Casimir Jagiellon (; ; ; ; 3 October 1458 – 4 March 1484) was a prince of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The second son of King Casimir IV Jagiellon, he was tutored by Johannes Longinus, a Polish chronicler, diplomat, and priest. After his elder brother Vladislaus was elected as King of Bohemia in 1471, Casimir became the heir apparent. At the age of 13, Casimir participated in the failed military campaign to install him as King of Hungary. He became known for his piety, devotion to God, and generosity towards the sick and poor. He became ill (most likely with tuberculosis) and died at the age of 25. He was buried in Vilnius Cathedral. His canonization was initiated by his brother King Sigismund I the Old in 1514 and the tradition holds that he was canonized in 1521. Saint Casimir the Prince is the patron saint of Poland, Lithuania and Lithuanian youth and the only saint with this name.
Veneration of Casimir saw a resurgence in the 17th century when his feast day was confirmed by the pope in 1602 and the dedicated Chapel of Saint Casimir was completed in 1636. Casimir became a patron saint of Lithuania and Lithuanian youth. In Vilnius, his feast day is marked annually with Kaziuko mugė (a trade fair) held on the Sunday nearest to 4 March, the anniversary of his death. There are more than 50 churches named after Casimir in Lithuania and Poland, including Church of St. Casimir, Vilnius and St. Kazimierz Church, Warsaw, and more than 50 churches in Lithuanian and Polish diaspora communities in America. Women's congregation Sisters of Saint Casimir was established in 1908 and remains active in the United States.
Biography Early life and education A member of the Jagiellon dynasty, Casimir was born in Wawel Castle in Kraków. Casimir was the third child and the second son of the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir IV and Queen Elisabeth Habsburg of Austria. Elisabeth was a loving mother and took active interest in her children's upbringing. The Queen and the children often accompanied the King in his annual trips to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Casimir was a polyglot and knew Lithuanian, Polish, German and Latin languages. From the age of nine, Casimir and his brother Vladislaus were educated by the Polish priest Fr. Jan Długosz. The boys were taught Latin and German, law, history, rhetoric, and classical literature. Długosz was a strict and conservative teacher who emphasized ethics, morality, and religious devotion. According to Stanisław Orzechowski (1513–1566), the princes were subject to corporal punishment which was approved by their father. Długosz noted Casimir's skills in oratory when he delivered speeches to greet his father returning to Poland in 1469 and Jakub Sienienski, the Bishop of Kujawy, in 1470.
Hungarian campaign
Prince Casimir's uncle Ladislaus the Posthumous, King of Hungary and Bohemia, died in 1457 at the age of 17, without leaving an heir. Casimir's father, King Casimir IV, subsequently advanced his claims to Hungary and Bohemia, but could not enforce them due to the Thirteen Years' War (1454–66). Instead, Hungarian nobles elected Matthias Corvinus and Bohemian nobles selected George of Poděbrady as their kings. George of Poděbrady died in March 1471. In May 1471, Vladislaus, eldest son of Casimir IV, was elected to the throne of Bohemia. However, a group of Catholic Bohemian nobles supported Matthias Corvinus instead of Vladislaus II. In turn, a group of Hungarian nobles conspired against Matthias Corvinus and invited the Polish king to overthrow him. King Casimir IV decided to install his son, Casimir, in Hungary.Tanner, Marcus (2009). The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and the Fate of his Lost Library. Yale University Press. p. 70
Poland amassed an army of 12,000 men, commanded by Piotr Dunin and Dziersław of Rytwiany. Both King Casimir and Prince Casimir participated in the campaign. In October 1471, the Polish army crossed the Hungarian border and slowly marched towards Buda. Matthias Corvinus managed to win over the majority of the Hungarian nobles, including the main conspirator Archbishop János Vitéz, and the Polish army did not receive the expected reinforcements. Only Deák, Perény and Rozgonyi families sent troops. Upon hearing that Corvinus' army of 16,000 men camped outside of Pest, the Polish army decided to retreat from Hatvan to Nitra. There the soldiers battled food shortages, spreading infectious diseases, and the upcoming winter. The Polish King also lacked funds to pay the mercenaries. As a result, the Polish army decreased by about a third. In December 1471, Prince Casimir, out of fear for his safety, was sent to Jihlava closer to the Polish border and that further eroded their soldiers' morale. Corvinus took Nitra and a one-year truce was completed in March 1472 in Buda. Prince Casimir returned to Kraków to resume his studies with Długosz.
Długosz remarked that Prince Casimir felt "great sorrow and shame" regarding the failure in Hungary. Polish propaganda, however, portrayed him as a savior, sent by divine providence, to protect the people from a godless tyrant (i.e. Matthias Corvinus) and marauding pagans (i.e. Muslim Ottoman Turks). Prince Casimir was also exposed to the cult of his uncle King Władysław III of Poland who died in the 1444 Battle of Varna against the Ottomans. This led some researchers, including Jacob Caro, to conclude that the Hungarian campaign pushed Prince Casimir into religious life.
