Early Administrative Divisions in the Piast State and the Reorganisation of State Administration under the Reign of Casimir the Great
Author: Joanna Górska-Szymczak
Despite decades of scholarly debate, there is still no definitive consensus on the precise shape of the administrative structure of the Piast state during its formative phase in the tenth and eleventh centuries 1 . Nevertheless, notwithstanding the diversity of interpretations and theoretical approaches, scholars broadly agree on the existence of a territorial unit known as the opole, whose origins can be traced back to the pre-state period 2 . Over time, alongside the development of a network of newly established fortified settlements (gords) founded by successive Piast rulers, larger territorial units emerged in the form of gord districts. These units were subsequently transformed into castellanies as a result of the widespread introduction of a new administrative office of the castellan. These structures merit closer examination.
The opole originated in the tribal era and functioned as a territorial community encompassing several, or occasionally more than a dozen, settlements situated in close proximity. The primary bond uniting this community was kinship, as opola were inhabited by clans linked by ties of blood. As a rule, these units lacked clearly defined or fixed geographical boundaries 3 . Their territorial extent was therefore determined by the settlement range of the clans that constituted them.
The principal purpose of establishing such communities was, above all, defensive. Initially, they served to protect against raids or attacks by external adversaries of the tribal or clan group to which the opole belonged. Equally significant was the need to safeguard members of the community from threats posed by other groups within the same tribe or clan. The prevailing principle of collective responsibility, together with the associated notion of retaliation as a cornerstone of contemporary ideas of justice, generated a strong demand for collective protection within the opole 4.
Electoral History of Poland (Sixteenth Century to the Early Twentieth
For this reason, the organisation of collective defence constituted the paramount task of the community inhabiting the territory of an opole. The principal fortified settlement (gord), constructed through collective effort, served as a refuge in times of serious danger and gradually emerged as the central organisational hub of the opole. The council of elders, which stood at its head, together with the leader (opolanin), was responsible for logistical preparations for the defence of the gord (most importantly, securing food supplies) as well as for military readiness, including the provision of weapons and the training of members of the opole for combat. In addition, it oversaw the collection of levies adopted at democratic assemblies (wiec), namely the tributes paid by the population of the opole to finance these activities 5 .
Another important function performed by the council of elders was the administration of justice within the opole community. Judicial authority was exercised several times a year during court sessions held in opole strongholds 6 .
As the administrative structures of early Piast statehood became increasingly consolidated, particularly with the strengthening of central princely, and later royal, authority, territorial branches of governance also developed. This process was closely linked to the emergence of a new administrative office within the expanding princely–royal administration: that of the castellan (castellanus) 7 .
Appointed by the prince, the castellan acted as a direct representative of princely authority and was typically based in strongholds that had previously served as important opole centres. The establishment of this new administrative framework reflected a profound transformation of the prevailing constitutional order. In the early phase of Piast statehood, the constitutional order rested on strongly democratic structures and procedures that had already taken shape in the tribal period. The central institution in this system was the popular assembly (wiec), while a traditionally dominant role was played by tribal or clan elders bound together by ties of kinship. Under the influence of impulses arriving from the west, particularly the Empire, and from the south (Bohemia, Hungary and Italy), both Mieszko I and Bolesław Chrobry gradually and deliberately undermined these democratic foundations.
The office of castellan was clearly designed to displace the autonomous and self-governing authority of the opole elders, assuming responsibility for the execution of their former functions and tasks 8 . In consequence, the role and political significance of tribal leadership steadily declined.
Gord districts and the officials who governed them in their new institutional form (castellans or comites) thus took over the competencies previously exercised by opole elders. While military and defensive responsibilities were retained, fiscal duties expanded rapidly, reflecting the growing importance of taxation and tribute levies imposed for the benefit of the ruler. Judicial functions continued to be exercised within these communities, and former decisions were increasingly issued in the name of the ruler, who to a certain extent delegated these prerogatives to castellans or comites 9 .
