Marital infidelity of queen Sophia of Halshany in 1427 - truth, slander or political rumour?

The election and coronation of Władysław Jagiełło as king of Poland in 1386 provided an opportunity for the emergence of a new signifi cant dynasty in Central-Eastern Europe. This fact produced unrest among neighbours (the Luxembourg dynasty and the Teutonic Knights) intent on weakening the Polish-Lithuanian monarchy. Attempts at establishing principles for the enthronement of successive rulers and the range of their prerogatives activated also Polish magnates, who aimed at exerting the greatest possible impact upon state governance. Confl icts appearing against this background made use of assorted methods of a political confrontation, including the political rumour. After conducting a detailed analysis of the sources (i.a. unknown material) and recreating the 1427 itinerary of Jagiełło and Sophia of Halshany this article proposes a thesis claiming that a scandal associated with the queen’s alleged infi - delity broke out at a general convention held in Wiślica in the middle of August of that year. At the same time, the author stressed a political motif connected with an unconditional recognition by the gentry of Rus’ of the succession to the throne after Jagiełło’s death of his fi rst-born son, and indicated the benefi ts that as a consequence of such slander could have been attained by the domestic and external opposition, especially in view of the fact that a marriage agreement between Jadwiga Jagiellon (still the offi cial heiress to the throne) and Frederick, the son of the margrave of Brandenburg, remained unrealised. The author also formulated a thesis claiming that this question was revived for political reasons (rivalry for the regency) at the Sandomierz convention of 1431, while a charge addressed against Jan Strasz was based on yet another version of the rumour spread by the Teutonic Knights in 1429–1430 and embroiling also Grand Duke Witold of Lithuania. The ascertainment presented in the article indicates that in his Annales Jan Długosz combined under the year 1427 two sequences of events from 1427 and 1429–1430, i.e. the original and subsequent version of the political rumour devised for the sake of several groups of interest, whose purpose was to enfeeble the new Jagiellonian dynasty. The article demonstrates that similar accusations, involving a political background, were made also against Jagiełło’s fi rst two wives: Jadwiga Anjou and Anna of Cilli/Celje, who could have given birth to successors (heirs to the throne). A number of other essential findings set redresses opinions about the reasons for the convention and the course of a meeting held by Jagiełło and Witold in Horodło in 1427