House of Wiśniowiecki
House of Wiśniowiecki (Ukrainian: Вишневе́цькі, Vyshnevetski; Lithuanian: Višnioveckiai) is the name of a Polish princely family of Ruthenian/Lithuanian origin, notable in the history of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. They were powerful magnates with the estates predominantly in Ruthenian lands of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, who held the Polish coat of arms Korybut. The family traditions would trace their descend to Gediminids, but modern historians believe there is more evidence for them to have descended from the Rurikids. According to the Gediminids relation theory, the ancestor of the family was Duke Kaributas (Ruthenian: Dymitr Korybut), a son of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Algirdas. His son Fedor of Nieśwież started the family.
The name of the family can be traced to their estates in Wiśniowiec in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (now Vyshnivets, Ukraine).
From their days as Ruthenian nobility they held the Kniaz (prince) title. By late 16th century, the family converted from Orthodox to Catholicism and became Polonized. They gained much importance in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, with vast possessions in the 16th to 18th centuries on the territories of today's Ukraine, particularly the town of Vyshnivets (Wiśniowiec). Their estates were so vast and their position so powerful that they were known as the most powerful of magnates – the "little kings" ("królewięta"). Their ancestral seat was the Vyshnivets Castle.
