Robert Nisbet Bain

“ Yet as a high-minded patriot Dlugosz had no sympathy whatever with Olesnicki’s opposition to Casimir’s Prussian policy, and steadily supported the king during the whole course of the war with the Teutonic knights. When Olesnicki died in 1455 he left Dlugosz his principal executor. The office of administering the cardinal’s estate was a very ungrateful one, for the family resented the liberal benefactions of their kinsman to the Church and the university, and accused Dlugosz of exercising undue influence, from which charge he triumphantly vindicated himself. ”

“ In 1436 we find him one of the canons of Cracow and the administrator of Olesnicki’s vast estates. In 1440, on returning from Hungary, whither his master had escorted King Wladislaus II., Dlugosz saved the life of Olesnicki from robbers. The prelate now employed Dlugosz on the most delicate and important political missions. Dlugosz brought Olesnicki the red hat from Rome in 1449, and shortly afterwards was despatched to Hungary to mediate between Hunyadi and the Bohemian condottiere Giszkra, a difficult mission which he most successfully accomplished. ”