Early history: 11-15th centuries
Khotyn, located on cliffs above the Dniester, is sometimes conflated with a sound-alike locality mentioned in 1001, a minor settlement of Kievan Rus'. Archaeological excavations found that the Kievan town covered the area of some twenty hectares. It later became part of the Principality of Halych and its successor, Halych-Volhynia. The town was an important trading center due to its location by a river crossing. A Genoese trading colony was established there by the 13th century.
Khotyn was first mentioned in 1310, as a residence of a catholic bishop, being held in the first half of the 14th century by the Kingdom of Poland, which intended to impose Catholicism on the local Vlach communities, mentioned there in the 10th-13th centuries. The first fortifications date back from this period. In 1351, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania conquered the area, only to give it three years later to the Vlachs, whom formed their own independent principality in 1359, Moldavia.
The present-day fortress was constructed after 1400 by the Moldavian ruler Alexander the Good, with the help of Vytautas the Great of Lithuania. After 1433, it was occupied by Poland, due to wars between Alexander's successors, and was reconquered from the Poles by Stephen the Great of Moldovia in 1459 after a two-year siege. The fortress, strengthened by Stephen, during the 15th century, became the strongest on the northern border of the medieval Moldavia.
Conquest by different states
During Wallahian ruler Michael the Brave's conquest of Moldavia in May 1600, its ruler Ieremia Movil? took refuge in the Fortress of Khotyn together with his family, a handful of faithful boyars, and the former Transylvanian Prince, Sigismund Bathory.
As the Moldavian state's international significance was dwindled by that of the Kingdom of Poland and the Ottoman Empire, the latter sought to gain control of the strategic river crossing. As a result,
