Jadwiga

Related Category: Polish History: Biographies

(yädvē´gä), 1374–99, Polish queen (1384–99), daughter of Louis I of Hungary and Poland. To satisfy Polish demands for autonomy at Louis's death, she reigned in Poland and her sister reigned in Hungary. Jadwiga married (1386) Jagiello, grand duke of Lithuania (see Ladislaus II), in order to unite Poland and Lithuania and to convert the Lithuanians to Christianity. They ruled jointly, and after she died without children he ruled alone. Jadwiga restored (1387) to Poland the regions of Lviv and Halych (later Galicia) that her father had given to Hungarian governors. She founded (1397) a theological college in Kraków and effected the restoration of the Univ. of Kraków. She is nationally venerated as a saint.