Visegrád 1335 (Budapest, 2009)
The Congress of Visegrád by György Rácz
"<y Hie Congress of Visegrád had not yet been specified. At the Visegrád meeting in November, however, Casimir, experiencing financial difficulties at the time, had no choice but to haggle over the amount to be paid. He finally agreed to pay 20,000 threescore Prague groschen (20,000 Bohemian silver Marks) to the Bohemian king in exchange for the latter renouncing his title of Polish king (22 November 1335 charter in this book). Kingjohn, in turn, issued a charter of abdication deposited with the Hungarian king. Should Casimir fail to produce the amount missing, the Hungarian king had the choice of giving the deposited charter back to the king of Bohemia or supplying the missing 6,000 Marks himself. As 6,000 silver Marks make 500 golden Marks, the above-quoted chronicle pertains to this aspect of the event; thus the chronicler mistakenly identifies the Hungarian king's collateral statement with the payment itself. As for the quantity of the meals and drinks, I tend to give credit to the chronicler; however, it would be interesting to trace whether the presents mentioned in the document occur in Czech sources later on. The actual celebration of the treaty of alliance took place on November 19, name- day of Elizabeth Piast, wife of the host king. Many charters were dated that day, as was the Bohemian-Polish peace treaty (19 November 1335 charter in this book), one of the most important documents of the meeting. Another charter of the same date provided for the security of the road leading from Poland to Wroclaw and the demolition of the castle of Boleslauitz (Boleslawiec). Yet another was a marriage contract among the allied dynasties (a usual protocol on such occasions) aimed at protecting the newly forged Bohemian-Polish alliance. Due to the lack of younger sisters to marry, Casimir offered his baby daughter Elizabeth to the 6-year-old grandson of the Bohemian king, the only child of Henry, Duke of Bavaria and Duchess Margaret of Luxembourg (John's daughter). Due to the untimely death of the boy in 1340 the marriage was not realized. The signing of the peace treaty took place on the same day as the verbal declaration of the arbitration. A thorough study of the historical sources demonstrates that this was the underlying reason for the meeting of the kings. The adversaries had English ss* 25
