Duchy of Sandomierz

The Duchy of Sandomierz was the Piast district principality of southeastern Poland, lasting from 1138 to 1320. Like Masovia it was born from the testament of Bolesław III Wrymouth, which quartered Poland among his sons in 1138: the southeastern share, the Sandomierz Land between the Pilica, Vistula, San and Dunajec rivers, became a duchy with its capital at the Vistula town of Sandomierz. Its dukes held one of the richest corners of fragmented Poland, trading down the Vistula and endowing churches and monasteries that still stand. The duchy shared the fate of all the district principalities: two centuries of Piast cousins dividing, reuniting and quarrelling, until Władysław the Elbow-high pieced the kingdom back together and folded Sandomierz into the restored Polish Crown in 1320. The town stayed what it had always been, a handsome provincial centre, and the duchy's name lived on in the later Sandomierz Voivodeship.