| Popis: |
The author presents the monarchs and their closest entourage: higher clergy, the magnates holding state offices as well as landed gentry and the most outstanding representatives of the nobility playing an important role in public life, as the ruling elites. In exceptional cases, he classifies some outstanding business people and men of science as belonging to this group. The author’s analysis extends to the period 1490-1526 which corresponds to the duration of the Jagiellonian rule in Hungary. For at the core of the author's analysis one finds the thesis that it was the unity of the dynasty had led to the tightening of bonds between the two nations, in all possible walks of life, whereas it was the members of the ruling elites that had played the biggest role in this process. In order to prove his point, the author had analyzed the majority of the official, published correspondence between Poland and Hungary from the years 1490-1526. He had also consulted foreign sources. The result of the above analysis was the following. In the effect of correspondence as well as personal encounters between the Poles and Hungarians in the course of conventions, conferences and legations, the contacts with this nation were more frequent and lively than with any other neighboring nation. The above contacts had become even more frequent and intense with time which had led to many authentic friendships that had exceeded the boundaries of strictly official relations. This is borne out, among others, by the growing percentage of correspondence devoted to private issues, particularly towards the end of the period under discussion. In sporadic cases, the personal contacts had led to Polish-Hungarian marriages, but more often, they contributed to mutual permeation of legal, cultural, and social patterns as well as taking advantage of each other’s experiences in the sphere of construction and martial arts. |
