Epidemie w dziejach Wadowic w okresie przedrozbiorowym – studium przypadku miasta małopolskiego

Abstract

Epidemics in the history of Wadowice in the pre-partition period. A study of a town in Małopolska This article aims to analyze the traces of the pestilence in Wadowice in Małopolska up to 1772, when the town became part of the Austrian partition. Hitherto this topic has only been mentioned in the literature. Thanks to a use of sources from the period, and, above all, archives in, for example, the Archiwum Parafialnym Bazyliki Ofiarowania Najświętszej Marii Panny w Wadowicach and in the Archiwum Kurii Metropolitalnej w Krakowie, the author has discovered traces of the appearance of large-scale epidemics in Wadowice in 1585, 1601, 1652–1653, and probably in 1737, 1752, and 1758. In the Wadowice records of deaths (Liber Mortuorum), it has been possible to identify entries that would indicate the appearance of at least local epidemics in the period 1730–1772. In addition, a hitherto unknown note by the local pastor from 1756 has been found, which provides information about epidemics in the town in the XVIIth century and of their avoidance at the time of pestilence raging over large areas of the Polish Commonwealth and beyond its borders between 1708 and 1709. This source, published as an annex to the article, also shows the approaches of the inhabitants of Wadowice to the plague, which were typical of the period, and included: dedicating the town to the Mother of God, and the conviction that the misfortunes falling on the town, such as epidemics or fires, were a punishment for sins. The article ends with a recommendation in the future to carry out comparative research that makes it possible to compare the results from Wadowice with those from other towns in the western part of Małopolska.