Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-pfhbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T21:24:05.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Merging of Religious Elements with National Consciousness in the Historical Works of Jan Długosz

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Urszula Borkowska
Urszula Borkowska*
Affiliation:
Catholic University of Lublin
Get access

Extract

The fifteenth century was a very important period in the history of the Polish State and nation. It had a particular significance for the development of national consciousness. The union of the Polish kingdom with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1385) changed not only the boundaries of this new and unified state called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also created new and specific conditions for the development of the nation. The different nationalities of the jagiellonian state, Poles, Ruthenians, Lithuanians, Germans, Jews, and Armenians played an important role in the lively exchange of cultural experience on the basis of a sometimes uneasy partnership. Poland guaranteed privileges to the lords, both spiritual and temporal, to the gentry, and to the patricians, estates that had emerged in the course of the fourteenth century. These were united by common sentiment and desire for a strong political foundation. The urban and rural populations of both Polish and non-Polish speakers were bound together by loyalty to the Crown and its territory. Like other groups in late-medieval Europe they saw such a political union as advantageous.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 6: Faith and Identity: Christian Political Experience , 1990 , pp. 69 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For relevant general histories of late-medieval Poland, see especially Gieysztor, A. and Kieniewicz, S., eds., A History of Poland (Warsaw, 1968), pp. 133–207Google Scholar; Halecki, O., A History of Poland (London, 1978), pp. 65–127Google Scholar; Davies, N., God’s Playground: A History of Poland, 2 vols (Oxford, 1982), 1, pp. 115–55Google Scholar; Davies, N., Heart of Europe. A Short History of Poland (Oxford, 1986), pp. 291ffGoogle Scholar. For a more specific topic and detailed bibliography, see Borkowska, U., ‘The funeral ceremonies of the Polish kings from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries’,JEH, 36 (1985), pp. 513–34.Google Scholar

2 Most accessible for European historical writing up to the fifteenth century is Smalley, B., Historians in the Middle Ages (London, 1974)Google Scholar, which provides a comprehensive bibliography. Also Lacroix, B. M., L’Hislorien au Moyen Age(Montreal and Paris, 1971)Google Scholar, Guenée, B., Historiens au Bas Moyen Age (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar, and Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England, I, c.550. c.1307 (London, 1974);Google Scholar 2, c.1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London, 1982).

3 An older work covering the position of Długosz as historian and writer is Bobrzyński, M. and Smolka, S., Jan Długosz. His Life and Position as a Writer, (Cracow, 1893)Google Scholar. See also Borkowska, U., Treści ideowe wpismach Długosza: Kościół i Świat poza Kościołem (The Ideology of John Długosz: the Church and the World extra Ecclesiam) (Lublin, 1984).Google Scholar

4 Długosz, J. Annales seu cronicae incliti regni Poloniae, lib. I—VIII, ed. Dabrowski, J., 4 vols, (Warsaw, 1964-75)Google Scholar [hereafter A with the number of the volume]. Since notali of Długosz’s Annales have been re-edited, the earlier edition is also quoted in the present paper: Historiae Poloniae, lib. xii, vols 1—5 in Opera Omnia, vols 10—14, ed. Przezdziecki, A. (Cracow, 1873-9)Google Scholar [hereafter H]. Other works used as the basis of the present study are Liber beneficiorum dioecesis Cracoviensis, vols 1-3 in Opera Omnia, ed. Przezdziecki, A., vols 7-9 (Cracow, 1863-4)Google Scholar [here after LB]; Vita beatae Kunegundis, ed. Polkowsi, I. and Pauli, Z., ibid, vol 1 (Cracow, 1887), pp. 183–336Google Scholar [hereafter VK]; Vita sanctissimi Stanislai Cracoviensis episcopi, ibid., pp. 1-180 [here after VS];, Vitae episcoporum Poloniae, ibid., pp. 337-547 [hereafter VE]; Epistolae … ab anno 1447-1448, ibid., pp. 597—638 [hereafter E]; also Vitae episcoporum Plocensium, ed. Ketryzyñski, W. in Monumenta Poloniae Historica, vol. 6 (Lvov, 1893), pp. 592–619.Google Scholar

