he latter it counted
for next to nothing. The theater of Polish history is the vast plain
extending from the Carpathians to the Duena, and from the Baltic almost
to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. This region, lacking natural
frontiers on several sides, was inhabited by a variety of races: Poles
in the west, Lithuanians in the east, Ruthenians in the south and many
Germans in the cities. The union of the Polish and Lithuanian states
was as yet a merely personal one in the monarch. Since the fourteenth
century the crown of Poland had been elective, but the grand-ducal
crown of Lithuania was {139} hereditary in the famous house of
Jagiello, and the advantages of union induced the Polish nobility
regularly to elect the heir to the eastern domain their king. Though
theoretically absolute, in practice the king had been limited by the
power of the nobles and gentry, and this limitation was given a
constitutional sanction in the law _Nihil novi_, [Sidenote: 1505]
forbidding the monarch to pass laws without the consent of the deputies
of the magnates and lesser nobles.

The foreign policy of Sigismund I [Sidenote: Sigismund I, 1506-1548]
was determined by the proximity of powerful and generally hostile
neighbors. It would not be profitable in this place to follow at
length the story of his frequent wars with Muscovy and with the Tartar
hordes of the Crimea, and of his diplomatic struggles with the Turks,
the Empire, Hungary, and Sweden. On the whole he succeeded not only in
holding his own, but in augmenting his power. He it was who finally
settled the vexatious question of the relationship of his crown to the
Teutonic Order, which, since 1466, had held Prussia as a fief, though a
constantly rebellious and troublesome one. The election of Albert of
Brandenburg as Grand Master of the Order threatened more serious
trouble, [Sidenote: 1511] but a satisfactory solution of the problem
was found when Albert embraced the Lutheran faith and secularized
Prussia as an hereditary duchy, at the same time swearing allegiance to
Sigismund as his suzerain. [Sidenote: 1525] Many years later
Sigismund's son conquered and annexed another domain of the Teutonic
order further north, namely Livonia. [Sidenote: 1561] War with Sweden
resulted from this but was settled by the cession of Esthonia to the
Scandinavian power.

Internally, the vigorous Jagiello strengthened both the military and
financial resources of his people. To meet