John I Albert

Related to the House of Habsburg, John Albert was groomed to become emperor in the Holy Roman Empire, a plan that ultimately failed. He was well-educated and tutored by scholars such as Johannes Longinus and Callimachus, whom he had subsequently befriended. Heavily influenced by the Italian Renaissance, John sought to strengthen royal authority at the expense of the Catholic Church and the clergy. In 1487, he led a force against the Ottoman Empire and defeated the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate during the early phase of the Polish–Ottoman War. In the aftermath of the Bohemian–Hungarian War, John attempted to usurp Hungary from his elder brother Vladislaus, but was instead granted the Duchy of Głogów to calm his ambition.


John ascended to the Polish throne in 1492, and his younger brother Alexander was elected Grand Duke of Lithuania by an independent Lithuanian assembly, thus temporarily breaking the personal union between the two nations. He was proclaimed the king by an oral ballot orchestrated by Cardinal Frederick Jagiellon. To secure his succession against the Piast princes from the Duchy of Masovia, he dispatched an army to the electoral proceedings, which alienated the higher nobles and magnates. He later invaded Masovia to deprive Konrad III of his ancestral holdings and curtail internal opposition to his rule. In 1497, John Albert launched a personal crusade into Moldavia to uphold Polish suzerainty, establish control over Black Sea ports and dethrone Stephen III in favour of John Albert's brother Sigismund. The campaign's failure greatly hindered Polish expansion into Southern Europe, preventing any significant further expansion.


John Albert remains a largely forgotten and overlooked figure in the history of Poland, his relatively short reign ended in a major military setback, and he was criticised during his lifetime for embracing absolutism as well as attempting to centralise the government. He is credited for creating a bicameral parliament, comprising the Senate and the Sejm, which granted lower-class gentry the right of expression in the matters of state. Conversely, he limited the movement of peasants by confining them to nobles' estates for life.