King Casimir III the Great of Poland founds the University of Krakow (later the Jagiellonian University) in 1364, establishing one of the earliest universities in Central Europe. The university has faculties in law, medicine, and the liberal arts, attracting scholars from Poland, Germany, and Bohemia. It becomes a key center for the transmission of Western European learning and humanist thought into Eastern Europe.

The University of Krakow fosters the study of Latin and the composition of poetry in the humanist style, training poets and scholars who contribute to the Polish literary renaissance. It later plays a crucial role in the career of the poet Jan Kochanowski, often called the father of Polish poetry, who studied there and helped shape the Polish literary language. The institution's founding signals a shift toward institutionalized literary culture, encouraging vernacular poetic production.