Early Modern Poland Research Articles

Oświecenie w syntezach dziejów Rzeczypospolitej Józefa Andrzeja Gierowskiego (na tle ujęć Władysława Konopczyńskiego i Celiny Bobińskiej)

The Enlightenment occupied an important place in the oeuvre of Professor Józef Andrzej Gierowski. This piece presents his evolving views on the Enlightenment in three syntheses of the history of early modern Poland and the Polish‑Lithuanian Commonwealth: two university textbooks first published in 1967 and 1978 respectively, and a book addressed to a wider, non‑academic readership first published in 2001, much of which was presented to Anglophone readers in 1996. J. A. Gierowski’s views are presented against the background of the sardonic references to “the enlightened age” and “enlightened Europe” in the synthesis published by his supervisor, Władysław Konopczyński in 1936, as well as the Marxist‑Leninist scheme of the Enlightenment forced on historiography and the humanities in postwar Poland, especially by Celina Bobińska. J. A. Gierowski’s view of “the ideology of the Enlightenment” gradually shifted from the primacy of rationalist and materialist thinking to the aim of the pursuit of happi-ness within human society. While still emphasising economic and social factors, including the role of the bourgeoisie in the Dutch Republic, England and France, he increasingly distanced himself from the model of the Enlightenment as the ideology of the rising bourgeoisie, forced on him in the early stages of his academic career. After long reflection on the question of the reception and originality of the Enlightenment in the Commonwealth, he came to appreciate the contributions of Royal Prussian burghers, the Catholic clergy and the Polish‑Lithuanian nobility. He also jettisoned the postwar dogma that the beginning of the capitalist order in Poland should be dated to 1764.

Czary polskie w swej postaci ukazane

The article proposes a review of Michael Ostling’s book Between the Devil and the Host. Imagining Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland concerning literary and translation studies. In the author’s opinion, the presented monograph, due to its cognitive and comparative merits, is valuable not only for historians, but also for interdisciplinary scholars from the field of humanities.

A hidden nusach: the linguistic literacy of the Maharam Lublin

The study focuses on an individual rabbi from early-modern Poland, Maharam of Lublin, and on his proficiency as a writer. We explore the Maharam's competence in recruiting different linguistic devices to serve both specific textual functions and the overall communicative function of the text. Taking the combined perspectives of historical discourse analysis and usage-based corpus linguistics, we analyse one responsum as an example of this historically - and in our view linguistically - important source of study. Specifically, we investigate the distributions of the lexical items the Maharam employed in different textual units according to their linguistico-historical strata. Our analyses show that these distributions are either highly constrained or reflect a distributionally dominant component in each texteme, which corresponds to a particular discursive function. In writing this text, the Maharam skilfully and systematically transitions between different linguistic models. His command of the Hebrew strata reflects a literate, functionally motivated nusach.

Note from the Editors

Previous articleNext article FreeNote from the EditorsMark Hersey, Stephen Brain, and Sarah Stanford-McIntyreMark Hersey Search for more articles by this author , Stephen Brain Search for more articles by this author , and Sarah Stanford-McIntyre Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreMuch has changed about the practice of environmental history since it emerged as a self-conscious discipline in the last decades of the twentieth century. As it expanded in influence, it pushed beyond the boundaries of North America, influencing historiographies around the world, while the traditions of other continents shaped the field’s approaches to, understanding of, and indeed the very questions it asks about the historical relationships of people to the other-than-human world. At the same time, however, even as methodologies have evolved, the approaches of the earliest environmental historians continue to exert a strong appeal. This issue captures both the continued influence of the founding generation of environmental historians and the impressive methodological and geographical diversity that has come to mark the field.This issue begins with a memorial of Angus Wright, whose pioneering work helped move Latin American environmental history into the main currents of the broader field. The two essays that follow—a reflection by Peter Alagona, Mark Carey, and Adrian Howkins and an article by Philip Slavin—reflect the legacies of the field’s early efforts to engage with science. In their appeal to environmental historians to seriously consider (and esteem) coauthorship, Alagona, Carey, and Howkins encourage environmental historians not only to rekindle the relationship with science that animated many of the field’s foundational works, but to push the relationship further through enhanced collaboration with scientists. Slavin, who has frequently partnered across disciplines in precisely the way the reflection asks, brings new scientific discoveries to bear to shed light on the origins of the Black Death. Much as William McNeill did in the 1970s, Slavin seeks to leverage cutting-edge scientific techniques not merely to answer long-standing questions but to open new lines of inquiry.Articles by Viktor Pal and Michal Pospiszyl set their sights on countries heretofore little studied by environmental historians. Pal’s piece about recycling in socialist Hungary draws attention to the way that Cold War political dynamics created new spaces for environmental protection while simultaneously undermining those very efforts. Pospiszyl’s essay takes as its subject early modern Poland—a country just beginning to develop a domestic cohort of environmental historians—and, like Pal, shows how foreign ideas about environmental management blended with domestic politics to reshape both the actual and the political landscape.Moving back across the Atlantic to North America, William Knight and Kiethen Sutherland explore failed post–World War II experiments to introduce new species of salmon to northern Ontario. While previous historians have noted the unintended outcome of those experiments (in the inadvertent introduction of pink salmon to the Great Lakes), Knight and Sutherland turn the focus to the experiments themselves, highlighting the troubling colonial assumptions that undergirded them.The book reviews in this issue continue to showcase the global nature of the field and the diversity of approaches in it, offering assessments of titles that range from microhistories to sweeping systemic accounts. As is often the case, many reviewers commented upon the utility of the books under consideration for the undergraduate classroom.We also want to formally welcome Fraser Livingston, a newly minted PhD whose research centers on the longleaf pine forests of the southeastern United States, to the editorial team as the journal’s social media coordinator. We’re eager to work with him to call attention not only to the work of the journal but to that of environmental historians around the world.By the time this journal appears in print, the ASEH will have met in Boston for its 2023 meeting, and many of the journal’s readers will be preparing for conferences in places as far flung as Osogbo, Nigeria; Melbourne, Australia; Michoacán, Mexico; and Bern, Switzerland. We encourage you, as always, to look for us (or a member of our editorial board) there. We’re always happy to hear about your projects and do what we can to foster the growth of the field around the world. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ahead of Print Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Views: 28Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723891 Views: 28Total views on this site HistoryPublished online March 21, 2023 © 2023 Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Influence of the Liturgical Calendar on the Seasonality of Conception in Early Modern Poland and Silesia

