John I Albert of Poland

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John I of Poland
Image:Jan Olbracht.jpg
Drawing by Jan Matejko
Reign	1491-1498 (Grand Duke of Lithuania) 1492-1501 (King of Poland)
Born	December 27, 1459
	Kraków, Poland
Died	June 17, 1501
	Toruń, Poland
Buried	Wawel Cathedral, Kraków
Consort	Elisabeth of Austria
Royal House	Jagiellon
Father	Casimir IV of Poland
Mother	Elisabeth of Austria

For other monarchs with similar names, please see John of Poland.

John I Albert of Poland (Polish: Jan I Olbracht, 1459 – 1501) was King of Poland (1492 – 1501), Duke of Głogów (1491 - 1498).

He was the third son of Casimir IV Jagiellon, King of Poland, and Elizabeth, daughter of Albert II of Germany.

As crown prince, he distinguished himself by his brilliant victory over the Tatars at Kopersztyn (1487). In 1490, the Hungarian nobility proclaimed John King of Hungary at the Rokos diet. He was, however, defeated by his brother, King Ladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary. In 1492, John succeeded his father as King of Poland.

Losses of revenue due to the secession of Lithuania placed John at the mercy of the Polish sejmiks, or local diets, where the szlachta, or local nobles, made their subsidies dependent on the king's subservience.

Primarily a warrior, with a strong taste for heroic adventure, John desired to pose as the champion of Christendom against the Turks. Circumstances seemed, moreover, to favor him. In his brother Ladislaus, who as King of Hungary and Bohemia possessed a dominant influence in central Europe, he found a counterpoise to the machinations of Emperor Maximilian I, who in 1492 had concluded an alliance against him with Ivan III of Muscovy. As suzerain of Moldavia, John was favorably situated for attacking the Turks. At the conference of Leutschau (1494) the details of the expedition were arranged between the kings of Poland and Hungary and the Elector Frederick II of Brandenburg, with the co-operation of Stephen III of Moldavia, hospodar of Moldavia, who had appealed to John for assistance.

In the course of 1496 John with great difficulty collected an army of 80,000 men in Poland, but the crusade was deflected from its course by the sudden invasion of Galicia by the hospodar, who apparently — for the whole subject is still very obscure — had been misled by reports from Hungary that John was bent upon placing his younger brother Sigismund I the Old on the throne of Moldavia. Whatever the reason, the Poles entered Moldavia not as friends but as foes, and after the abortive siege of Suceava were compelled to retreat following defeat at the Battle of the Cosmin Forest.

The insubordination of the szlachta seems to have been one cause of this disgraceful collapse, for John after his return confiscated hundreds of their estates; in spite of which, to the end of his life he retained his extraordinary popularity.

When the new Hochmeister of the Teutonic Order, Friedrich Wettin von Sachsen, refused to render homage to the Polish crown, John compelled him to do so. His intention to still further humiliate the Teutonic Order was frustrated by his sudden death in 1501.

A valiant soldier and a man of much enlightenment, John was a poor politician, recklessly sacrificing the future to the present.