 Oscar Halecki writes that Jadwiga transmitted to the nations of East Central Europe the "universal heritage of the "respublica Christiana", which in the West was then waning, but in East Central Europe started flourishing and blending with the pre-Renaissance world".She was closely related to the saintly 13th-century princesses, venerated in Hungary and Poland, including Elizabeth of Hungary and her nieces, Kinga and Yolanda, and Salomea of Poland.She was born to a family famed for its religious zeal.