ABSTRACT
This work offers a comprehensive view of Sigismund of Luxembourg’s (r. 1386–1437) diplomacy regarding the conflict between the Teutonic Knights and Poland-Lithuania, which was going through a decisive phase during his reign. So far, research has focused on certain political and legal tools that King Sigismund used, such as treaty alliances and international arbitrations, with historians interpreting his individual decisions (often seen as pragmatic and selfish) only from the point of view of his personal political interests. Somehow less considered are diplomatic envoys, as this angle requires more demanding archival research. Similarly, little account is taken of the different nature of the political actors and subsequently their different relationships with Sigismund. This concerns primarily the so-called “Teutonic State”, whose relationship with the Church and the Holy Roman Empire was vividly discussed at the time, on the one hand and the not always self-evident Union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on the other. A new perspective on Sigismund’s role in the Polish-Prussian dispute is also needed considering the ongoing historiographical rethinking of his European policy (the English-French conflict, reform councils, the Turkish threat, etc.).
