February 28

BD HEDWIG OF POLAND, MATRON (A.D. 1399)

There are two Hedwigs (Jadwiga) of royal blood, both of whom Butler commemorates on the same day (October 17). The younger of these, whose claim to liturgical celebration is not clearly made out, seems to be honoured in her own country on the last day of February with a popular cultus. The cause of her beatification was indeed introduced, but it has never been prosecuted to a successful issue. She was born in 1371, and was the youngest daughter of Louis [Louis the Great, king of Hungary], nephew and successor to Casimir III, King of Poland. After his death in 1382 it was pressed upon Hedwig as a religious duty to accept for a husband the still pagan Jagiello, Duke of Lithuania. Diplomatically such an alliance seemed most advantageous for Poland and the Church, as the duke was not only willing in view of the marriage to accept Christianity himself, but promised that all his people should become Christians also. Hedwig, child as she still was in years (she was then thirteen), had to make a decision according to her conscience. A sympathetic pen in modern times has given this account of her surrender:

Covering herself with a thick black veil she proceeded on foot to the cathedral of Cracow, and repairing to one of the side chapels, threw herself on her knees, where for three hours with clasped hands and streaming eyes she wrestled with the repugnance that surged within her. At length she rose with a detached heart, having laid at the foot of the cross her affections, her will, her hopes of earthly happiness; offering herself, and all that belonged to her, as a perpetual holocaust to her crucified Redeemer, and esteeming herself happy, if so by this sacrifice she might purchase the salvation of those precious souls for whom He had shed His blood. Before leaving the chapel she cast her veil over the crucifix, hoping under that pall to bury all human infirmity that might still linger round her heart, and then hastened to establish a foundation for the perpetual renewal of this type of her soul's sorrow. This foundation yet exists; within the same chapel the crucifix still stands, covered by its sable drapery, being commonly known as the "crucifix of Hedwig".

Jagiello seems to have been sincere. He received baptism, together with the new name of Ladislaus, and we read strange stories of the "conversion" of the Lithuanian people -- how the temples of the false gods were destroyed wholesale, and how men, women and children drawn up in platoons, "were sprinkled (for their baptism) by the bishops and priests, every division receiving the same name." All through the troubled years which followed, Hedwig was the most stable as well as the most judicious element in the government of the kingdom. She exercised a moderating influence upon the policy of her husband, she came to the rescue of the poor suffering people, who too often had to pay the penalty for the mistakes or the selfishness of their rulers, she won the love of her subjects by her gentleness and boundless charity, and yet she showed that she could defend herself with dignity against Ladislaus's irrational outbursts of jealousy. It was only in her asceticism that she seemed to forget the need of a measure of prudence. But she was conscientious in all wifely duties, and her husband beyond doubt regarded her with deep affection as well as with a certain feeling of awe. When at last there was promise of an heir to the throne he was extravagant in the preparations he wished made. From the frontier where he was conducting a campaign he wrote about providing jewels and rich draperies. Hedwig replied: "Seeing that I have so long renounced the pomps of this world, it is not on that treacherous couch -- to so many the bed of death -- that I would willingly be surrounded by their glitter. It is not by the help of gold or gems that I hope to render myself acceptable to that Almighty Father who has mercifully removed from me the reproach of barrenness, but rather by resignation to His will and a sense of my own nothingness." Humanly speaking, she was not altogether wise in her use of penance and prayer. On the anniversary of her great renunciation she went out unattended to make a vigil in the cathedral before the veiled crucifix. Her ladies-in-waiting found her there, hours later, rapt in ecstasy or possibly in a swoon. Not long afterwards the birth of a daughter, who lived only a few days, cost the mother her life. It was believed that many miracles were wrought at her tomb.

See the Dublin Review, October, 1864, pp. 311-343; A. B. C. Dunbar, Dictionary of Saintly Women, vol. i, pp. 366-369; H. Sienkiewicz, Knights of the Cross, ch. 4; and the Cambridge History of Poland, vol. i (1950), for the historical background of the marriage that united Poland and Lithuania for 400 years.

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(Butler's Lives of the Saints, Christian Classics, 1995) wmaster@hcbc.hu