The growing importance of the castellan’s office, accompanied by the gradual disappearance of the post of comes, led to the emergence of the concept of the castellany as a territorial-administrative unit. At the same time, the fiscal competences of castellans were further strengthened. During the thirteenth century, in the context of the weakening position of Piast princes during the period known as the fragmentation of the realm, the role of castellans increased markedly. A significant shift occurred at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Following the accession of Wenceslaus II of Bohemia to the Polish throne, a new administrative office was introduced – that of the starosta (capitaneus) 10 .
Modelled on Bohemian administrative practices, this institution was intended to weaken the entrenched position of castellans by establishing a new network of officials more closely subordinated to the central authority. However, the relatively short reign of Wenceslaus II of Bohemia, and of Wenceslaus III 11 , who continued his political vision, did not favour either the consolidation of this institution or the fulfilment of the objectives that had originally motivated its creation. Similarly, the numerous political difficulties associated with the reign of Ladislaus the Short were not conducive to strengthening this office. It was only within the framework of the broader programme of administrative modernisation undertaken by Casimir the Great that the office of the starosta was finally and firmly embedded within the state’s administrative system.
A significant innovation accompanying the consolidation of this institution was the deliberate principle that the appointment of a starosta should be independent of the opinion or advice of the local community. It was precisely this right of local (provincial or territorial) communities to co-decide matters alongside the weakened Piast princes, a practice that had developed during the course of the thirteenth century, that in later periods placed substantial constraints on royal authority 12 . Thus, although starosts were intended to strengthen the monarch’s influence over the functioning of local communities, in practice they quickly came to act as representatives of local interests vis-à-vis the ruler.
Within the Piast state there also existed, certainly from the reign of Mieszko I
13 , a division into districts or provinces, although the very terminology used to describe these territorial units remains a matter of scholarly uncertainty
14 . The prevailing view in the literature is that these units broadly corresponded to territories inhabited by the so-called major tribes. Without engaging in the long-standing debates on this subject, let alone disputes concerning the precise number of such units or, above all, their territorial extent, it may be assumed that they included Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Silesia, Masovia and Pomerania. Even so, serious difficulties arise when attempts are made to reconstruct the principles of this district division on the basis of the Statute of Bolesław III Wrymouth of 1136.
In particular, it remains problematic to establish conclusively the existence of clearly delineated and stable territorial units at this stage.
What is crucial in this context is that these units, regardless of their precise form, were created primarily in response to the need to satisfy legal claims stemming from contemporary concepts of inheritance law and the absence of a distinct notion of public law. Under the constraints imposed by these legal norms, successive rulers appear to have allocated specific domains to their brothers or sons. Over time, these domains gradually developed into more structured territorial entities 15 .
It should be emphasised, however, that until the mid-twelfth century the administration of such units was not associated with the establishment of separate offices endowed with clearly defined competences. As a rule, they were governed directly by members of the ruling dynasty. Their courts, organised on the model of the ruler’s own entourage, thus functioned as the administrative centres of the provinces entrusted to them. The scope of authority exercised by such provincial governors was generally determined on an ad hoc basis, shaped by immediate circumstances and current political needs.
In summary, given the still limited state of research on this issue, it may be concluded that until the end of the thirteenth century the territorial division of the state and, by extension, concrete institutions of territorial administration, remained in an early stage of formation. It was only during the reign of Casimir the Great that a decisive reorganisation of this system was achieved over the course of the fourteenth century.
The thirteenth century itself was marked by a profound weakening of princely authority within the Piast polity. The progressive fragmentation of the state into smaller territorial units constituted only one, and by no means the most significant, cause of this process. Far more consequential was the intensifying phenomenon of immunisation, which from the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries increasingly affected both entire social groups and individual landholders outside the extended princely family.
