Europe · The early medieval west
Kingdom of Poland
drawn on the map AD 962–1138, 1305–1449
The Polish state began with Mieszko I of the Piast dynasty, who accepted Christianity in the Baptism of Poland in 966 (traditionally 14 April 966). His son Bolesław I the Brave (Chrobry) was crowned the first King of Poland in 1025 (18 April, at Gniezno, with papal permission from John XIX), shortly before his death on 17 June 1025.
- Shown on the map
- AD 962–1138, 1305–1449 (2 periods)
- Peak area
- 419k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
The Polish state began with Mieszko I of the Piast dynasty, who accepted Christianity in the Baptism of Poland in 966 (traditionally 14 April 966). His son Bolesław I the Brave (Chrobry) was crowned the first King of Poland in 1025 (18 April, at Gniezno, with papal permission from John XIX), shortly before his death on 17 June 1025. The kingdom fragmented after 1138 (see entry 22) and the royal title lapsed. It was restored by Władysław I the Elbow-high (Łokietek), crowned 1320 at Kraków, reunifying the core lands. His son Casimir III the Great (r. 1333–1370), the only Polish king called "Great," codified law, founded the University of Kraków (1364), and famously "found Poland built of wood and left it built of stone." Casimir died without a male heir; after the reign of Louis of Anjou, his daughter Jadwiga's marriage to Jogaila of Lithuania created the Polish-Lithuanian union of 1385/1386 (Union of Krewo), inaugurating the Jagiellonian era.
Common questions
- What was the Kingdom of Poland?
- The Polish state began with Mieszko I of the Piast dynasty, who accepted Christianity in the Baptism of Poland in 966 (traditionally 14 April 966). His son Bolesław I the Brave (Chrobry) was crowned the first King of Poland in 1025 (18 April, at Gniezno, with papal permission from John XIX), shortly before his death on 17 June 1025.
- When is the Kingdom of Poland shown on the map?
- The border data draws the Kingdom of Poland AD 962–1138, 1305–1449, in 2 separate periods. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
- How large was the Kingdom of Poland?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Kingdom of Poland covered about 419,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each territory as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia, academic works (John Fine on the Balkans, Halperin and Martin on Muscovy, Rady and Veszprémy on Hungary) and, for a few entries, the medieval Livonian Chronicle of Henry itself. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Kingdom of Poland en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Poland
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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