From
the Encyclopaedia Britannica: Gediminas. (Lithuanian), Polish Gedymin
(b. c. 1275–d. 1341), grand duke of Lithuania, the strongest
contemporary ruler of eastern Europe. Gediminas succeeded his brother
Vytenis (Witen) in 1316 and started the Gediminian dynasty, which
included his grandson Jagiello, later Wladyslaw II of Poland.
Gediminas’ domain was composed not only of Lithuania proper and
Samogitia but also of Volhynia, the northwestern Ukraine, and
Belorussia to the Dnieper River. It was his difficult task to
neutralize the threat of the Teutonic and Livonian Knights while
still maintaining the delicate balance between his pagan Lithuanian
and Samogitian subjects, his Orthodox subjects in Russia, and his
occasional Roman Catholic allies in Poland and Riga. Gediminas’
policy, therefore, was necessarily tentative and ambiguous.
In 1322 and 1323 he wrote to Saxon
Dominicans and Franciscans and to several cities of the Hanseatic
League, offering protection and privileges to monks, merchants, and
artisans who would accept his invitation to settle in Lithuania. He
also opened direct negotiations with the Holy See, soliciting Pope
John XXII’s protection against the Knights and claiming that the
necessity of national defense against them, rather than any
hostility to the church, had kept Lithuania pagan. In October 1323
various ecclesiastical representatives and the grand master of the
Teutonic Order assembled at Vilnius, which Gediminas had recently
made his capital, and a compact was signed confirming peaceful
relations.
The Teutonic Knights, however,
strove to nullify Gediminas’ gains and refused to abide by the
treaty. In response, Gediminas made an alliance with the archbishop
and citizens of Riga, attained peaceful promises from his other
neighbours, and further strengthened his position by entering an
alliance with Roman Catholic Poland and marrying his daughter Aldona
to Casimir, son of King Wladyslaw I the Short, in 1325. The Teutonic
Knights thereupon resumed the war against Gediminas, and for the
remainder of his reign he was primarily concerned with defending his
realm against the Knights, whose strength was reinforced by Western
crusaders when it became evident that Gediminas would not honour his
promise of conversion.
"Gediminas" Encyclopædia
Britannica Online.
<http://members.eb.com/bol/topic
?eu=36986
&sctn=1>
[Accessed 15 May 2000].
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