Two Versions of the Indictment "Proposicio Polonorum" and the Question of its Genesis

Abstract

The article discusses the Proposicio Polonorum, which contains an accusation against the Grand Master and the Teutonic Order of harbouring a hostile attitude towards Poland, King Władysław Jagiełło, and the Christianizing mission led by him in Lithuania. The indictment was presented by the Polish delegation to the Council of Constance in February 1416. The author discusses the manuscripts and the contents of the indictment. He compares various versions and on this basis considers the question of the authorship and the genesis of the text. The “Kraków” version held in the Jagiellonian Library (Cod. 1143) contains several “Lithuanian” elements (the marriage of the daughter of Witold with the Grand Duke of Moscow; the alliance of Svidrigiello with the Tatars) that are unknown in other manuscripts. This might indicate its preparation to support Duke Witold’s interests. Any details of the genesis of the indictment are hypothetical, but several factors emerging directly from its content (quotations from the twelfth-century letter writer Pierre de Blois) indicate that Piotr Wolfram, secretary to the Archbishop of Gniezno at the Council and professor of law at Kraków University, had a fundamental influence on its writing.