This article is dedicated to the key features of the formation and development of the medieval architecture of the mendicant orders in Poland. The first part of the 13th century can be considered as the starting point of the emergence of the architecture of Polish Dominicans and Franciscans, since it was the time of arrival of the first members of both orders to Poland. The mendicants could use local Cistercian abbeys as the prototypes for their own buildings characterized by simplified layouts, which reflected so-called “anticathedral” tendencies in church architecture. The churches that were in the possession of the mendicant orders started in part losing their originality after some remodeling caused by the softening
of the monastic rules of the Dominicans and Franciscans at the end of the 13th century, which made former restrictions inappropriate. The churches belonged to the mendicants in the various parts of Poland could also undergo some changes that led to their integration with local architectural traditions and caused their deviation from the conventional typology. However, Polish Dominican and Franciscan architecture retained its individual features till the end of the Gothic era in the beginning of the 16th century.