So today I was going to write about this being the day that Marie Antoinette was guillotined on, in 1793 as part of the French Revolution. But then something else caught my eye and I decided to write about that, instead. I should like to pretend that this is due to my inner republican not wanting to give the royals anymore time that I absolutely have to (even when they're being beheaded...) or maybe wanting to throw some light on a 'lesser' historical event which has become overshadowed by the French Queen's beheading. That would be a very intellectual stance. I wouldn't want you to think that I was picking what I was going to write about today because I spotted the word 'Hedwig' in it, and it excited my inner Harry Potter nerd. Because that, of course, would be totally false...
On 16 October, 1384, Jadwiga of Poland was crowned King of...er...Poland, which is more intriguing than it first seems because Jadwiga was actually a she and it wasn't like they had the skills for sex-change operations in the fourteenth century (the castrate don't count, as they still had their original sex-organs, just not fully functioning ones...). So Jadwiga managed to retain her femaleness, we can assume, whilst still being a King. Why, you may ask? Because of our shitty patriarchal society. Because, until this point, as in most of Europe, a Queen had not yet ruled the country on her own - preceding Queens had been Queen regnants, meaning they only held that position because they married the King at the time. Jadwiga was crowned King to show that she was a sovereign in her own right, which I guess is early feminism, maybe.
(The first English Queen, for comparison, was "Bloody" Mary I, who ruled from 1553-1558. Some people believe that Matilda [also sometimes called Maud] was the first Queen of England, but this is technically incorrect - though she was the previous King's daughter and her son was crowned King, she herself never had a coronation; was only 'on the throne' for a few months in 1141; didn't have the support of at least half of the country's nobles [due to the Civil War over whether she or her cousin Stephen should be ruling] and wasn't exactly in it to further the feminist cause, more to further the amount of land and money she owned.)
But back to Jadwiga the sort-of feminist. She was born sometime between 3 October 1374 and 18 February 1374. I have been unable to establish the exact reason for the discrepancy in recording her birth date, but I think we can safely say it has more to do with poor clerical administration than her mother going through the longest labour ever. She spent some time growing up in the Viennese Court and became betrothed, at the age of four to William of Hapsburg, though this was later called off at the behest of Polish nobles, and she instead became engaged and then married to Jagiello, Grand Duke of Lithuania when she was the ripe old age of 12 and he 26. When they married, in 1386, Jagiello changed his name to Ladislaus and was also crowned King of Poland, which must have been quite confusing to explain to the neighbours.
(The first English Queen, for comparison, was "Bloody" Mary I, who ruled from 1553-1558. Some people believe that Matilda [also sometimes called Maud] was the first Queen of England, but this is technically incorrect - though she was the previous King's daughter and her son was crowned King, she herself never had a coronation; was only 'on the throne' for a few months in 1141; didn't have the support of at least half of the country's nobles [due to the Civil War over whether she or her cousin Stephen should be ruling] and wasn't exactly in it to further the feminist cause, more to further the amount of land and money she owned.)
But back to Jadwiga the sort-of feminist. She was born sometime between 3 October 1374 and 18 February 1374. I have been unable to establish the exact reason for the discrepancy in recording her birth date, but I think we can safely say it has more to do with poor clerical administration than her mother going through the longest labour ever. She spent some time growing up in the Viennese Court and became betrothed, at the age of four to William of Hapsburg, though this was later called off at the behest of Polish nobles, and she instead became engaged and then married to Jagiello, Grand Duke of Lithuania when she was the ripe old age of 12 and he 26. When they married, in 1386, Jagiello changed his name to Ladislaus and was also crowned King of Poland, which must have been quite confusing to explain to the neighbours.
Jadwiga, King of Poland - 1373/4-1399
By all accounts, Jadwiga was a great beauty with long blonde hair and blue eyes (though I'm not sure how popular you would have been in the court if you had written that she was as ugly as sin), and surprisingly tall for a medieval lady - an excavation of her remains in the 1970s put her at an impressive 1.8m. She was also very clever, speaking Polish, Bosnian, German, Hungarian, Serbian and Latin as well as having an interest in the arts, music and science. She was incredibly pious and devout, and apparently had enough miracles attached to her for Pope John Paul II to canonize her in 1997. These days, you can refer to her as Saint Jadwiga, or, in English, Saint Hedwig, which pleases my inner nerd probably more than it should.
Sadly, Jadwiga died one month after giving birth, along with her baby daughter at the age of only 26, though her husband continued to rule Poland for another 35 years. She had left her jewels to Krakow Academy to finance its renovation. Krakow Academy is today known as Jagiellonian University and is still going to this day.
No comments:
Post a Comment