Zbigniew Oleśnicki
Roman Catholic clergyman and Polish statesman and diplomat
1389 CE to 1455 CE
Zbigniew Oleśnicki; December 5, 1389 in Sienno, Masovian Voivodeship – April 1, 1455), known in Latin as Sbigneus, is a high-ranking Roman Catholic clergyman and an influential Polish statesman and diplomat.
He serves as Bishop of Kraków from 1423 until his death in 1455.
He takes part in the management of the country's most important affairs, initially as a royal secretary under King Władysław II Jagiello and later as the effective regent during King Wladyslaw III's minority.
In 1449 he becomes the first native Polish cardinal.
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A Polish faction opposes the installment of Albert Habsburg as Holy Roman Emperor and king of Bohemia and Hungary, their choice being Wladyslaw III of Poland.
Wladyslaw is only fourteen; most of the major decisions are either made or manipulated by the regent, Zbigniew Olesnicki, who is a powerful Polish noble, bishop of Kraków, and had also been a close adviser to his father.
Olesnicki has opposed the spread of the dissident Hussite religious movement in Poland, using royal forces under Hińcza of Rogów to defeat the Hussite nobles under Hińcza of Rogów on May 3, 1439, near the village of Grotniki Duże near Nowy Korczyn.
The defeat of the Protestant forces marks the end of Hussite movement in Poland.
Olesnicki’s appointment in this year as the first Polish cardinal by Pope Eugenius IV further strengthens his position.
Cardinal Olesnicki, who is also bishop of Kraków, purchases the city of Siewierz from Duke Waclaw I of Cieszyn, who is deeply in debt, on December 30, 1443, for six thousand Prager Groschen.
The city becomes the seat of the bishops of Kraków, who receive also the title dukes of Siewierz, the duchy being not a part of Poland.
The Prussian Confederation had in 1452 asked Frederick for mediation in their conflict with the Teutonic Order.
Disagreeing with the confederacy, Frederick had banned it and had ordered it to obey the Teutonic Order on December 5, 1453.
Faced with this situation, the Prussians send envoys to Poland—although the Prussian Confederation, under the influence of Thorn and the Pomeranian and Culmerland nobility, has already sought contact with the Poles.
They receive support, especially from Greater Poland and from the party of Queen Sophia of Halshany, mother of King Casimir IV Jagiellon of Poland.
The Bishop of Kraków, Zbigniew Oleśnicki, opposes this support and try to prevent war.
Casimir asks the Prussian Confederation for a more formal petition.
The Secret Council of the Prussian Confederation sends a formal act of disobedience to the Grand Master on February 14, 1454.
Two days later, the confederacy starts its rebellion and soon almost all Prussia, except for Marienburg, Stuhm (Sztum), and …
The confederacy sends an official delegation to Poland, headed by Johannes von Baysen, on February 10, 1454.
The delegates, in Kraków by February 20, have asked Casimir to bring Prussia into the Polish kingdom.
After negotiating the exact conditions of incorporation, the king agrees and delegates of the Prussian Confederation pledge allegiance to Casimir on March 6, 1454.
On the same day, the king agrees to all the conditions of the Prussian delegates—for instance, Thorn has demanded the destruction of the Polish city of Nieszawa—giving wide privileges to the Prussian cities and nobility.
Three days later, Johannes von Baysen is named as the first governor of Prussia.
Casimir marries Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of the late King of the Romans Albert II of Habsburg by his late wife Elisabeth of Bohemia, on March 10.
Her distant relative Frederick of Habsburg, who became Holy Roman Emperor in 1452, will reign as Frederick III until after Casimir's own death.
The marriage strengthens the ties between the house of Jagiello and the sovereigns of Hungary-Bohemia and puts Casimir at odds with the Holy Roman Emperor through internal Habsburg rivalry.
Elisabeth's brother is King Ladislaus the Posthumous.
Capistrano has meanwhile found an ally in the Polish archbishop Zbigniev Olesniczki, who urges Casimir IV Jagellon, grand duke of Lithuania and king of Poland, to abolish the privileges that had been granted to the Jews in 1447.
In supporting Olesniczki's demand, Capistrano threatens the king, in case of resistance, with horrible sufferings in hell, and predicts great misfortune to the country.
The king at first refuses to comply; but when the Polish army is defeated in September, 1454, at Chojnice in the war with the Teutonic Knights (who are secretly assisted by the pope and the Polish Church), and the clergy announces that God has punished the country because of the king's negligence of the Church and for his protection of the Jews, Casimir yields and revokes the privileges which the latter had enjoyed.
This leads to persecutions of the Jews in many Polish towns.
Brandenburg had pawned the Neumark to the Teutonic Knights in 1402, and it had passed completely under their control in 1429, although the Order neglected the region as well.
After the Teutonic Knights' defeat in the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410, the future Grand Master Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg had used the Neumark as a staging ground for an army of German and Hungarian mercenaries which he later used against the forces of King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland.
This had allowed the Order to retain much of its territory in the First Peace of Thorn in 1411.
The Knights' mismanagement leads in 1454/1455 to their pawning of the Neumark back to Brandenburg, by now led by Elector Frederick II of the Hohenzollern dynasty (Treaties of Cölln and Mewe).