5 For progress in research see the review by Koczerska, M., ‘Etat et perspectives des recherches sur Jan Długosz’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 52 (1985), pp. 171–219.Google Scholar

6 See Gustaw, R., Rozwój pojęcia historii Kościoła od I do XVII wieku (The Evolution of the Concept of the History of the Church from the First to the Seventeenth Century) (Poznañ, 1964), p. 86.Google Scholar

7 On the historiography of the Church in the Wielkopolska Chronicle see Kurbis, B., Dziejopisarstwo wielkopolskie XIII i XIV wieku (The Historiography of Great Poland in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries) (Warsaw, 1959), especially p. 251.Google Scholar

8 Labuda, G., ‘Twórczośé hagiograficzna i historiograficzna Wincentego z Kielc’ (The hagio graphie and historiographie works of Wincenty of Kielce) in Studia Źródłoznawcze. Commentationes, 16 (1971), p. 136.Google Scholar

9 This topic is discussed in the first chapter of the examination of Długosz’s ecclesiological views in U. Borkowska, Treści ideowe.

10 Highly significant in this context is die manner in which Długosz describes Poland in the period of feudal disintegration. He speaks of the country as if it were a sick and torn body. Having united part of the territories in 1295, Przemysław deliberated with his Council as to how ‘tenerum et molle Regni Poloniae corpus coalesceret et in virile robur evaderet’, A, IV, p. 287.

11 A, 1, pp. 218-20,233.

12 VE, pp. 338, 379, 440,443,480,482; LB, III, p. 449; A, I, pp. 178,194,215,283.

13 This was a significant trait of Długosz’s mentality. For instance, he blames the bishops of Kamień for harming themselves and the Kingdom ‘fraudendo et primarium ecclesiae Caymenensis fundatorem et dotatorem, Boleslaum videlicet Chabri Poloniae Regem, et eius piam et devotam ordinationem adulterando’, VE, p. 341. He sharply criticizes the religious Orders, which have departed from the intentions of their founders, and have thus brought the wrath of God upon themselves, LB, III, pp. 103,106-7,222.

14 VE, pp. 341-2,518,519,528; LB, 1, p. 616; III, p. 449.

15 A, I, p. 262.

16 LB, I, p.633; A, III, p. 171;A, IV, pp. 142-3, 292, 294;H, III, pp.79-80, 244; V, pp.459-60.

17 VE, p. 341; H, p.252, e.g., Prague, 1345.

18 VE, p. 518; A, II, pp. 28-9, 51-2; H, III, pp. 86,107,243.

19 Among the first were the Archbisops of Gniezno: Borzysław and St Jarosław, and the Bishops of Włocławek, Gerwardus and Jan Gruszyński, VE, pp. 351, 359—62, 528, 540. Among the second, also from Włocławek, Bishops Maciej and Jan Kropidło, VE:, pp. 529, 532,534. See also, Eubel, C., Hieranhia Catholka medii aevi (Monasterii, 1898-1913), 1, pp. 2, 265, 533; 2, p. 270.Google Scholar

20 LB, III, pp. 449-50. For the Dominican province in the fifteenth century, see Kłoczowski, J., ‘Zakony na ziemiach polskich w wiekach Średnich’ (The Religious Orders in Poland in the Middle Ages) in Kościół w Polsce (The Church in Poland) 1 (Cracow, 1966), pp. 516–22, 528–39.Google Scholar

21 A, I, pp. 109-14. This list based on diocesan organization was extended by Dtugosz through the addition of a further three cities which were seen by him as playing an important economic role. He placed Gdansk, Toruń, and Elblag at the end of his list.

