Diversity and religious tolerance out of necessity in the Jagiellonian monarchies: Bohemia and Poland
Diversity and religious tolerance out of necessity in the Jagiellonian monarchies: Bohemia and Poland

Summary/Abstract: The article addresses the coexistence of various religious groups in the kingdoms of Bohemia and Poland before the outbreak of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of the development of toleration toward religious communities operating outside Latin Christianity, focusing on the role played by the Jagiellonian kings ruling the two countries in the implementation of religious tolerance. On the one hand, the rise of Hussitism and the outbreak of a full-scale revolution in Bohemia in the second decade of the fifteen century created a unique situation when the legitimate heir to the Czech throne, Sigismund of Luxembourg, was overthrown, the role of the papacy was challenged, and Roman Catholic were confronted by supporters of the Bohemian Reformation. During the Hussite Wars, Bohemia was divided between adherents of the Roman Church and Hussitism, and the Basel Compacts of 1433 only briefly put an end to the bloody fighting and established a truce between the feuding camps. Finally the Peace Treaty of Kuttenberg in 1485, ending the religious revolt against the policy of King Ladislaus Jagiellon, enforced tolerance, which respected the rights of Utraquists and ensured the peaceful coexistence of various religious communities. In the Kingdom of Poland, which did not experience the rapid changes brought about by the Hussite Revolution in Bohemia, the development of religious tolerance was evolutionary. In the multi-ethnic and multi-religious federation of Poland and Lithuania tolerance became a necessity, and during the fifteenth century, despite the privileged position of the Roman Church, a mechanism for the coexistence of different faiths emerged, supported by the Jagiellonian rulers. The traditions of religious pluralism in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, gradually adopted by the Jagiellons in the Kingdom of Poland, gave stimulus to the mechanism of coexistence of various religious groups, which facilitated the peaceful development of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.

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