COULD A MEMBER of the Gediminas dynasty have been the new ruler of the Podolian Principality after the dethronement of the Koriatovych brothers in 1394? There was such a possibility, at least of Vytautas, carrying out the will of Władysław II Jagiełło in this case, and the first candidate to be Podillya's ruler did not hide his intent to get this office. But the king did not intend to transfer Podillya to Vytautas. Instead, he preferred to keep it as his property. To my mind, his first interests focused on the trade routes. This suggestion stems from the partition of Podillya in 1395, when Stinka and Terebovlya Counties, as stipulated in the king's will, were incorporated into the king's Ruthenian domain. Vytautas obtained the largest part of Podillya, so-called eastern Podillya, which remained the least inhabited and the most dangerous territory among the whole Ukrainian lands. But what did happen to the other part of Podillya, where the main cities of the principality, such as Kamyanets, Smotrych, and Bakota, were situated? According to the king's will, they were granted to Spytek of Melsztyn of the Leliwa family, a starosta and the voivode of Kraków.

The arrival of the nobleman from Lesser Poland aligned with those practices implemented in the Ruthenian lands for the last half a century, like the lands incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland after 1340, to which starostas came from Lesser Poland. The only exception was that, in the Polish Kingdom, these officials had never replaced the princes of the Gediminas dynasty. Podillya, therefore, became the first region where this took place. The Podolian activity of Spytek of Melsztyn is another issue worth considering, even though it is underrepresented in the sources. Who came with Spytek to administer Podillya? How did these newcomers influence the life of Podillya? A routine affair, at first glance, turns out to be a complicated one, if we consider the subsequent events and those debates that boiled in the circles of Podolian noblemen between 1411 and 1418.

The life of Spytek of Melsztyn comes up as a subject of historical research quite often. The Polish historian Włodzimierz Dworzaczek, who dedicated a chapter to Spytek in his monograph on the Leliwas from Lesser Poland, has written the most complete biography of Spytek so far.