Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (Korona Królestwa Polskiego; Corona Regni Poloniae) was a political and legal idea formed in the 14th century, assuming unity, indivisibility and continuity of the state. According to this concept, the state ceased to be the patrimonial property of the monarch or dynasty, but became a common good of the political community of the kingdom. Such an idea allowed the state to function even in periods of interregnum and led to the formation of a system characteristic of Poland based on the parliamentarism of the nobility and the free election of the ruler. At the same time, the idea of the crown went beyond existing political boundaries; lands lost in the past were considered to belong to it. 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. The concept of corona regni appeared earliest in the early 12th century in England. In the thirteenth century, when it was well-formed, the term corona regni Angliae denoted non-transferable and imperishable royal dignity, power and rights, primarily the king's judicial power, but also the state as such, also understood as a defined territory, including lost lands. In the 14th century, the concept of the Crown standing above the King emerged; the King had no right to infringe on the rights of the Crown and deplete its possessions. The crown, hitherto the crown jewel, becomes a self-contained and permanent legal entity. Similar processes have occurred in other European countries. In France, the term appears a little later, and refers primarily to the royal domain, but also to the lands of royal vassals.

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