(Cambridge Concise Histories) Jerzy Lukowski, Hubert Zawadzki - A Concise History of Poland-Cambridge University Press (2006)

In 1309, his rival in Wielkopolska, Duke Henry of Gfogow died, leaving five young sons, all more German than Polish. The knights preferred Lokietek to fragmentation and German rule, but it was not until the submission of the town of Poznan in November 13 14 that serious opposition was eliminated. In control of Wielkopolska and Krakow, Lokietek could realistically aspire to the royal dignity - were it not for the rival claims of the new king of Bohemia, John of Luxemburg, who had cheerfully taken over the claims of his Pfemyslid predecessors. Most of the Silesian and Masovinn dukes looked to him. Brandenburg and the Teutonic Knights endorsed him as the supposed heir of the Vaclavs in Poland, in the expectation of satisfying their own titles and claims. Pope John XXII, whose approval was necessary to a coronation in what was technically a papal fief, was reluctant to offend either party. He gave his consent in terms so ambiguous as to suggest that he considered both men to have a legitimate royal title. When Lokietek s coronation did finally take place on zo January J320, it was not in Gniezno but, for the first time, in Krakow. The new venue was dictated not only by a recognition of the greater economic importance of the southern provinces but by a tacit acknowledgement of the still limited extent of Lokietek’s territorial support. He controlled less than half of the territory which Boleslaw Wrymouth had ruled: Wielkopolska in the west, Krakow and Sandomierz in the south, the two regions linked in the central Polish lands by his own duchies of Lęczyca and Sieradz. Lokietek was more king of Krakow than king of Poland. He was fortunate that John of Bohemia had his own difficulties with the Czech nobilitv.

Lokietek sought security through marriage alliances: in r 320, he cemented his long-standing alliance with the Angevins of Hungary when his daughter Elizabeth (1305-80) married King Charles Robert (130S-42). In Г325, the king secured his son's marriage to Aldona (d. t3 39}, daughter of the Lithuanian prince Gediminas -at the cost of driving the Masovian dukes, perpetually feuding over their eastern borderlands with the Lithuanians, into an alliance with the Ordcnsstaat. His only recourse against the Knights lay in persuading the papacy to issue legal pronouncements enjoining them to restore Pomerania. Such pronouncements (never definitive) were indeed made, but the Knights paid no attention. John of Bohemia prepared, in 1327, to attack Krakow - and had he not been kept in check by Charles Robert from Hungary, Lokietek’s monarchy might not have survived. Most of the dukes of southern Silesia declared themselves John’s vassals. Lokietek’s offensive against Duke Waclaw (1313-36) of Plock only precipitated incursions by his allies, Brandenburg and the Knights. Lokietek bought Brandenburg off in 1329 with the county of Lubusz (Lebus), at the confluence of the Warta and the Oder. In the winter of 1328-9, John of Luxemburg and the Knights undertook a ‘crusade’ against Lokietek’s Lithuanian allies. The Polish military diversion into the county of Chelmno backfired: John and the Knights conquered the northern Polish territory of Dobrzyh, which John, by virtue of his claims to the Polish throne, generously awarded to the Knights. Duke Waclaw of Piock declared himself to be his vassal. So did most of the remaining Silesian dukes.

The Knights followed up with an offensive into Wielkopolska in July 133 i. They comprehensively sacked Gniezno, although, as a religious order, they felt it politic to spare the cathedral. On 27 September, the Polish and Teutonic armies met at Plowce. The battle lasted most of the day; if, on balance, this pyrrhic encounter was a Polish victory, it resolved nothing. It marked the limit of Lokietek’s military endeavour. The king could raid, but not reconquer; above all, he lacked the resources and the organization to take on the Knights’ strongholds. Had John of Luxemburg also invaded - as he had promised the Knights - Plowce might have been even more irrelevant than it was. In 1332, the Knights more than made up for Plowce by occupying tokietek’s old patrimonial duchy of Kujawy. In August, he had to agree to a truce which left them in possession of all their recent gains. Through sheer, murderous persistence, he had semi-reunited Poland. But at his death, on 2 March 1333, he left an even smaller kingdom than the one which had acknowledged him at his coronation in 1320. His successor, Casimir III, began his reign by renewing the truce with the Teutonic Knights.