Immunisation led to a substantial curtailment of princely authority, above all in the spheres of judicial power and fiscal control. At the same time, it encouraged the development of self-government within newly emerging territorial units – villages and towns. These communities represented a new, classical form of collective organisation, based not on ties of kinship but on legal bonds. As such, they acquired a considerable degree of autonomy and freedom in shaping the internal foundations of their functioning 16 . The earliest impetus for this process came from the Catholic Church and its emerging territorial structures, dioceses and parishes, as well as from the expanding network of monasteries and abbeys. As a result, a distinct social estate began to take shape: the clergy. Comparable processes of formation, based on so-called location charters, also affected towns and villages. This, in turn, led to the rapid development of new self-governing territorial units, whose inhabitants constituted new social estates – the burghers and the peasantry. During the period under consideration, similar processes also began to affect aristocratic circles and the wealthier strata of the knighthood. In this case, however, development proceeded primarily through individual privileges granted to specific persons 17 . It was only in the second half of the fourteenth century, as a result of privileges issued by Casimir the Great’s successor, King Louis I of Hungary, that the noble estate was effectively and legally constituted as a distinct social group 18 .
These transformations were accompanied by extensive grants of landed property to a variety of beneficiaries, as well as by the conferral of economic privileges that granted selected individuals or groups exclusive advantages. This distinct form of privatisation of the former princely domain constituted an additional factor weakening the previously broad powers of local centres of princely authority and the position of local governors 19 .
It was against this broader background that Casimir the Great, seeking to restore and strengthen royal authority, embarked on a series of measures designed to give concrete institutional form to this objective. One of the most important spheres of his activity was royal administration. Within this framework, Casimir undertook both a reorganisation of the previously rather chaotic territorial division of the realm and a reform of the territorial offices operating within it. These measures were intended, above all, to gradually break the dominance of entrenched elites within individual duchies and territorial domains.
Casimir first strengthened and legally sanctioned (inter alia through the promulgation of ordered and separate collections of law 20 ) the division of the kingdom into two fundamental provinces: Lesser Poland and Greater Poland. He then unified the previously amorphous territorial entities: districts, duchies, castellanies, and magnate lordships. In their place, a coherent, two-tier territorial structure was introduced, comprising lands and voivodeships, as well as counties. Within these units functioned towns and villages distinguished by their legal foundations based on location privileges.
It should be emphasised that the basic territorial framework of the Polish state thus established endured, with only minor later modifications and additions, until the end of its existence in the late eighteenth century.
Alongside the introduction of a new and unified territorial division, Casimir the Great also restructured the administration of these units. He made systematic use of the institution of the starosta, which had been initiated earlier under Wenceslaus II of Bohemia. This office was universalised and its position significantly strengthened.
As a result, the starosta became the most important royal official at the local level, acting as the representative of central authority within a given land or county. His competences encompassed administrative, judicial, policing, and military responsibilities within the territory under his jurisdiction. Starosts administered royal estates (the so-called królewszczyzny 21 ) within their districts and supervised the collection of taxes for the royal treasury. They also exercised criminal jurisdiction in the most serious cases, particularly within the framework of the so-called gord courts 22 .
The reforms relating to the office of starosta, whose holders were appointed and dismissed at the monarch’s discretion, made it possible to impose genuine limits on the arbitrariness of local magnates and to achieve a greater degree of administrative uniformity across the state. As a consequence, the former office of castellan lost its earlier substantive powers. The role of castellans was reduced primarily to military and honorary functions. In the former capacity, this included command over castle garrisons and leadership of territorial banners in wartime; in the latter, the honorary status of the office would later be reflected in the attribution to castellans of the right to hold seats in the emerging Senate.
Concurrently with these institutional changes, Casimir the Great began, within the framework of lands and counties, the systematic creation of new territorial units in the form of counties (powiaty), in place of the castellany districts that had developed in a largely ad hoc manner over earlier centuries. The starosts appointed under the new system now exercised authority over clearly defined territorial-administrative units, explicitly designated as counties. It was at this level, under the supervision of the starosta, that the state’s fundamental defensive responsibilities and fiscal functions were concentrated. As a rule, counties became the basic judicial districts within which civil and criminal justice was administered in the name of the king, in accordance with the legal norms systematised in the aforementioned Statutes.
