ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, we saw Jan Długosz’s description of the dramatic launch of Zbigniew Oleśnicki’s ecclesiastical career: the Annales Regni Poloniae tell how, in the mire and mud of a battlefield in 1410, a grateful king promised a young nobleman a bishopric and thus unwittingly inaugurated an interlude in which the Polish church would become a bastion of the magnate party. That scene can be juxtaposed with an episode which occurred some 80 years later, an incident which appears to demonstrate just how effectively the Jagiellonian dynasty had regained political control of the Polish church by the close of the fifteenth century, and how determined it was to exorcize the ghost of Zbigniew Oleśnicki. On 14 December 1493, King Kazimierz IV’s youngest son, Fryderyk Jagiellon, made a triumphal entry into Kraków. He was already the highest prelate in the Polish church, but this winter pageant was a celebration of his recent elevation to the cardinalate. The city’s cathedral canons, burghers, university professors and populace lined the streets to watch the royal bishop pass through the city, and flattering Latin verses were delivered en route. Canon Jan Baruchowski greeted Fryderyk outside the Wawel cathedral, while at the city gates the canon and theologian Johannes Sacranus had delivered a floral outpouring of praise on behalf of Kraków University:
This chapter will reconstruct Fryderyk Jagiellon’s meteoric rise through the Polish ecclesiastical hierarchy and the role which he played in the kingdom’s high politics between 1488 and 1503, as dynastic prince and head of the local church. We will first survey Polish domestic affairs in the last years of Kazimierz IV (1488-92), the reign of Jan Olbracht (1492-1501) and the early phase of Aleksander’s regime (150103), paying special attention to Cardinal Fryderyk’s role as an advisor, fundraiser, senator and regent, a role which has traditionally been downplayed or overlooked by historians. The chapter will then assess Fryderyk Jagiellon’s overall impact on Polish Renaissance politics – in enhancing Poland’s regional standing, bolstering the regalist party in their struggles with the magnate faction, and ultimately strengthening the institution of the Crown itself.
