Visegrád 1335 (Budapest, 2009)
The Congress of Visegrád by György Rácz
“<y Tlie Congress of Visegrád confirm it as well. With that, the Bohemian delegation went to the Hungarian royal court in Visegrád, where the Bohemian-Hungarian agreement was soon signed. The copy, dated September 3, issued and sealed by the Hungarian king, has survived in the royal Czech archives. (3 September 1335 charter in this book.) Now the time was ripe for the commencement of the negotiations between the arbiters and for the meeting of the three kings. At the beginning of November 1335, the 47-year-old Hungarian King Charles of Anjou I invited and hosted his brother-in-law and ally, the 25-year-old Polish King Casimir III, the 39 year-old Bohemian King John of Luxembourg, along with his 19-year-old son Charles, Margrave of Moravia (later to be Emperor Charles IV), and the many Polish, Silesian and German principals as part of their delegations, as well as the representatives of the Teutonic Order, for over three to four weeks. Contemporary chroniclers soon realized the significance of this event and reported on it in several documents in all the countries involved. These documents typically highlight one aspect of the event while leaving others in the background. Charles ofLuxembourg, Margrave of Moravia and later to be Emperor, offers an account of the congress in his autobiographies, which constitutes a contemporary report on the event, given that he attended it in person. No wonder he does not go into detail about the formalities of hospitality, nor does he give insight into the dynamics of the talks; it comes rather as a surprise that he emphasizes the Bohemian-Polish- Hungarian alliance only, without discussing the arbitration process. In his work he mentions that his father was already in Visegrád when he arrived; he then goes on to explicate the above-mentioned familiar relationships among the rulers, and finally describes the roots of the Bohemian-Polish dispute. Luckily, the 15th century Polish chronicler Jan Dlugosz highlights this other aspect of the congress in his account: the actual reason why the kings gathered together in Visegrád was to settle the dispute over those Polish territories seized by the Teutonic Knights. Not only did Dlugosz capture the essence of the event, he also provided the text of the charter for peace as well. English sp. 23
