverage of numerous present-day European countries, ranging from Bavaria to Kiev, and from Stockholm to the Adriatic. In doing so, it allows for a large, multi-way comparison of how one shared phenomenon has been, and still is, remembered in over a dozen neighbouring countries. Specialists in the history of Europe are brought together to apply the latest questions from memory theory and to combine them with debates from social science, medieval and early modern European history to engage in an international and interdisciplinary exploration into the relationship between memory and dynasty through time. The first book to present the Jagiellonians' supranational history in English, Remembering the Jagiellonians opens key discussions about the regional memory of Europe and considers the ongoing role of the Jagiellonians in modern-day culture and politics. It is essential reading for students of early modern and late medieval Europe, ninteenth-century nationalism and the history of memory.