Over time, two distinct categories of the starosta’s office emerged: the gord starosta (starosta grodowy), who exercised authority over a judicial district and was responsible for internal security, and the non-gord starosta (starosta niegrodowy), whose primary duties involved the administration of royal landed estates (królewszczyzny).
It should be emphasised that the institution of the territorial starosta, as a representative of royal authority in the local sphere, endured throughout the entire Middle Ages and well into the early modern period. Within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, starosts continued to administer royal estates, maintain public order, and preside over gord courts, remaining among the most important local officials until the eighteenth century. Although the office gradually underwent a degree of degeneration, being leased by magnates as a source of additional income, its origins and original purpose lay firmly in the reforms introduced by Casimir the Great.
It is also worth noting that assemblies (wiece) –
gatherings of magnates, knights, and representatives of towns – continued to be convened during Casimir’s reign. Their functions, however, evolved over time. Gradually, they developed into sejmiki ziemskie (local assemblies of the nobility) and, in the course of further institutional evolution, gave rise to the nationwide Sejm. Assemblies held during Casimir’s reign, which brought together dignitaries, territorial officials, and municipal delegates, may therefore be regarded as direct precursors of later noble parliamentarism. Similarly, the royal council, expanded by Casimir as a permanent advisory body, was transformed during the Jagiellonian period into the permanent Crown Senate 23 .
It may thus be concluded that Casimir’s domestic policy, grounded in cooperation with the nobility and the burghers, while at the same time restraining the arbitrariness of the magnates, established a model of governance that would reach fuller maturity during the Golden Age under the Jagiellonians 24 .
Figure 1. The Kingdom of Poland during the reign of Casimir the Great. Wikimedia Commons, The Kingdom of Poland during the reign of Casimir the Great, https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_III_Wielki#/media/ Plik:Polska_1333–1370.png [accessed on: 14.12.2025].
1 The most recent and highly insightful findings are presented in the monograph: J. Osiński, Podział dzielnicowy państwa polskiego według Statutu Bolesława Krzywoustego, Kraków 2024. The author examines this issue as a crucial element for the proper interpretation of the so-called “division of the state” carried out by this ruler.
2 A more extensive discussion of this problem may be found, inter alia, in: Z. Wojciechowski, Ustrój polityczny ziem polskich w czasach przedpiastowskich, Lviv 1927; idem: O ustroju szczepowym ziem polskich: uwagi krytyczne, Poznań 1927.
3 The issue is analysed in greater detail by J. S. Matuszewski in Vicina id est… Poszukiwania alternatywnej koncepcji staropolskiego opola, Łódź 1991.
4 A broader discussion of the conditions shaping early law and the administration of justice is provided by H.J. Berman, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition, Harvard 1983. Although his observations focus primarily on Germanic communities, similar principles applied to Slavic societies.
5 A more detailed discussion of this issue is provided in the classic study by: K. Tymieniecki, Organizacja grodowa w Polsce wczesnofeudalnej, Poznań 1961.
6 M. Kowalski, Administracja i sądownictwo w Polsce Piastów i Jagiellonów, Wrocław 2010.
7 Alongside the castellan, there existed a closely related office, that of the comes. Both offices were modelled on analogous institutions characteristic of the dominant administrative system of the period, shaped under the rule of Charlemagne and his successors. For a broader discussion, see Chapter V – “Jednostki administracyjne odpowia- dające powiatom w innych krajach europejskich”.
8 These processes are discussed in greater detail by G. Górski, Historia administracji, Toruń 2011. They are also examined in: J. Górska- Szymczak, Między demokracją a absolutyzmem. U źródeł nowoczesnej monarchii konstytucyjnej w XI i XII wieku, Toruń 2025. An alternative perspective is offered by: J. Bardach, B. Leśnodorski, M. Pietrzak, Historia ustroju i prawa polskiego, Warsaw 1998, as well as:
J.A. Gierowski, Historia Polski: średniowiecze, Kraków 2001.
