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The Church and the Nation: the Example of the Mendicants in Thirteenth-century Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Jerzy Kłoczowski
Jerzy Kłoczowski*
Affiliation:
Catholic University of Lublin
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Extract

Let us briefly recall the point of departure for the history of the relations between the Church and the Polish nation in the ninth and tenth centuries, that is, at the time when a strong monarchy had been formed between the Vistula and the Oder rivers, within the borders approximating to those we see today. These centuries were decisive not only for Poland, but also for other central and east European countries—for Bohemia, Hungary, Kiev, Ruthenia, and also for Scandinavia. In all these countries the emergence of the state structure went together with the official adoption of Christianity by the rulers and the social élites. The authorities also saw to it that at least the minimum requirements of the new religion were introduced and observed throughout the population. Around AD 1000 the borders of European Christianity had expanded to a fairly impressive size, and therefore this is a moment of special significance in the history of the European community. Only relatively small areas of heathendom remained unaffected, particularly the region of the Baltic coast—and it was in this region where the last stage of European Christianization took place, namely, the baptism of Lithuania in 1386–7, whose six-hundredth anniversary we celebrated recendy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 6: Faith and Identity: Christian Political Experience , 1990 , pp. 47 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990 

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References

1 Among the attempts, written since 1945, to approach the history of central eastern Europe we shall mention: Halecki, O., Borderlands of Western Civilization (New York, 1952)Google Scholar, and by the same author Millenium of Europe (St Louis, 1963); Dvornik, F., The Slavs in European History and Civilization (New Brunswick, 1958)Google Scholar, and by the same author, Les Slaves. Historie et civilisation de l’Antiquité aux débuts de l’epoque contemporaine (Paris, 1970).

2 Regarding the history of Christianity in Poland see the relevant chapters and the bibliography in Histoire religieuse de la Pologne, (Paris, 1986), a collective work by the Lublin historians, with Kłoczowski, J. as chief editor. Davies, N., God’s Playground. A History of Poland, 1-2 (Oxford, 1981)Google Scholar is an English-language introduction to the history of Poland.

3 The text is in Monumenta Poloniae Historica, ns, 2 (Cracow, 1952), ed. Maleczyήski, K..Google Scholar

4 So far we have no fully critical edition of Wincenty’s Chronicle, one that would take into account about thirty manuscripts scattered throughout the world. The available edition is by Bielawski, A. in Monumenta Poloniae Historica, 2 (Lvov, 1872) [offset reprint Warsaw, 1961]Google Scholar; a Polish translation with an excellent introduction and textual commentaries, by Kurbis, B., Kronika Polska (Warsaw, 1974) (cf. a paragraph in the introduction on pp. 67–8Google Scholar about the influence of John of Salisbury on Wincenty).

5 Kłoczowski, J., ‘Dominicans of the Polish Province in the Middle Ages’, in The Christian Community of Medieval Poland, ed. Kłoczowski, J. (Wroclaw, 1981), pp. 73–118.Google Scholar

6 Cf. Kłoczowski, J., ‘The Mendicant Orders between the Baltic and Adriatic Seas in the Middle Ages’ in La Pologne au XVe Congrés International des Sciences Historiques á Bucarest (Wroclaw, 1980), pp. 95–110.Google Scholar

7 Kłoczowski, J., ‘Friars Minor in Medieval Poland’ in Franciscan Orders in Poland, ed. Kłoczowski, J., 1, part 1, pp. 13–108Google Scholar (pp. 94-108 summary in English).

8 The basic text nowadays is Plezia, M., ‘Regarding the case of St Stanislaus. A study in sources’ in Analecta Cracoviensia, 11 (1979), pp. 251–412CrossRefGoogle Scholar (pp. 410-12 summary in French).

9 These have been critically analysed and used, from the point of view relevant to our purposes, by Witkowska, M. H., ‘The problem of religious mentality in the light of miracula from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’ in The Church in Poland, 1 (Cracow, 1968), pp. 585ff.Google Scholar

10 Cf. the valuable contemporary note in the Cracow Chapter’s Yearbook, in the entry for 1251: ‘… magister Jacobus doctor decretorum et magister Gerardus can/onici/Crac/ouienses/cum Predicatoribus et Minoribus pro canonizacione beati Stanyzlai certi nuncii et procuratores eiusdem negocii ad Romanam curiam destinantur’, Monumenta Poloniae Historica [hereafter Mon. Pol. Hist], ns. V (Warsaw, 1978), pp. 83-4.

11 A contemporary description exists in Mon. Pol. Hist., IV, pp. 436-8.

12 The life of St Stanislaus has been preserved in two versions: Vita S. Stanislai episcopi Cracoviensis/Vita Minor/ ed. Ketrzynski, W., Mon. Pol. Hist., IV (L’vov, 1884) [offset reprint, Warsaw, 1961], pp. 238–85Google Scholar; Vita Sancti Stanislai Cracoviensis episcopi/Vita Maior/ ed. Ketrzynski, W., ibid., pp. 319–438Google Scholar. Concerning Vincenty and his work, cf. Plezia, ‘Regarding the case of St Stanislaus’, pp. 357ff.

13 Mon. Pol. Hist., IV, p.387, Polish text translated by Pleziowa, J. in Analecta Cracovtensia, 11, p.181.Google Scholar

14 Mon. Pol. Hist., p. 388.

15 Ibid., pp. 391-2.

16 Ibid., p. 392.

17 The studies collected in the volume already quoted of Analecta Cracoviensia, 11 (Cracow, 1979) present the diverse aspects of this cult.