1320–1384 · Kingdom of Poland
The Reunited Kingdom
Władysław the Elbow-high is crowned in 1320 and reassembles the core of the state. Casimir the Great codifies the law, builds castles, founds the Kraków Academy in 1364, and turns expansion east into Red Ruthenia while writing off Silesia.
Population
- about 2,000,000 (estimate, ±400,000)
Rulers and leaders
- 1320–1333 Władysław I the Elbow-high — King of Poland monarch
Crowned in Kraków on 20 January 1320 — the first king crowned at the Wawel.
- 1333–1370 Casimir III the Great — King of Poland monarch
The last Piast on the throne. By the old saying, he found Poland of wood and left it of stone.
- 1370–1382 Louis the Hungarian — King of Poland and Hungary monarch
- 1382–1384 Interregnum — civil war in Greater Poland monarch
- 1384–1399 Jadwiga of Poland — King of Poland monarch
Crowned king, not queen — a ruler in her own right, not a king’s consort.
Events
- 1320Łokietek is crowned 20 January turning point
After almost two centuries of fragmentation Władysław Łokietek is crowned in Kraków. The kingdom is back — without Silesia, Gdańsk Pomerania or Mazovia, but as one state under one crown.
- 1335Trenčín and Visegrád 24 August treaty
John of Bohemia gives up his claim to the Polish crown for twenty thousand threescore of groschen, and Casimir the Great accepts Bohemian overlordship of the Silesian dukes who had already done homage to Prague. The renunciation, ratified in 1339, keeps most of Silesia outside the Polish state until 1945.
- 1343The Peace of Kalisz 8 July treaty
Casimir the Great recovers Kuyavia and Dobrzyń Land from the Order and in return gives up Gdańsk Pomerania and Chełmno Land. Peace in the north leaves him free to act in Ruthenia.
- 1364The Kraków Academy 12 May constitution
Casimir the Great founds the second university in central Europe, to train lawyers and officials of his own. The state stops depending on foreign schools for the people who run it.
- 1374The Privilege of Koszyce 17 September constitution
To secure the Polish throne for one of his daughters, Louis of Hungary exempts the nobility from almost every tax but two groschen a łan. The first privilege granted to the nobility as a whole: from now on rulers win its consent with further privileges.
Wars, uprisings and longer processes
- 1211–1370Settlement under German law resettlement
Dukes, bishops and monasteries bring in settlers from Germany and found hundreds of towns and thousands of villages under German law — of Magdeburg, Środa or Chełmno — local people included. The market squares of Wrocław, Poznań and Kraków come from these charters, and Silesia and Western Pomerania begin to turn German. The dates are a convention: from Złotoryja’s charter to the end of Casimir the Great’s reign.
- 1327–1332The war with the Teutonic Order war
The Order, allied with John of Bohemia, who claims the Polish crown, invades Łokietek’s lands. Płowce (1331) decides nothing: the Knights take Dobrzyń Land and Kuyavia, and Casimir the Great gets them back only at the Peace of Kalisz in 1343, in exchange for recognising the Order’s Pomerania.
- 1340–1366The wars for Red Ruthenia war
After Prince Bolesław Yuri II is poisoned, Casimir the Great marches into Ruthenia and spends a quarter of a century contesting the inheritance with Lithuania, and at times with the Tatars. He ends with Lviv, Przemyśl and Halych, and from 1366 with Belz and Chełm too. After his death Ruthenia passes to Hungary, and the Crown recovers it only with Jadwiga’s expedition of 1387. The map does not show it: the source has no borders between 1300 and 1400, so Red Ruthenia joins the Crown’s outline in 1385.
People of the age
- 1305–1380 Elizabeth of Poland — Łokietek’s daughter, Queen of Hungary; governed Poland as regent for her son, Louis of Hungary