Szymon Starowolski

As a young man he visited the courts of many magnates, including the famous Chancellor Jan Zamoyski (at age 17) and Bishop Jakub Zadzik.

After his studies, he traveled in the service of the Ostrogski family through Western Europe (Germany, France, Holland), where he visited the University of Louvain.

Starowolski became secretary to the famous Polish military commander, Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, whom he accompanied at the Battle of Chocim (1621).

In his Latin works, addressed to foreign readers, he defended the good name of Poland, while in his Polish writings he called for thorough reform of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

His critics have pointed out that Starowolski was an advocate of religious intolerance; he supported repressions against the Hussites, railed against the tolerant Statutes of Warsaw and apostates from Catholicism, tried to have Protestant schools and printing presses closed down and insisted that the Edict of Wieluń, passed in 1424 as an exception to Poland's general policy of religious toleration, was still law.