Casimir III the Great (Kazimierz Wielki)

Casimir III, universally known as Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki), is the only Polish monarch in history to bear the title 'the Great'. Inheriting a fragile, fragmented, and war-ravaged kingdom from his father Władysław the Elbow-high in 1333, Casimir used pragmatic diplomacy with Bohemia and the Teutonic Knights to give Poland the peace it desperately needed to rebuild.

Casimir transformed Poland from a vulnerable frontier state into a flourishing European power, giving rise to the famous Polish proverb: 'He found Poland built of wood, and left it built of stone' (Zastał Polskę drewnianą, a zostawił murowaną). He constructed over fifty defensive stone castles, fortified twenty-seven cities with walls, codified Polish statutory law at Wiślica, and in 1364 founded the University of Kraków (now Jagiellonian University), the second-oldest university in Central Europe. Furthermore, when Jewish communities were being massacred and expelled across Western Europe during the Black Death, Casimir reaffirmed the 1264 Statute of Kalisz, offering royal protection and civil liberties to Jewish refugees, making Poland the thriving cultural sanctuary of European Jewry for centuries.