The death of
Casimir III the Great in 1370 marked the end of the
Piast dynasty in Poland. He was succeeded by
Louis I of Hungary of the
Angevin dynasty, who was Casimir's nephew. Louis' death in 1382, without a male heir, left a power vacuum (
interregnum). Although the
Privilege of Koszyce stipulated that one of his daughters would succeed him on the Polish throne, Louis' selection of his daughter
Mary proved controversial, as her husband,
Sigismund of Luxembourg, was not popular in Poland. The different factions in Poland could not agree on the succession, and a conflict erupted. The faction gathered around the Grzymała clan supported Sigismund, while the Nałęcz clan instead favored the
Duke of Masovia,
Siemowit IV. As the clans in Greater Poland warred, those in
Lesser Poland succeeded in gathering support for a different solution. In 1384, Louis' 10-year-old daughter
Jadwiga was crowned King of Poland, upon the condition that the
Polish-Hungarian Union was dissolved. Her coronation marked the end of most civil war hostilities;
Norman Davies notes that "the disappointed candidates battled each other's candidacy into oblivion". As Jadwiga's fiance,
William, Duke of Austria, was also unpopular in Poland, the Lesser Poland faction succeeded in arranging for her to marry
Władysław Jagiełło (Jogaila),
Grand Duke of Lithuania, in 1386. Jagiełło had just emerged victorious from
a civil war in Lithuania. Their marriage began the period of the
Polish-Lithuanian Union and the ascension of the
Jagiellon Dynasty to the thrones of Poland and Lithuania. The war is said to have been bloody; Davies writes of "much slaughter", and Sobczak notes that "entire clans perished in it". ==See also==