Kings & Nobility
The people who ruled. The Piasts and the Jagiellons, the elected kings of the Commonwealth, the szlachta and the golden liberty, the crown jewels and the coronations at Wawel.
Part of Poland
22 moments in this segment.
- - Bolesław I the Brave. 992-1025. First King of Poland (crowned April 18, 1025, days before his death). Conquered Kievan Rus to the east, defeated Henry II of Germany. Established Gniezno as the first archdiocese (1000), the Congress of Gniezno effectively recognised Poland as an independent kingdom.
- - Statute of Kalisz. September 8, 1264. Bolesław the Pious grants Jews extensive legal protections, among the most comprehensive in medieval Europe. Extended by Casimir the Great in 1334. Polish lands become Europe's largest Jewish refuge for the next 600 years.
- - Władysław I the Elbow-High. 1320 coronation. Reunified the fragmented Polish lands after 188 years of feudal division. The crowning of Władysław Łokietek as king restored the Polish kingdom; his son Casimir III would build it into a major European power.
- - Casimir the Great. 1333-1370. The only Polish king called "Great." "Found Poland built of wood, left it built of stone." Codified the Statutes of Wiślica + Piotrków, founded Kraków University (1364), invited Jews fleeing persecution from the Rhineland. Doubled the size of Poland.
- - Jadwiga Crowned King of Poland. October 16, 1384. Eleven-year-old Jadwiga of Anjou crowned as "Rex Poloniae", Latin for "King," not Queen (Poland had no provision for a female sovereign). Two years later she marries Jogaila of Lithuania, beginning the Jagiellonian dynasty.
- - Union of Krewo. August 14, 1385. Jogaila of Lithuania (pagan grand duke) agrees to convert to Catholicism, marry Jadwiga, and unite Lithuania with Poland in exchange for the Polish crown. The Personal Union that lasted four centuries.
- - Jogaila Baptised as Władysław II. February 15, 1386. Jogaila baptised at Wawel and crowned king on March 4. Founder of the Jagiellonian dynasty; ruled Poland 1386-1434. Lithuania becomes the last European nation to officially convert to Christianity.
- - Sigismund I the Old. 1506-1548. The Renaissance reaches Poland. Sigismund I brings Italian artists to Wawel; his marriage to Bona Sforza (1518) imports Italian cuisine, fashion, and humanist culture. Polish Golden Age begins.
- - Bona Sforza in Poland. April 1518. Bona Sforza marries Sigismund I; brings Italian Renaissance to Kraków. Introduced new vegetables to Poland (tomatoes, cauliflower, leeks, still called "włoszczyzna" / "Italian things" in modern Polish).
- - Prussian Homage. April 10, 1525, Kraków. Albrecht von Hohenzollern, last Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, kneels before Sigismund I in the Kraków Main Square. The Teutonic State becomes the secular Duchy of Prussia under Polish suzerainty. The "Prussian Homage" painting by Jan Matejko is in the Sukiennice.
- - Union of Lublin. July 1, 1569. Personal union of Poland and Lithuania converted into a real union, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów). Europe's largest state by area; the Sejm becomes the most representative parliament of any 16th-century European polity.
- - First Royal Election. April 4-11, 1573. The first royal free election of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. ~50,000 nobles vote on horseback at Kamień, near Warsaw. Henry of Valois elected; flees back to France 4 months later.
- - Warsaw Confederation. January 28, 1573. The Polish nobility pledges mutual religious toleration. The Warsaw Confederation became the legal foundation of the Commonwealth's religious tolerance; on UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
- - Henrician Articles. May 12, 1573. The Henrician Articles, the constitutional contract every elected Polish king swore to uphold. Set forth religious tolerance, parliamentary supremacy, right of revolt. The most progressive 16th-century European constitution.
- - Stephen Báthory. 1576-1586. Transylvanian prince elected King of Poland. Reformed the army; defeated Ivan the Terrible in the Livonian War. Founded Vilnius University (1579). One of the Commonwealth's most effective elected kings.
- - Sigismund III Vasa. 1587-1632. Swedish-Polish king who initiated the disastrous Polish-Swedish wars and lost the Swedish crown in 1599. His son and grandson would suffer the catastrophic Swedish Deluge of the 1650s.
- - John III Sobieski Elected. 1674. Jan III Sobieski elected King of Poland after his victories against the Ottomans. Reputation as Christendom's shield was set before the throne; cemented at Vienna nine years later.
- - Augustus the Strong Elected. 1697. Augustus II (Elector of Saxony) elected King of Poland after converting to Catholicism. Began the Saxon dynasty period, generally considered the start of Poland's slow descent toward partition.
- - Stanisław Leszczyński. Twice elected King of Poland (1704, 1733). Lost both times to Saxon-Russian intervention. His daughter Marie married Louis XV of France; Stanisław spent his final decades as Duke of Lorraine, building Place Stanislas in Nancy.
- - Stanisław August Poniatowski. 1764-1795. Last King of Poland. Lover of Catherine the Great in his youth; she made him king. An Enlightenment patron who tried to reform Poland out of decline; failed against Russian, Prussian, Austrian opposition. Abdicated 1795; died in exile 1798.
- - Commission of National Education. October 14, 1773. Established by the Sejm after the First Partition. Europe's first ministry of education. Reformed the education system; nationalised Jesuit assets to fund it.
- - Constitution of May 3. May 3, 1791. Europe's first modern codified constitution (second in the world after the US 1788). Limited the elective monarchy, abolished the liberum veto, opened citizenship to townspeople. Russia invaded the next year to overturn it.