22 For the medieval concept of the West as an ecclesiological whole, respublica Christiana, as contrasted with the East, which was a political entity, see Ullmann, W., Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages (London, 1961), pp. 113–20.Google Scholar

23 VE, pp. 345, 519. The terms ‘the Polish Church’, ‘the Polish episcopate’, which appear countless times in the writings of Długosz, deserve all the more attention because they appear so rarely in earlier chronicles such as Gallus Anonymous, Wincenty Kadlubek, the Wiekopolska Chronicle, and the Silesian sources. Attention to the emphasis placed on the national character of the Church was drawn by Guenée, B., L’Occident aux xive et xve siècles (Paris, 1971), p. 238.Google Scholar

24 A, I, p.179; VE, p. 369; H, IV, p. 206.

25 VE, p. 341.

26 Długosz has Bolesław the Bold explain himself before the Wrorław chapter thus: ‘in Ecclesia Poloniae… Polonum… eligi oportet: sufficiere … Italis… indignum et dedecorum ratus forenses propriis et indigenis aneferri’, VE, p. 449. Also see, VE, pp. 485,488.

27 VE, pp. 469,472; H, III, p. 501. There are exceptions such as Rudolph of Rüdesheim, whom Długosz supported as a candidate to the see of Wrocław [Eubel, 2, p. 270]. The chronicler must here have been convinced that the papal legate had a positive attitude towards Poland. Possibly he viewed his candidature solely through the prism of the positive resolution of the Polish-Teutonic conflict which Rudolph helped to bring about in 1466.

28 VE, pp. 365, 377, 503,506, 532; A, III, pp. 158, 395-6; A, IV, p. 202: H, 111,265-9, 501; V, p. 561.

29 H, III, pp. 364-5.

30 H, III, p. 366; IV, pp. 333-4.

31 See Pawiński, A., Jan Oslroróg, Zywol ipismo ‘O naprawie Rzeczypospolitej’, (Life and Work ‘On the Reform of the Commonwealth’) (Warsaw, 1884), pp. 126–8, 136–40.Google Scholar

32 Górski, K., ‘Rządy wewnętrzne Kazimierza Jagiellończyka w Koronie’, (The Internal Government of Kazimir Jagiellończyk in the Kingdom of Poland), Kwartalnik Historyczny, 66 (1959), p. 742.Google Scholar

33 See Bobryżyński and Smolka, Jan Długosz, p. 206.

34 See Borkowska, U., ‘Hagiografia polska wiek XVI-XVIII’ (Polish hagiography from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries) in Dzieje teologii katolickiej w Polsce (The History of Catholic Theology in Poland) 2, pt I (Lublin, 1975), p. 477.Google Scholar

35 See Hagiografia polska (Polish Hagiography), ed. Gustaw, R., 2 vols (Poznań, 1971).Google Scholar

36 See Bobrzyński and Smolka, Jan Długosz, p. 206.

37 V, pp. 189,240; A, IV, p. 117.

38 VS, pp. 131-51;A, IV, pp. 155-6,158-9.

39 VS, p. 172; VK, p. 185.

40 VS, p. 83.

41 See Borkowska, U., ‘Świety Stanisław w concepcji historii narodowej Jana Długosza’ (The role of St Stanisław in Długosz’s concept of national history), Znak, 31 (1979), pp. 4—5,298–9.Google Scholar

42 Anonymous, Gallus, lib. 2, p. 6, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, ns, 2 (Cracow, 1952), p. 3Google Scholar. Długosz repeats the text faithfully in his own words. A, II, p. 193.

43 H, III, p. 151.

44 H, IV, p. 51.

45 H, IV, pp. 61-2.

46 VS, p.92.

47 This aspect underlines the arguments of Gawlas, S. in ‘Świadomość narodowa Jana Długosza’ (fan Długosz’s national consciousness), Studia Źródłznawcze. Commentationes, 27 (1983), p. 14.Google Scholar