Later life and death
As his elder brother, Vladislaus II, ruled Bohemia, Prince Casimir became the heir apparent to the throne of Poland and Lithuania. Italian humanist writer Filippo Buonaccorsi (also known as Filip Callimachus) was hired to become Casimir's tutor in political matters, but his Renaissance views had less influence on Casimir than Długosz. In 1474, the Italian merchant and traveler Ambrogio Contarini met with Prince Casimir and was impressed by his wisdom. Prince Casimir completed his formal education at age 16 and spent most of his time with his father. In 1476, Prince Casimir accompanied his father to Royal Prussia where he tried to resolve the conflict with the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia . In 1478 Seimas of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania demanded that King Casimir IV leave either Prince Casimir or Prince John I Albert in Lithuania as a regent. King Casimir IV feared separatist moods and refused, but after settling the conflict in Prussia, moved to Vilnius.
Between 1479 and 1484 his father spent most of his time in Vilnius attending to the affairs of Lithuania. In 1481, Mikhailo Olelkovich and his relatives planned to murder King Casimir and Prince Casimir during a hunt at a wedding of Feodor Ivanovich Belsky. The plan was discovered and Prince Casimir, perhaps fearing for his safety, was sent to Poland to act as vice-regent. Around the same time his father tried to arrange his marriage to Kunigunde of Austria, daughter of Emperor Frederick III. It is often said that Prince Casimir refused the match, preferring to remain celibate and sensing his approaching death. According to Maciej Miechowita, Prince Casimir developed tuberculosis. In May 1483, Prince Casimir joined his father in Vilnius. There, after the death of Andrzej Oporowski, Bishop and Vice-Chancellor of the Crown, Prince Casimir took over some of his duties in the chancellery. However, his health deteriorated while rumors about his piety and good deeds spread further. In February 1484, the Polish sejm in Lublin was aborted as King Casimir IV rushed back to Lithuania to be with his ill son. Prince Casimir died on 4 March 1484, in Grodno. His remains were interred in Vilnius Cathedral, where the dedicated Saint Casimir's Chapel was built in 1636.
Veneration Pious life and attributed miracles
Surviving contemporary accounts described Prince Casimir as a young man of exceptional intellect and education, humility and politeness, who strove for justice and fairness. Early sources do not attest to his piety or devotion to God, but his inclination to religious life increased towards the end of his life. Later sources provide some stories of Casimir's religious life. Marcin Kromer (1512–1589) said Casimir refused his physician's advice to have sexual relations with women in hopes to cure his illness. Other accounts say Casimir contracted his lung disease after a particularly hard fast or that he could be found pre-dawn, kneeling by the church gates, waiting for a priest to open them. Zacharias Ferreri (1479–1524) wrote that Casimir composed a prayer in hexameter on Christ's incarnation but this text has not survived. Later, a copy of Omni die dic Mariae ("Daily, Daily Sing to Mary") was found in Casimir's coffin. The hymn became so strongly associated with Casimir that sometimes it is known as "Hymn of St. Casimir" and he is credited as its author. The lengthy hymn has an intricate meter and rhyme scheme (alternate acatalectic and catalectic trochaic dimeter with internal rhyme in the first and third verses (aa/b, cc/b)) and was most likely written by Bernard of Cluny.
One of the first miracles attributed to Casimir was his appearance before the Lithuanian army during the Siege of Polotsk in 1518. Casimir showed where Lithuanian troops could safely cross the Daugava River and relieve the city, besieged by the army of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Ferreri's hagiography of 1521 mentions many miracles of Casimir are known but describes only one – a Lithuanian victory against the Russians. The description lacks specifics, such as date or location, but most likely refers to the Lithuanian victory in 1519 against Russian troops that raided the environs of Vilnius, and not the more popular story of the Siege of Polotsk.
Canonization and official veneration
Casimir's official cult started spreading soon after his death. In 1501, Pope Alexander VI, citing Casimir's miracles as well as the splendor of the chapel where he was buried, granted a special indulgence to those who would pray in the chapel from one vespers to another during certain Catholic festivals, and would contribute to the upkeep of the chapel. In 1513, Andrzej Krzycki wrote a poem mentioning numerous wax votive offerings on Casimir's grave. In 1514, during the Fifth Council of the Lateran, Casimir's brother Sigismund I the Old petitioned the pope to canonize Casimir. After repeated requests, in November 1517, Pope Leo X appointed a three-bishop commission and later sent his legate Zacharias Ferreri to investigate. He arrived at Vilnius in September 1520 and completed his work in about two months. His findings, the first short hagiography of Casimir, was published in 1521 in Kraków as Vita Beati Casimiri Confessoris. The canonization was all but certain but Pope Leo X died in December 1521. Research of Zenonas Ivinskis and Paulius Rabikauskas showed that there is no documentary proof that he issued a papal bull canonizing Casimir but many important documents were lost during the Sack of Rome (1527). The Protestant Reformation attacked the cult of saints and there were no new canonizations between 1523 and 1588. However, Casimir was included in the first Roman Martyrology, published in 1583.