Wincenty Kadłubek

Later life In 1217, Kadłubek decided to resign from his duties as a bishop. He spent his last years at the Cistercian monastery in Jędrzejów, making him the first Bishop of Krakow to join the Cistercian order after voluntarily abdicating. This also made him the first Polish person in the Cistercian monastery in Jędrzejów, which was composed of exclusively French monks at the time. The fire at the Jędrzejów monastery in 1800 in combination with the turbulence of Polish history at the time makes it difficult to understand the remaining years of his life.

This work had a huge impact on the Polish political doctrine of the 14th and 15th centuries co-authored by Stanisław of Skarbimierz as well as on later works of Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki. These ideas led to the Nobles' Democracy in Poland for it is in his works that for the first time the terms res publica (see Commonwealth and Rzeczpospolita) were used in the context of Poland. Some suggest that the book was written at the request of Prince Casimir II; others suggest that it was made at the request of Prince Leszek while Kadłubek was a bishop; still others claim that it was not written until after his retirement.