9 The evolution of this process is discussed in greater detail, inter alia, by: S. Kutrzeba, Dawne polskie prawo sądowe w zarysie, Lviv 1921.
10 A broader discussion is provided by: S. Górka, Administracja i prawo w średniowiecznej Polsce, Kraków 2007 and T. Żmudzki, System administracyjny Polski średniowiecznej, Wrocław 2009. See also the remarks by: G. Górski, op. cit.
11 Wenceslaus II of Bohemia was Duke of Kraków from 1291 and King of Poland from 1300. He died in 1305, and his son, Wenceslaus III, remained on the Polish throne for only just under fourteen months.
12 This issue is discussed in greater detail by J. Górska-Szymczak, op. cit. See also the remarks by G. Górski, Rzeczpospolita polsko-litewska. Historia pierwszej monarchii konstytucyjnej, Toruń 2017.
13 The existence of larger territorial units in the time of Mieszko I is already noted in the chronicles of both Gallus Anonymus and Wincenty Kadłubek.
14 A more detailed analysis of this issue is provided by J. Osiński, Z dziejów Polski wczesnopiastowskiej, Kraków 2018, as well as Podział…
15 We share the observations and conclusions formulated by J. Osiński.
16 This process is discussed in greater detail in the classic study by R. Grodecki, Początki immunitetu w Polsce, Lviv 1930. A more recent treatment of this issue, set within a broad comparative framework, is provided in J. Górska-Szymczak, op. cit.
17 Although the privileges issued at Cienia and Lutomyśl were, in principle, of a general nature, they referred primarily to the political rights of the barones. Their main purpose was to guarantee a group of the most important ecclesiastical and secular lords the right to offer “advice and opinion” to the ruler.
18 Of decisive importance in this respect were the royal privileges issued in Buda in 1355 and in Košice in 1374. For a broader discussion of the significance of these general privileges for the formation of the noble estate, see: J. Dąbrowski, Ostatnie lata Ludwika Wielkiego, Kraków 2009, as well as O. Halecki, O genezie i znaczeniu rządów andegaweńskich w Polsce, “Kwartalnik Historyczny” 1921, vol. 35.
19 This process is discussed in greater detail by R. Grodecki, Studia nad dziejami gospodarczymi Polski w XII wieku, “Kwartalnik Historyczny” 1915, vol. 29. The issue is also addressed by J. Górska-Szymczak, op. cit.
20 Reference is made here to the so-called Statutes of Casimir the Great—the Greater Poland Statute (finally approved in 1362) and the Lesser Poland Statute (1362). The text in a modern critical edition is available in: Statuty Kazimierza Wielkiego, ed. T.K. Kubicki, Łódź 1995. For a broader discussion of the role and significance of the Statutes, see: W. Uruszczak, Statuty Kazimierza Wielkiego jako źródło prawa polskiego, “Studia z Dziejów Państwa i Prawa Polskiego” 1999, no. 3, p. 97–115.
21 The “royal domain,” commonly referred to as królewszczyzna, was in fact the property of the Crown (and, in Lithuania, of the Grand Duchy), and thus constituted public property. For a broader discussion of its development, see: J. Luciński, Rozwój królewszczyzn w Koronie od schyłku XIV wieku do XVII wieku, Poznań 1970.
22 For a more detailed discussion, see the remarks by: S. Górka, op. cit., and T. Żmudzki, op. cit.
23 For a broader treatment, see the important study by: J. Dąbrowski, Kazimierz Wielki: Twórca Korony Królestwa Polskiego, Kraków 2007.
24 On the role of Casimir the Great and his reforms, in addition to the fundamental studies by R. Grodecki, see also the important observations in: J. Wyrozumski, Kazimierz Wielki. Wrocław 1986.
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