Petras Mantigirdaitis
statesman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Petras Mantigirdaitis (Polish: Piotr Montygerdowicz; died 1459) was an influential Lithuanian noble that was the Grand Marshal of Lithuania (1434–59).
Mantigirdaitis was one of the sons of Mangirdas, regent of Polotsk. He was first mentioned in the 1413 Union of Horodło where he received the Wadwicz coat of arms. In 1422–23 he was Grand Duke's marshal. Around 1424 he became regent of Podolia, but lost this post in 1426. He was regent of Navahrudak (1430–32 and 1445–56) and Polotsk (1459). He supported the 1432 coup against Švitrigaila and commanded troops of Sigismund Kęstutaitis in the Lithuanian Civil War (1431–35). He was also sent on several diplomatic missions: in 1430, 1432, 1448 to the Kingdom of Poland, in 1431 to the Golden Horde, in 1444 to the Teutonic Knights.
Mantigirdaitis was married twice. The name or origin of the first wife is unknown; they had one son Jonas, who was not active in politics and possibly died young.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Petras Mantigirdaitis” as statesman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as statesman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q26458. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1459, 1434, 1413 and 1422.
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This entry incorporates text from “Petras Mantigirdaitis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.