Budowanie prestiżu królewskiego rodu. Związki rodzinne Wazów z dyna- stiami europejskimi

The bonds of kinship became one of the most effective means of raising the prestige and standing for the Vasa dynasty, which sought to occupy an ever higher position in the hierarchy of European rulers. For Zygmunt III, taking wives from the House of Austria were a means through which the Vasa entered the European network of courts, and established channels for cultural exchange and political cooperation. Political and religious circumstances had the greatest impact on direct relations and liaisons of the House of Vasa with the relatives abroad. In the initial period of his rule in the Commonwealth, Zygmunt III maintained loose yet thoroughly appropriate contact with the Swedish branch of the family. Their Protestant denomination had no decisive influence on their mutual relationships, though it precluded certain functions of the religious nature, e.g. that of being a godfather or a godmother. Lack of cooperation of the Vasa with the relations living in the Reich – most of whom were Catholic – was due to their low standing in the hierarchy of European courts. The dethronement of the king in Sweden resulted in the severance of all personal bonds between the members of the House of Vasa reigning in Stockholm and Warsaw. The sons of Zygmunt III, with the exception of prince Władysław, never met nor maintained any contact with the Swedish relatives. The European family of the Polish Vasa are chiefly Habsburgs, their distaff relations. Those were the relations from the most prestigious courts of Europe – Vienna, Madrid, Brussels, Florence, and Paris – who were invited to be godparents of the royal children, became hosts to the young princes during their European travels, and had the money and the offices that the young Vasa sought after.Marriages enabled the House of Vasa to enter into the network of courts throughout Europe and opened a way to participate in the processes of assimilation, reception or rejection of respective cultural, religious, and political paradigms. The bonds of kinship became one of the most effective instruments to raise the prestige and the standing of dynasty, which sought to occupy an ever higher position in the hierarchy of European rulers. The aim of this paper is to show how the House of Vasa functioned within he contemporaneous dynastic networks in Europe on the examples of several selected issues of strictly familial nature: inheritance of names, christenings, family reunions and financial security