piast

Piast usually refers to the Piast dynasty, the first historic ruling dynasty of Poland. The name is traditionally linked to Piast Kołodziej, a legendary craftsman said to have founded the Polish line, and the rulers themselves are known as the Piasts or Piastowie. The dynasty established the Polish state in the late 10th century, beginning with Mieszko I, who united multiple tribes and adopted Christianity in 966. His son Bolesław I Chrobry expanded Polish territory and, in 1025, was crowned the first King of Poland, elevating the polity to a hereditary kingdom. Over the following centuries the Piasts consolidated royal authority, fostered Christian culture, and laid the foundations of Poland’s early administrative and ecclesiastical structures.

The Piast realm had several cadet branches, notably the Silesian Piasts and the Masovian Piasts, which ruled various duchies in Poland’s borders for several centuries. The Polish Piast male line ended with Casimir III the Great in 1370; after his death the crown passed to other dynasties through dynastic unions, including the rise of the Jagiellons in the late 14th century.

Despite the end of the main royal line, the Piast legacy remained central to Poland’s medieval statehood. The period is regarded as formative for Polish political institutions, territorial consolidation, and Christianization, with Kraków emerging as a central political and cultural center. In scholarship and historical memory, the Piasts are seen as the founders of the Polish nation, and the term persists to denote the dynasty and its cadet branches in Silesia and Mazovia.