Andrzej M Wyrwa
Professor Andrzej M. Wyrwa - historian and archaeologist, medievalist, researcher in the Institute of History at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and director of the Muzeum Pierwszych Piastów na Lednicy (Museum of the First Piasts at Lednica). Long-standing head of the Łekno Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of History of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He conducts interdisciplinary and many-sided research of cultural transformations in the Middle Ages on Polish lands and in Central Europe. He focuses on the history of monasticism in Europe, with particular consideration of the Cistercian Order.
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The skeletal dysplasias are a group of more than 450 heritable disorders that affect bone and cartilage, along with muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Achondroplasia is one of the most common skeletal dysplasias in both current and past populations. It can be transmitted intergenerationally, or it can result from a mutation. This paper aims to describe the lesions visible on the skeleton of a 30-45 year old male with achondroplasia, who lived during the 9th-11th centuries AD (medieval period) in Łekno, Poland. The Łekno settlement complex (Site 3) includes a cemetery with approximately 400 burials of monks and local lay people. Macroscopic examination facilitated a differential diagnosis that identified a probable case of achondroplastic dwarfism, combined with Léri-Weill dyschondrosteosis and ulnar hemimelia. This is
The skeletal dysplasias are a group of more than 450 heritable disorders that affect bone and cartilage, along with muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Achondroplasia is one of the most common skeletal dysplasias in both current and past populations. It can be transmitted intergenerationally, or it can result from a mutation. This paper aims to describe the lesions visible on the skeleton of a 30-45 year old male with achondroplasia, who lived during the 9th-11th centuries AD (medieval period) in Łekno, Poland. The Łekno settlement complex (Site 3) includes a cemetery with approximately 400 burials of monks and local lay people. Macroscopic examination facilitated a differential diagnosis that identified a probable case of achondroplastic dwarfism, combined with Léri-Weill dyschondrosteosis and ulnar hemimelia. This is
Introductio
The history of the Cistercian order has received much attention among historians, art historians, historians of the Church, architecture and other disciplines, in which ‘grey monks’, as the Cistercians were called, played a more or less significant role. Written records documenting the history of the Cistercians, their monasteries and cultural activity in Europe and Asia have been the subject of several debates and critical analyses. The opening chapter of this book gives a brief overview of the history of the Cistercian order. It serves as an introduction to the essential part of the book, the translation into Polish of three important medieval sources reflecting St Bernard of Clairvaux’s and St Hildegard of Bingen’s views on the rules of the monastic life in Cistercian and Benedictine monasteries: the letter written by St Bernard to Robert of Châtillon, his cousin on the distaff side; St Bernard’s Apology to William of St Thierry; and a 1153 letter, in which St Hildegard of Bingen presents her opinion on the Cistercian monks at the request of the Cistercian General Chapter, most likely after the death of St Bernard, which happened on 20 August 1153. The contents of the sources, especially the views of St Bernard, are heavily related to each other, while the words of St Hildegard give a summary and an assessment of the order in St Bernard’s times. Starting concurrently with monasticism in the fourth century AD, the debate about the principles of the monastic life intensified since the turn of the twelfth century to become particularly vigorous in the first half of the twelfth century. It did not weaken in the following period, it is just that St Bernard of Clairvaux enjoyed immense prestige in the Church and the world and his stance was very significant in the debate and for the establishment of ‘appropriate’ rules of life in a monastery. Marked by considerable puritanism, Bernard’s views arose much controversy and sparked off fierce debates. These were collected and presented in an excellent publication by Father Michał Tomasz Gronowski OSB entitled Polemika kluniacko-cysterska z XII wieku [Cistercians vs. Cluniacs: the Twelfth-Century Controversy]. This book attempts to contribute to this research. Obviously, several more written records have been preserved to our times, including letters, sermons and treatises written by St Bernard, St Hildegard and other twelfth century monks-scholars and thinkers. They all in various ways refer to the problem defined in the title. Here, we have made a subjective selection of sources and chosen those, which in our opinion are the quintessence of visions and views regarding the monastic life as preached by Bernard of Clairvaux, the leading member of the Cistercian order in the twelfth century. In their discussions, historians and theologians typically refer to the original Latin editions of sources published in expert source publications. However, since wider audience should also gain access to written records, in many countries the sources have been translated into native languages. This is why we also decided to present the medieval views on the monastic life by translating the texts into Polish. Apology to William has been known for some time in Polish translation and larger fragments of the letter to Robert have also been rendered into Polish. Mentioned in several studies and in our opinion having considerable polemical importance, S. Hildegard’s letter has not yet been published in entirety in Polish translation. This is also probably the reason why, as an overview of historiography would suggest, it has not entered a wider scientific circulation. It is our hope that this joint publication of the sources will enable more extensive research and a more ‘multifaceted’ portrayal, the vision of the functioning and development of the twelfth-century monasticism and the impact of these views on its later form, particularly following the emergence of new religious communities in the early thirteenth century, including mendicant orders.
Andrzej M. Wyrwa
Translated by Agnieszka Tokarczuk
A number of papers published in this volume concerns archaeological research conducted in locations associated with the origins of Polish statehood where some of the discovered features and facilities were interpreted (at least for a certain period of time)
as potential places of baptisms (Ostrów Lednicki, the Cathedral Island in Poznań, the Wawel hill, Wiślica).
Essays on the history of religious mentality and beliefs in the Land of Łekno from the Middle Ages till the Modern Times.
