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Mikhail Glinsky, Sigismund the Old and the Council of Lords

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Mikhail Glinsky, Sigismund the Old and the Council of Lords STEPHEN С. ROWELL Wilno NOLITE CONFIDERE IN PRINCIPIBUS: MIKHAIL GLINSKY, SIGISMUND THE OLD AND THE COUNCIL OF LORDS The fifteenth century witnessed a series of important changes in the governance of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, not the least of which was the growth of the power and self-identity as a political force among a central kernel of the Lithuanian Council of Lords. This formed a gradual transition from the leadership of Vytautine Lithuania (Gasztold [Goštautas] and his entourage) to a Radziwiłł [Radvila]- dominated politics by the end of the period, which was accompanied by antagonism between those who made a career at court in the personal entourage of the monarch and over time moved out to take administrative posts and those who developed their careers from being major local landowners and leaders to become holders of the main central offices of state and only later took an interest in other power areas such as the court and the Church. It is in this dynamic context that we might examine the rise and fall of the Glinskys rather than solely the traditional narrower scenario of crimes d'etat. The story of Mikhail Glinsky and his „rebellion" against Sigismund the Old in 1508 has been the object of political exempla, belles lettres, tales and black propaganda even from before the affair began in earnest with the murder of Jan Zabrzeziński, former palatine of Trakai, one February night in Grodno in 1508'. In the sixteenth century the name of Glinsky rapidly became a by-word for infamy and treason, and his fate a deliberate warning to other would-be political malcontents. Frequent use of the word zfdjradtsa in Lithuanian sources appears to date from this time2. Glinsky, we are told briefly, was the favourite creature of Alexander Jagiellończyk, whose fall from grace was so painful that Prince 1 L. Finkel, Elekcja Zygmunta I. Sprawy dynastii jagiellońskiej i unii polsko-litewskiej, Kraków 1910, pp. 226-227, on the basis of Sigismund Herberstein's commentary and the diary of Łukasz Noskowski; the same date is given in Maciej Drzewicki's diary, see appendix below. 2 The word is of Polish origin (as opposed to the Eastern Slavonicpredatel, izmennik) - M. Va s m e r, Etimologicheskii slovar'russkogo iazyka, translated from the 1956-1958 Heidelberg edition {Russisches etymologisches Wörterbuch) by O.N. Trubachcv, II, Moscow 1986, p. 105; cf. I.I. Srczncvskii, Materiały dla slovaria drevnerusskogo iazyka, I, St Petersburg 1893, p. 997. Lithuanian Metrica VI, fol.49v, 57v (1495), 220v (1501). These deal with cases of defections to Muscovy where their pro- 77 Mikhail rose up in arms against his monarch and in cahoots with the Muscovite tyrant in order to seize the throne. He was the prime example of a wilful noble and a warning to all other potential disloyal elements. This predicament began to change only with L. FinkePs groundbreaking study of the election of Sigismund the Old as grand duke of Lithuania and subsequently king of Poland3. In this study we will concentrate on three main questions, viz.: was Mikhail Glinsky merely a creation of Grand Duke Alexander and the creator of his own family's undoubted position at court? Did Glinsky's training affect his relationships with other political factions within the Grand Duchy, including the Jagiellonian monarchs? Did Glinsky belong to a faction wider than that of his family? Was Mikhail Glinsky merely the creation of Alexander Jagiellończyk, who came to naught after his patron's death? King Sigismund claimed after the fact (of,.treason") in 1508 that in comparison with other members of the Council of Lords Mikhail Glinsky „не по отечеству славен был а ласкою брата нашого"4. То some extent the monarch had a point. Unlike most noble leaders in the Council Mikhail was not known as beres de (although his cognomen, Glinsky, does refer back to his ancestral estates and he did refer to himself later as de Turov) and had no patrimonial land base on which to rely for support in the way that local landowners often became local office holderss. His extensive estates in Podlasie and Polesie (Turov, Goniądz, Raigorod) were granted to him in perpetuity by a grateful monarch and supplemented by command of several perty is not to be granted to their kinpo blizkosti but falls forfeit to the grand duke. References to rebels appear in Latin texts from the Grand Duchy with more frequency at this time - KDKDW, p. 703. In his Quincunx (ed. K.J. Turowski, Kraków 1858, p. 73) Stanisław Orzechowski notes that the Kingdom of Poland has never produced a traitor like Glinsky. In contemporary texts Glinsky's name appears alongsidezradtsa orproditor. 