The presentation will deal with the history of Polish research on hagiography in the context of the development of the auxiliary sciences of history. The revolutionary endeavor of the Bollandists, the great publishing projects initiated in the 19th century, subsequent developments within historiography and, above all, in the methods of external criticism of historical sources - to what extent - and in what configuration - did these factors influence the Polish study of the lives of saints? Special emphasis will be placed on Polish editions of Latin vitae - after all, the content developed and methods used by publishers have determined our knowledge of the quantitative (and, to a lesser extent, qualitative) aspects of the writing and reception of hagiographic texts in the Polish Middle Ages. The last part of the talk will try to highlight some promising ways out of the relative impasse in which the research on Polish hagiography has found itself.