The current study presents the results of our research regarding the mentality, piety and religiosity of the inhabitants of the territory known to experts as the Łekno settlement complex. The Land of Łekno is located in the South-Western part of Pałuki and in North– Eastern part of Wielkopolska (see drawings 2-4).
However, it is not a typical historically created territory. The Land of Łekno was distinguished from the others strictly for academic reasons, using the settlement’s, cultural and historical features. The Land of Łekno mainly comprises the territory around the Łekno Lake including (see drawings 5): 1. the original and current settlement known as Klasztorek (site Ł3), the original site of a stronghold with pre-Romanesque rotund (see drawings 6 – 9); 2. a Cistercian monastery and the later addition of a cemetery chapel (see drawings 6-8, 10-12); 3. the village of Łekno (site Ł1) with the church of St. Peter and St. Paul (see drawings17-18) and a medieval settlement known as “Prawo Polskie”, adjoining it from East (site Ł 19), where in 1444-1829 the Holy Cross Church was located (see drawings 19 – 21); 4. the village of Tarnowo Pałuckie (site T 22) with the church of St. Nicolas as well as some other smaller settlements (see drawings 14-16): 5. the village of Micharzewo (located ca. 4 km westwards), 6. the village of Krosno (located ca. 2,5 km north-westwards) and 7. the village of Niemczyn (located ca. 6 km also north-westwards), and finally 8. several minor settlements (see drawings 3-5).
One can show several aspects of the research undertaken, but we only discuss some of them in detail. It was decided mainly by the selection of sources which were available to us currently, to analyse and present the question.
The book chronologically covers the period from early Middle Ages to late modern times, it is from the end of the 10th century to the turn of 18th and 19th century. Keeping in mind the context of the title our aim is to present a complex of various phenomena and processes which were creating religiosity and piety of this mirco-region: first a stronghold and later the little town of Łekno and several settlements located in close neighborhood.
The number of available sources from the modern period and its variety (written, archaeological, architectural, anthropological, ethnographical sources) allows us to look deeply into a micro-world of this small community. We could try to recreate their way of their life, sometimes rather backward and certainly not advanced compared to bigger cities, so mainly concentrating on their traditional transformation through the generations, far away from nobility, castles or manors and main cultural centres.
We divided our analysis into three parts, in which we try to present the understanding of sacrum (sacred and holy things) and profanum (common and secular things) expressed by inhabitants of the micro-region. We concentrated on discussing the pietas Ecclesiae, it is piety requested by Church, and pietas et fides plebis, it is people’s piety and beliefs. In the latter Latin expression we consciously use the term plebis instead of pietas popularis, because in our opinion it reflects a much broader context of the question in discussion. We also try to avoid evaluation of social and cultural behaviors.
In the first of above-mentioned articles we analyse the dedications of the churches in Łekno (site Ł1 and Ł19), Tarnowo Pałuckie (site T 22) and Klasztorek, which means the site of the former Cistercian monastery (site Ł3) as well as dedication of the altars, which were erected in these churches (see drawings: Łekno – 26 – 33; Tarnowo Pałuckie – 34-61). We excluded various liturgical parchments and detailed descriptions of reliquaries still preserved in these shrines of the Łekno settlement complex (the latter ones were, in fact, only mentioned), consequently we did not discuss the liturgical manuscripts and books. The chronological frames of our analysis were marked by the period of the introduction of Christianity and the erection of the first Christian Romanesque shrine (at the turn of the 10th and 11th century onwards) and recent times. Our presentation was based on archaeological, architectural, written and iconographic sources. As a result of our research we were able to point out various stages in the creation of the Church structure: a) “magnate’s period” (from the beginning of the 11th to mid 12th century) b) “monastic period”, when a Cistercian monastery was founded and built (from mid 12th century) and finally c) “parochial period”, when the monastery was transferred to town of Wągrowiec and the parish church in Łekno which was erected (from end of the 13th century onwards).
The following two articles refer, first of all, to a period from the late Middle Ages to the current day. In the first article we concentrated on various topics regarding superstitions, which we were able to determine and describe, mostly thanks to funeral artefacts, discovered in the researched funeral grounds around Holy Cross Church in Łekno (site Ł19), St. Nicolas Church in Tarnowo Pałuckie (site T 22) and in Klasztorek (site Ł3). In the second article we dedicated our attention to witches, witchcraft, magic and stake burning (see drawings 62-67). The latter ones were burned, as it was confirmed by written sources, from the end of the 17th to the beginning of the 18th century. We used in our analysis the documents submitted to various judical trials supervised by the local authorities in Łekno and Wągrowiec (1689-1738), which are now preserved in State Archives in Poznań (see drawings 68). The full register of historical sources and literature was compiled in bibliography.
We only dealt with selected problems on a rather small scale, however, taking the sources into consideration, we presented a very dynamic and colorful picture of beliefs, religiosity and piety as well as connecting with rituals, rich local traditions, peasants’ devotion and superstitions. It also included the long-lasting dualism, which in humorous way reflects a peasants? often-repeated saying: One should offer a full candle to God, and candle-end to devil (“Panu Bogu świeczkę, a diabłu ogarek”) or It is never bad to offer a candle to devil (“I diabłu świeczka nie zawadzi”).
We would like to express our hope that the articles, presented in the current study, will be considered as an important supplement to further research on religiosity and piety (including religious devotion and superstition) in Polish lands as well as an encouragement to further studies on similar phenomena in the region.
Translated by Rafał Witkowski