Postawa polityczna arcybiskupa gnieźnieńskiego Bodzanty w czasie bezkrólewia po śmierci Ludwika Węgierskiego

Abstract

The interregnum period after the death of Ludwik Węgierski (Louis of Hungary) was one of the most difficuIt moments in Polish history. Internal struggles in Great Poland, the inconsistant policy of the widowed queen Elżbieta Bośniaczka and Siemowit IV joining the competition for the Polish crown, deepened the political crisis of the Polish kingdom. In such a implicated situation it was to Bodzanta that the time came to be active in the archiepiscopal capital of Gniezno. In this article, on the basis of sources known to date and on inedited works, we have tried to recreate the process of the political maturation of this church dignitary. His career was atypical for medieval Poland, comparable only to the career of Mikolaj Trąba, for he came from a rather insignificant. Little Poland, ancestral line, the Szeligs. His role was even more difficult in this very difficult interregnum period. The evolution of the political position of Bodzanta – from a servant faithful to the royal will with the rank of archbishop, through a supporter of reconciliation of the Piast candidacy for the throne and loyalty to the Anjou dynasty, to a leading position in the Polish political elite deciding its fate both in negotiations with Elżbieta Bośniaczka and with Siemowit IV and Władyslaw Opolski - was a consequence of his maturation to the role fitting his position. Archbishop Bodzanta together with other participants of the public meeting in Radomsko which took place in March 1384 strove for the conclusion of peace in Great Poland through an attempt at compromise with the former Great Poland starost, Domarat from Pierzchno. He was to live to see the end of the civil war and the interregnum period, as well as the baptism of the Lithuanian Great Duke Jagiełło. He crowned two monarchs: Jadwiga and her husband Władyslaw Jagiełło. For one rather short pontificat, this is a great deal.