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THE GLORY OF CHRISTENDOM

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At the Congress of Wyszegrad in Hungary before the end of the year, an agreement was made among
Casimir, John of Bohemia, and Charles Robert of Hungary to collaborate against the Teutonic Knights and to
settle past disputes
among their countries over land and money. In January 1336 Casimir asked Pope John XXII to confirm the
Wyszegrad settlements and to remove his enemy Bishop Jan Grot of Cracow. 75
Pope John XXII had just died (Casimir had written him before he had the news), and the new Pope
Benedict XII was reluctant at first to act in a situation with which he was generally unfamiliar. But his legate
in Poland, Galhard, sang
Casimir's praises, and by September 1337 Benedict XII wrote to the Polish King "complimenting him on the
steadfastness of his faith and ... urging him to continue firm in his devotion to the Church. 1171 The following
April the Pope wrote to Bishop Grot sharply criticizing him for anathematizing Casimir and Queen Anna on
insufficient evidence and refusing to admit them into his church. The next month the Pope launched a
canonical suit against the Teutonic Knights to determine if they had illegally taken territory from Poland and
should consequently be required to return it and pay an indemnity; in November the legate Galhard published
the charges and asked all who might have evidence regarding them to come forward. The trial began in
February 1339; 126 witnesses were heard. The court handed down its decision in September, in favor of
Poland; but the Knights ignored it.77
In May 1339 Anna, the beloved Lithuanian wife of Casimir III of Poland, suddenly died, leaving the
King with no male heir. He devolved the succession upon his friend and brother-in-law Charles Robert of
Hungary, or one of
Charles Robert's sons, his nephews. That year the Mongols began a new menacing advance, crushing the
principality of Tver in Russia and threatening Smolensk, Ruthenia, Poland, and Hungary. Prince Boleslav-
George II of Ruthenia, whose conversion to the Catholic Church Casimir had been trying to encourage, was
assassinated by his own noblemen who feared he was about to convert. On Easter Sunday 1340 Casimir set out
for Ruthenia with Polish and Hungarian troops. He took Lvov, its principal city, and razed its citadel, bringing
many of its Catholics back to Poland with him for protection. In August Pope Benedict XII called for a crusade
against the Mongols, who were believed to be encouraging the Russian Orthodox against the Catholics, to help
Casimir. There was little response; the crusading ideal had become too much tarnished. In the fall the Mongols
struck Poland, devastating the region around Sandomir and besieging Lublin; but Casimir prevented them from
crossing the
74 Knoll, Rise of the Polish Monarchy, pp. 62, 66-68, 71, 73 (quotation on p. 73). "Ibid., pp. 75-81,88.
7s
lbid., p. 94.
77
Ibid., pp. 71, 84,100-107.
Vistula-the fabled horsemen of the steppes were not the irresistible warriors they had once been. 78
Still they remained dangerous, and in the face of their new aggression Pope Benedict XII now urged
quick and final settlement of the long-standing dispute between Poland and the Teutonic Knights. The result
was the Treaty of
Kalisz in July 1343 by which Casimir recognized the Knights' claim to Pomerania and Chelmno while the
Knights agreed to the return of Kujavia and Dobrzyn to Poland. Casimir pledged to work to persuade Hungary
not to act against the Knights and not to give aid and advice to pagan enemies of the Knights (obviously
meaning the Lithuanians). The Polish clergy declared they had received satisfactory indemnification from the
Knights, and the treaty was formally ratified in the presence of the Archbishop of Gniezno, the primate of
Poland. New Pope Clement VI,_ in a bull issued in December 1343, granted Casimir a tenth of all
ecclesiastical income from the archdiocese of Gniezno plus the papal tenth in Poland for two years, to help him
against the Mongols, Lithuanians and Ruthenians. Believing they had isolated the Lithuanians by this treaty,
the Knights led by John of Bohemia and his son Charles attacked them in the winter of 1344-45, but were
halted by a fierce Lithuanian counterattack which nearly captured Prince Charles. 79
 Warfare remained endemic in this distracted region, with Catholics, Russian Orthodox, pagan Mongols
and pagan Lithuanians all set against one another. Catholic leadership in the region demanded the emergence
of Poland as its principal power, the conversion of Lithuania to the Catholic Faith, and an end to the
depredations of the Teutonic Knights whom no one in the region really regarded as "crusaders" any longer. All
these were the continuing objectives of Casimir III the Great, and were to be achieved by his grand-niece
Jadwiga a quarter of a century later.
At the opposite end of Christendom, in Spain, King Alfonso XI "the Avenger" and Afonso IV of
Portugal beat back a major new Muslim assault after the Moroccans had defeated the Castilian fleet in the
Straits of Gibraltar in the spring of 1340 and landed a large army on the Andalusian shore to join with the
army of the Moorish kingdom of Granada. Outnumbered four to one, the Castilian and Portuguese armies met
the infidel at the Rio Salado near the besieged port of Tarifa on October 30, 1340. Following a great fighting
sermon by Archbishop (later Cardinal) Gil Albornoz of Toledo, primate of Spain, and general confession and
communion, the Christian knights rode into battle under the papal banner, carrying a relic of the True Cross.
Aided by a sally from the Christian garrison of Tarifa, they won a decisive victory. The Moroccan
Ibid, pp. 98-9-9,110,125-126,128-130,132-133; John L. I. Fennell, The Emergence of Moscow, 1304-1359
(Berkeley CA, 1968), pp. 165-170,173-174.
"Knoll, Rise of the Polish Monarchy, pp. 108,118-119,135,183-185.