The institution of slavery as practiced in the Polish territories during the Early Middle Ages played a lesser (if still significant) economic or cultural role than in the Roman Empire [REF].
According to Samuel Augustus Mitchell, non-free people were emancipated in Poland in 1347 under the Statutes of Casimir the Great issued in Wiślica,[REF] although there are indications that some form of slavery, in practice and law, continued at least till the end of the 14th century [REF].