Between Allegory and Symbole in the Medieval Art in the Memory of Rev
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Between allegory and symbole in the medieval art In the memory of Rev. Zdzisław Kliś, Professor of History of Art at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Cracow († 25. January 2009) Between allegory and symbole in the medieval art • Acts of the International Conference hold in the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Cracow in 23 and 24 October 2009 Edited by Dariusz Tabor CR Kraków 2013 Redakcja techniczna Mateusz Łukasiewicz Projekt okładki Marta Jaszczuk Publikacja finansowana z dotacji na utrzymanie potencjału badawczego Uniwersytetu Papieskiego Jana Pawła II w Krakowie przyznanej przez Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego w roku 2013 Copyright © 2013 by Uniwersytet Papieski Jana Pawła II w Krakowie ISBN 978-83-7438-357-8 Uniwersytet Papieski Jana Pawła II w Krakowie Wydawnictwo Naukowe 30-348 Kraków, ul. Bobrzyńskiego 10 tel./faks 12 422 60 40 e-mail: [email protected] www.upjp2.edu.pl Agnieszka Rożnowska-Sadraei English Heritage • St. Stanislaus and the Concept of Nation: the understanding of a symbol The cult of St. Stanislaus has long been regarded as a deposi- tory of Polish national identity and tradition. The saint was de- scribed as Pater Patriae – Father of the Fatherland – for the first time in his thirteenth-century Vita maior, and by the nineteenth century he was celebrated as the spiritual leader of national identi- ty and a symbol of independent Poland. But what did the concept of national identity entail in medieval Poland? And what role did St. Stanislaus’ cult play in its development? Royal and episcopal patronage promoted St. Stanislaus as Father of the Fatherland but can we say that there existed a wider understanding of the mean- ing and importance of the implications of the saint’s symbolic sta- tus? One of the ways to test this is to study the reception of the saint’s cult as manifested in the arts of medieval Cracow by com- paring various layers of artistic patronage, from kings and bishops to the civic authorities and merchants. The story of St. Stanislaus’ martyrdom is the key to his status as the flagship of Polish independence. His career as a Cracow bishop was marked by conflict with the king of Poland, Bole- slaus II the Bold. This conflict ended in gory tragedy and had 5 Agnieszka Rożnowska-Sadraei a miraculous conclusion – although the king killed the bishop at the altar and had his remains butchered, the body of the saint- ly bishop was restored in divine grace.1 The story of St. Stanis- laus’ martyrdom, which over generations assumed the status of historical reality, emerged from historiographic and hagiogra- phic writings. The first was Gallus Anonymus’ short account written in c. 1100. Wincenty Kadłubek’s hagiographic descrip- tion was an allegorical story expounding general truths of good and evil.2 But it was the Vita maior sancti Stanislai, composed by a Cracow Dominican, Wincenty of Kielcza which transformed the saint into a symbol of political restoration and which be- gan the process of integrating St. Stanislaus’ hagiography fully into the national history.3 For the Vita maior announced that just as King Boleslaus hacked St. Stanislaus’ body to pieces and had them scattered, so the Lord divided his kingdom amongst many princes, and allowed this kingdom to be trampled upon and destroyed by outsiders. And, most importantly, Wincenty of Kielcza was the first to call St. Stanislaus the Pater Patriae and proclaimed in the Vita that just as the saint’s body became mira- culously whole after his martyrdom, the saint’s intercession will ensure the political restoration of the Polish state. Wincenty’s work, identifying St. Stanislaus’ death as a pre-fig- uration of the re-birth of the Polish kingdom, was revolutionary. While containing the conventional ingredients of hagiography 1 For extensive bibliography on the cult of St. Stanislaus see: A. Rożnowska- -Sadraei, Pater Patriae: The Cult of Saint Stanislaus and the Patronage of the Polish Kings 1200–1455, Kraków 2008. 2 Gallus Anonymus, Cronicae et gesta ducum sive principum Polonorum, red. K. Maleczyński, Kraków 1952 (Pomniki Dziejowe Polski. Seria 2, 2); Magi- strii Vincentii dicti Kadłubek, Chronica Polonorum, red. M. Plezia, Kraków 1994 (Pomniki Dziejowe Polski. Seria 2, 11). 3 Vita Sancti Stanislai Cracoviensis Episcopi (Vita maior), red. W. Kętrzyński, Lwów 1884, pp. 319–438 (Monumenta Poloniae Historica, 4). 