complained that
all the rich convents were occupied by foreign monks.[12] These
ignorant men were wont to throw into the fire the few writings in the
barbarian language, which they could discover; and, as instructors of
the youth, were able to fill the heads of the young nobility with the
most unnatural prejudices against the vernacular tongue of their own
country. Besides the clergy, many other foreigners also settled in
Poland, as mechanics and traders, especially Germans. But as they all
lived merely in the cities of Poland, they and their language had far
less influence on the people, than was the case in Bohemia, where they
mingled with all classes.

SECOND PERIOD.

_From Casimir the Great to Sigismund I. A.D. 1333 to A.D. 1506._

Casimir is one of the few princes, who acquired the name of the Great
not by victories and conquests, but through the real benefits of laws,
national courts of justice, and means of education, which he procured
for his subjects. His father, Vladislaus Lokietek, had resumed the
royal title, which hitherto had been alternately taken and dropped;
and was the first who permanently united Great and Little Poland.
Under Casimir, the present Austrian kingdom of Galicia, which,
together with Lodomeria, the present Russian government Vladimir, was
then called Red Russia, was added by inheritance. Lithuania became
connected with Poland as a Polish fief in the year 1386. when queen
Hedevig, heiress of the crown of Poland, married Jagello, duke of
Lithuania; but was first completely incorporated as a component part
of the kingdom of Poland only so late as the year 1569. Masovia had
been thus united some forty years earlier. At the time of the marriage
of Hedevig and Jagello, the latter caused himself to be baptized, and
introduced Christianity into Lithuania, where he himself in many cases
acted as an apostle.

As to the influence of Casimir the Great upon the literary cultivation
of his subjects, it was more mediate than immediate. Whilst his
cotemporary and neighbour, Charles IV of Bohemia, loved and patronized
the language of that kindred nation. Casimir paid no attention
whatever to the vernacular tongue of his country; nor was any thing
done under his administration for the development of that rich
dialect. This king indeed, as early as A.D. 1347, laid the foundation
of the high school of Cracow; but the regular organization and
influence of this institution dates only from half a centur