This article portrays Udalryk Hezymann (1835-1918), a Polish nineteenth-century canonist, who held the chair of Ecclesiastical Law at the Faculty of Law of the Jagiellonian University of Cracow for over a quarter of a century and served as Rector of that university from 1883 to 1884. The article also discusses his most important publications. Hezymann’s scholarly work covered canon law and public ecclesiastical law, the history of Polish and universal ecclesiastical law and the history of secular and confessional marriage law. In this article the author argues that it is impossible to present and understand the history of Polish canon law as an academic discipline in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the achievements of such eminent scholars as A.Z. Helcel, W. Abraham and B. Ulanowski in a comprehensive manner without proper consideration of the person and the scholarly work of U. Heyzmann.