6 St. Stanislaus and the Concept of Nation: the understanding of a symbol it moulded St. Stanislaus into a symbol of the state and its sovereignty. The canonization of the saint in Assisi on 17 Sep- tember 1253, and especially his elevatio ossium in Cracow on 8 May 1254, was a spectacular manifestation of the saint’s new symbolic status.4 The bones of the martyr were placed on the altar of St. Florian in the centre of Wawel cathedral. The altar was henceforward dedicated to St. Stanislaus, thus overriding St. Florian’s powers in favor of the new, Polish patron.5 The un- usual position of the shrine may have alluded to the burial of St. Adalbert in medio ecclesiae cathedralis of Gniezno cathedral and declared St. Stanislaus as the rival patron saint of the state.6 The elevation embodied in liturgical form the notion of the Po- lish state and its survival and demonstrated that the promo- tion of the holy bishop’s cult was a joint enterprise of the Piasts and the Polish episcopate.7 For the ceremony was attended by the Piast princess, who ruled those provinces which, according to Wincenty’s prophecy, will in the future once again form an 4 Vita maior, pp. 436–437; Jan Długosz, Historiae Polonicae vol. II, [in:] Opera Omnia, XI, red. A. Przezdziecki, Kraków 1873, pp. 345–346. 5 After the canonization the cathedral was dedicated to St. Stanislaus – refer- ence to this dedication first appears in a papal document of 1256. See Bullar- ium Poloniae, I, red. I. Sułkowska-Kurasiowa, S. Kuraś, Rome-Lublin, 1982, No. 597; also A. Rożnowska-Sadraei, Pater Patriae…, p. 71. 6 For the location of St. Adalbert’s shrine see T. Janiak, Uwagi na temat ottoń- skiej konfesji świętego Wojciecha w katedrze gnieźnieńskiej w świetle źródeł his- torycznych i archeologicznych (tzw. konfesja II), [in:] Traktat cesarski. Iława– Gniezno–Magdeburg, red. W. Dzieduszycki, M. Przybył, Poznań 2002, pp. 349–381, esp. p. 368. 7 For the relationship of the Cracow Church and the Piast princes in the pro- cess of the reunification of Poland see J. Baszkiewicz, Powstanie zjednoczo- nego państwa polskiego na przełomie XIII i XIV w., Warszawa 1954, p. 404; Zarys dziejów kościoła katolickiego w Polsce, red. J. Kłoczowski, L. Müllero- wa, J. Skarbek, Kraków 1986, pp. 37–48; A. Witkowska, Miracula mało- polskie z XIII i XIV w. Studium źródłoznawcze, “Roczniki Humanistyczne” 19 (1997) 2, pp. 29–161. 7 Agnieszka Rożnowska-Sadraei independent and powerful Polish kingdom.8 Steps were taken to give the saint’s cult a powerful reach across the whole kingdom. For, as Długosz reports in his fifteenth-century Annals, during the elevation the prelates raised and washed St. Stanislaus’ bones in wine, displayed them to the faithful who were applauding and imploring the saint’s protection, and then divided the relics amongst cathedrals, major parish and collegiate churches, while the head, arms, corpus and other important body parts remained in Cracow cathedral.9 And so with this ritual act St. Stanislaus’ cult entered a new, more public phase as a political phenomenon. But was he a pa- tron of a nation? A nation has been defined as a group of people who feel they are a community bound by ties of history, culture, and common ancestry. Nations have “objective” characteristics which may include a territory, a language, a religion, or common descent; and “subjective” characteristics – people’s awareness of their nationality and affection for it. The concept of nation im- plies common ethnic descent, which endows a political commu- nity with legitimacy and cohesion.10 This sense of community can be derived for example from a shared allegiance to the same saint and aided by the selection of artefacts. So how did these allegian- ces fall in the early fourteenth-century Cracow? St. Stanislaus was certainly a popular saint and pilgrims’ badges produced as me- mento of a pilgrimage to his cathedral shrine were excavated as far as Bohemia and Moravia.11 But to truly test the saint’s status as 8 Jan Długosz, Historiae Polonicae, II, p. 345–346. 9 Jan Długosz, Vita Sanctissimi Stanislai. Cracoviensis Episcopi, red. A. Przezdziec- ki, [in:] Opera Omnia, I, red. I. Polkowski and Ż. Pauli, Kraków 1887, p. 149. 10 S. Forde, L. Johnson, A. V. Murray, Concepts of national identity in the Middle Ages, Leeds 1995, p. 6. 11 B. Pŕibil Soupis československých svatostek, katolických medailí a jetonů, Čechy– Venkov, “Numismatický Časopis Československý” VII (1931), pp. 1–83. E. Majkowski, Plaketa z XIII stoleti, ražena ke cti sv.Stanislava, krakovského 8 St. Stanislaus and the Concept of Nation: the understanding of a symbol a Polish champion it pays to examine those artefacts which were created by patrons other than the Cracow chapter. These include two seals designed for the use of Cracow civic authorities – the sigillvm minvs civitatis cracovie and the seal of the Cracow scabini (jurists) – both dated most probably to between 1314 and 1320.12 The minor seal of the Cracow council depicts St. Wenceslaus as a nimbed knight in tunic and armour, with a long sword buck- led to the belt (fig. 1). The saint stands erect, facing the viewer, his right hand holding a lance with a small banner attached and his left a shield adorned with a cross.