[3] This notion allowed the state to maintain stability even during periods of interregnum and paved the way for a unique political system in Poland, characterized by a noble-based parliament and the free election of the monarch.

This meaning became especially significant after the union with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, when it began to be commonly used to denote the Polish part of the joint Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

[6] The idea of the Crown in Central Europe first appeared in Bohemia and Hungary, from where the model was taken by kings Ladislaus the Short and Casimir III the Great to strengthen their power.

During the reign of Louis the Great in Poland, who spent most of his time in Hungary, as well as during the interregnum following his death and the regency during the minority of his daughter Jadwiga, the idea was adopted by the lords of the kingdom to emphasize their own role as co-responsible for the state.

By the 13th century, when it had fully developed, the term corona regni Angliae signified the inalienable and enduring royal dignity, authority, and rights, primarily encompassing the king’s judicial power and the state as a whole, including territories that had been lost.

In 1348, Charles IV formalized the feudal structure of the state and introduced the notion of the corona regni Bohemiae, incorporating the Silesian and Upper Lusatian territories bounding them to the perpetual Crown.

Formally, it was a separate kingdom, on whose throne Casimir sat as the heir of his relative, Yuri II Boleslav of the Piast dynasty.

[23] An expression of this attitude was the appointment of his nephew, King Louis the Great of Hungary, as his successor, rather than any of the numerous male representatives of the Piast dynasty.

This was facilitated by the rule of a foreign king, the regency in Poland by his mother, Elizabeth, as well as disputes over the succession after his death, which resulted in a woman, Queen Jadwiga, ascending the Polish throne.

During this period, the magnates (regnicolae regni Poloniae) managed the affairs of the state, avoiding a bloody civil war and successfully leading to the coronation of new ruler.

[27] The Union of Krewo was a set of prenuptial agreements made at Kreva Castle on August 13, 1385, between Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila and Polish lords, who were offering him the hand of Queen Jadwiga of Poland.

[29] Jogaila also pledged to permanently attach his Lithuanian and Ruthenian lands to the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (terras suas Lithuaniae et Rusie Corone Regni Poloniae perpetuo aplicare), the clause which formed the personal union.

It made Poland a constitutional monarchy with the King as the head of the executive branch with his cabinet of ministers, called the Guardians of the Laws.

A related concept that evolved soon afterward was that of Rzeczpospolita ("Commonwealth"), which was an alternate to the Crown as a name for the Polish state after the Treaty of Lublin in 1569.

Prior to the 1569 Union of Lublin, Crown territories may be understood as those of the Kingdom of Poland proper, inhabited by Poles, or as other areas under the sovereignty of the Polish king (such as Royal Prussia) or the szlachta.

Royal Prussia included Pomerelia, Chełmno Land (Kulmerland), Malbork Voivodeship (Marienburg), Gdańsk (Danzig), Toruń (Thorn), and Elbląg (Elbing).

The Polish chronicler Jan Długosz mentioned Moldavians (under the name Wallachians) as having joined a military expedition in 1342, under King Władysław I, against the Margraviate of Brandenburg.

[47] The Polish state was powerful enough to counter the Hungarian Kingdom which was consistently interested in bringing the area that would become Moldavia into its political orbit.

Ties between Poland and Moldavia expanded after the Polish annexation of Galicia in the aftermath of the Galicia–Volhynia Wars and the founding of the Moldavian state by Bogdan of Cuhea.

Bogdan, a Vlach voivode from Maramureș who had fallen out with the Hungarian king, crossed the Carpathian Mountains in 1359, took control of Moldavia, and succeeded in transforming it into an independent political entity.

Despite being disfavored by the brief union of Angevin Poland and Hungary (the latter was still the country's overlord), Bogdan's successor Lațcu, the Moldavian ruler also likely allied himself with the Poles.

Petru I profited from the end of the Hungarian-Polish union and moved the country closer to the Jagiellon realm, becoming a vassal of Władysław II on September 26, 1387.

This gesture was to have unexpected consequences: Petru supplied the Polish ruler with funds needed in the war against the Teutonic Knights, and was granted control over Pokuttya until the debt was to be repaid; as this is not recorded to have been carried out, the region became disputed by the two states, until it was lost by Moldavia in the Battle of Obertyn (1531).

His brother Roman I conquered the Hungarian-ruled Cetatea Albă in 1392, giving Moldavia an outlet to the Black Sea, before being toppled from the throne for supporting Fyodor Koriatovych in his conflict with Vytautas the Great of Lithuania.

A deep crisis was to follow Alexandru's long reign, with his successors battling each other in a succession of wars that divided the country until the murder of Bogdan II and the ascension of Peter III Aaron in 1451.

Petru Aron's rule also signified the beginning of Moldavia's Ottoman Empire allegiance, as the ruler agreed to pay tribute to Sultan Mehmed II.

This is the case of the province of Pokuttya, the fiefdoms of Cetatea de Baltă and Ciceu (both in Transylvania) or, at a later date, the territories between the Dniester and the Bug rivers.

As one of the terms of the Treaty of Lubowla, the Hungarian crown exchanged, for a loan of sixty times the amount of 37,000 Prague groschen (approximately seven tonnes of pure silver), 16 rich salt-producing towns in the area of Spisz (Zips), as well as a right to incorporate them into Poland until the debt was repaid.

The Prince-Bishopric of Warmia[50] (Polish: Biskupie Księstwo Warmińskie,[51]) was a semi independent ecclesiastical state, ruled by the incumbent ordinary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Warmia, and a protectorate of Kingdom of Poland, later part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Peace of Thorn (1466–1772)[52] After the childless death of the last of the House of Pomerania, Bogislaw XIV in 1637, Lauenburg and Bütow Land again became a terra (land, ziemia) of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.

His duchy, which had its capital in Königsberg (Kaliningrad), was established as a fief of the Crown of Poland, as had been Teutonic Prussia since the Second Peace of Thorn in October 1466.