3Finkel,£/e£g'<j...,pp. 90-109, 114-143,170-186,217-250,276-280; for otheraccounts of Glinsky see J. Wolff, Kniaziowie litewsko-ruscy od końca XIV w., Warsaw 1895, pp. 77-91; W Pociecha, Gliński Michał, PSB 8, pp. 65-69, M.E. By chkov a, Sostav klassafeodalov Rossii v XVI v., Moscow 1986, pp. 55-67; К. Pietkiewicz, Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie pod rządami Aleksandra Jagielloń­ czyka. Studia nad dziejami państwa i społeczeństwa na przełomie XV i XVI wieku, ZNUP, Historia, 1995, no. 185, pp. 97-99; M.M. Krom, Mezh Rus'iu i Litvoi. Zapadnorusskie zemli v sisteme rus- sko-litovskikh otnoshetiii kontsa XV-pervoi treti XVI v., Moscow 1995, pp. 117-129; A. Krupska, Przekaz Rumiancewski „Ruskiego wriemiennika" jako źródło do genezy i przebiegu buntu Michała Glińskiego. Historia i współczcsnos'ć, 6: Z zagadnień historiografii od czasów antyku do XVI wieku, ed. A. Kunisz, Prace naukowe Uniwersytetu Śląskiego w Katowicach 525 (19S2), pp. 111-128; R.R. Tr i m o n i e n ė, Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė ir vidurio Europa XV-XVIa. sandūroje, Šiauliai 1996, pp. 46-49,66-73; V. Kananovič, Grand Duchess Elena Ivanovna and Duke Michael Gliński: Aspects of Rutership at the Jagiellonian Court [w:] Zamek i dwór w średniowieczu od XI do XV wieku. Materiały XIX seminarium mediewistycznego, cd. J. Wiesiołowski, Poznań 2001, pp. 161-164. * Lietuvos metrika. KnygaNrS (1499-1514). Uzrašymąknyga S [LM 8], ed. A. Baliulis et ai, Vilnius 1995, No. 69, p.112. 5 R. Petrauskas, Lietuvos diduomenė XIV a. pabaigojc-XV a.: sudėtis, struktūra, valdžia, Vilnius 2001. |7S state offices6. As befitted a high-ranking member of the grand-ducal court and Council he owned a house in Vilnius and a lakeside residence in Trakai. However, the Glinskys were not homines novi, even though they were far from being men of the centre. They were of Tatar princely stock7 and converts to Russian Orthodox Christianity, claiming connections with Vytautas, whom their ancestor is alleged to have rescued during the Battle of Vorskla (1399), and their power was based in southern lands of the Grand Duchy3. The market value of such «princes» may have fallen somewhat by the end of the fifteenth century-Stanislaw Górski makes fun of impoverished princes, claiming that there were many such impecunious nobles in Lithuanian Rus': „est in Lithuania ducum vulgarium numerus magnus [...] Hi licet pauperes sint, ducum tamen ex vetusto genere nomen ас titulum retinent"9. A similar attempt to besmirch the reputation of Grand Hetman Prince Konstanty Ostrogski was made in 1525 by Olbracht Gasztold10. However, birth did not guarantee the Glinskys' success. They owed their power to a range of factors, namely matrimonial alliance with princely families from Lithuanian Rus', service at court and subsequent royal largesse. Their connections with important Tatar khans (Mengli Girey, Shah Ahmed) were extremely useful to Lithuanian rulers faced with military incursions on their southern borders from Tatar hordes. They came to greater prominence first in the service of Swidrigiello, whose chancellor was Boris Ivanovich, Mikhail's grandfather". When Swidrigiello died in 1452, his court did not die with him; it was transformed and dispersed. The Chreptowiczes, for example, moved to Casimir I(IV)'s court12. They moved to the personal space of the grand duke-king, not necessarily to Vilnius, the administrative centre of Church and State (more so in the absence of the monarch). The Glinskys were also part of this world. Mikhail's grandfather served Vytautas, Swidrigiello and Casimir; he married the widow of the Gediminid prince, Ivan Korybutovich Lengvenovich and made connections away from the south (Chernigov) in the north-eastern palatinate of Minsk. His nephews Vatslav and Yaroslav Ivanovich served Marcin Gasztold ' Osheikovski, Trakai, Turov, Goniądz, Lisovo (Bielskpowiat), Punia, Vilnius house (granted in 1508 to Ostrogski), Mozhcikovo and Bikushki (Zholud powiat), Raigorod- Wold, Kniaziowie..., pp. 81, 85. 7 See S. Kryczyński, Początki rodu książąt Glińskich. Prace historyczne w 30-lecic działalności profesorskiej Stanisława Zakrzewskiego, Lwów 1934, pp. 397-410 and M.E. B y c h k o v a, Rodoslovie Glinskikh iz Rumiantsevskogo sobrania, Zapiski otdela rukopisei Gosudarstvennoi Biblioteki 38: 1977, pp. 112-113, 120-121. ' Bychkova, Rodoslovie... ' S. G ó r s k i, Commentarius rerum gestarum a Sigismundo primo, rege Polonie magno duce Lithuanie, AT.I.p. 15. 10 Calling him a low-born, Ruthenian impoverished prince - AT, VII, pp. 258-269. " O. Halecki, Ostatnie lata Świdrygicłły, pp. 111, 141, 212, 287. "Halecki./foW.pp. 255,275. 79 (palatine of Kiev) and Mikołaj Radziwiłł respectively, according to sixteenth- century Muscovite genealogical texts13. His daughter Fedka married Alexander Drozdcza, grand-ducal lieutentant of Kamieniec in Podole (1470-1475), whose son Andrei went on to become constable of Vilnius, lieutenant of Belsk and, controversially, lieutenant of Lida and Mikhail Glinsky's associate. Drozdcza, like Vassily Glinsky led a grand-ducal embassy to the Tatars in 149614. The Glinskys in one sense were provincial but the provinces from which they hailed on the eastern and southern borders of the Grand Duchy were significant territories, possession of which was disputed by the Lithuanians, Poles, Muscovites and Tatars.
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