Prussian Homage 1525-2025

 Salvete Omnes,

today we could celebrate the 500 years anniversary of the Prussian Homage, when the treasonous and poisonous Teutonic Order State was dissolved and its Grand Master, Albert of Prussia, left the Holy Mother Church for the heretical new Protestant denomination of Lutheranism, was allowed to secularize  his state as the first Protestant state in Europe, and  became a vassal to the Polish king, Sigismund I (the Elder).

Prior to the Homage Grand Master Albert fought the last Polish-Teutonic war 1519-1521AD against the Polish Crown, allied with the Grand Duchy Muscovy and Holy Roman Emperor. Nota bene the pesky Grand Duchy of Lithuanian did not come to aid Polish realm, supposedly busy with the Muscovite onslaught. 

IMHO this treaty of Krakow finalized with the Homage was the gravest error of Polish Jagellon dynasts. One could say that to allow for this viperous state, the arch enemy of Polish kingdom since at least 1309AD,  to continue in its secular form carried not only the promise of treachery and duplicity, but prevented Polish realm from taking complete control over the Baltic shores from  the Gdansk Pomerania to the Lithuanian Zmudz coast.  The Teutonic State should have been incorporated into the  Polish realm, and Polish king made the Order's titular head. The subsequent decisions of Polish monarchs, from Sigismund II to Sigismund III and his son Wladyslaw IV just borught more treachery and promises of doom. In 1772 the ruler of Prussia , archvillain Frederick, instigated the First Partition of Poland.

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Archbishop and Crown Chancellor  Jan Łaski (1456-1531) was the proponent of liquidation of the Prussian state, along with queen Bona Sforza, but His Royal Majesty Sigismund I, one could say  the very master of many bad political decisions, refused to heed his own wife's and his own chancellor's counsel and advice. 

'Stupid is as stupid does' - said our American fictional hero, Forrest Gump.  

Jan Matejko painted this huge (388cm by 785cm) canvas, started in 1880 and finished in 1882,when Poland was just an idea  in the heads and hearts of the Poles partitioned between Russian Empire, Prussian state known as German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Jan Matejko, with his inspiring paintings, fought back, along with many Polish cultural giants of the era, the doom of Partitions and for the restitution of Polish state. 
Ave Jan Matejko

ps 

currently the Polish culture is in retreat and in a dismal state of nothingness, sadly. 

enjoy
Valete