W artykule omówiono sezonowość małżeństw, poczęć i pierwszych poczęć w społecznościach nowożytnych z terenu obecnej Polski. Poszukiwano w niej wpływu katolickiego kalendarza liturgicznego. Podstawę źródłową stanowiły dane opublikowane dotychczas w literaturze. Z analizy wynika, że restrykcje kościelne zmuszały wiernych do zawierania małżeństw w miesiącach bezpośrednio przed Wielkim Postem i adwentem. Skutkowało to wzrostem poślubnej aktywności seksualnej w okresie, w którym zalecana była wstrzemięźliwość. Wniosek ten osłabia przekonanie o kontrolowaniu przez kościół katolicki życia codziennego mieszkańców nowożytnej Polski.

The Readership of Zodiacus vitae in Early Modern Poland, Pomerania and Silesia

Zodiacus vitae, an influential philosophical poem by Marcello Palingenio Stellato, enjoyed popularity in Early Modern Europe, as evidenced by over sixty foreign editions, several translations and a 16th-century Polish-language paraphrase. Despite the latter being a testimony to Palingenius’work being read by the most prominent Renaissance humanists in Poland, the poem’s readership in Old Polish literature has remained largely unknown. The goal of this article is, therefore, to outline a new map of its readership in Early Modern Poland, Pomerania and Silesia, citing its presence in book inventories, public libraries, book collections and monastery libraries. Zodiacus circulated for instance in the 16th and 17th centuries among booksellers and bookstore owners in the most important printing centre in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth − Lviv (Piotr of Poznań, Baltazar Hybner) and Cracow (Helena Unglerowa, Franciszek Jakub Mercenich). It was no less popular in the private book collections of the townspeople, physicians, noblemen and aristocracy. Among the owners of the poem can be found for example: famous scholar and professor Jan Brożek, historian at the court of King Stephen Bathory –Giovanni Michele Bruto, poet Jan Gawiński, reformer of education and the mayor of Toruń−Henryk Stroband. Some light on the problem of the Zodiacus’popularity is also shed by an analysis of copious amounts of marginal notes in over seventy extant copies of Palingenius’work preserved in Polish libraries.

Jak się pozbyć matki, która bije? Dziecięcy proces o czary w Gnieźnie w 1689 r.

How to get rid of a mother who beats you up? The children’s witch trial in Gniezno in 1689 In studies conducted so far into witch trials in the Polish-Lithuanian state in the sixteenth– seventeenth centuries the question of children has been virtually absent. It seems that the number of trials featuring children as active participants was small in early modern Poland. Nevertheless, such trials did take place. This is confirmed by a trial held in Gniezno in 1689. Ten-year-old Dorotka, daughter of Zofia the Publican, accused her mother of being a witch and of harming several people with the help of the devil. The girl’s testimony shows unequivocally that she was physically abused by her mother. This may have been the reason behind the accusation. The article examines the trial on the basis of sources preserved in the records of the city of Gniezno.

Gdańskie testamenty reciproce i praktyka tworzenia inwentarzy mienia w XVII–XVIII w.

The article focuses on two crucial issues connected with property inheritance in Gdansk (Danzig) in the 17th–18th c. First, it discusses spouses’ reciprocal last wills (reciproce testa-ments) as a form widely used in this city and its impact on the practice of establishing the net value of the inheritance. Second, it explains the origin of the probate inventory and the popularization of the particular formal characteristics of this document throughout Europe. On the basis of thousands of testaments and probate inventories of Gdansk burghers from the period between the last quarter of the 16th c. to the early 19th c. surviving in the State Archives in Gdansk it is possible to analyse in detail how those legal instruments developed in the early-modern era. In the light of the Kulm Law (ius culmense, Kulmer Recht), which was applied in Gdansk, a reciproce testament drawn up by spouses made it possible to enlarge the portion of the inher-itance due to the widow (or widower), or to another heir indicated, or to make a charity bequest. This legal instrument allowed to keep up to 7/8 of the worth of the spouses’ property and served to protect the integrity of their workshops. The Kulm Law, following the Flemish law, pro-tected the interests of widows, and did not exclude women — widows or daughters — from inheriting, treating them on a par with male heirs. A key issue in inheritance proceedings was the evaluation of property and of its portions due to particular heirs, some of whom were often minors. This required a socially accepted legal instrument, i.e. a reliable official probate inven-tory, which was the basis of evaluating the property and its portions going to individual heirs. On the basis of the documents surviving in the State Archives in Gdansk, and published comparative materials concerning various regions of early-modern Poland and Europe, the author claims that the widespread knowledge of the rules of drawing probate inventory, as well as the characteristic formal features of probate inventories (the subject order, the balance of values) had resulted from adopting the book-keeping techniques developed since the 14th c. by Italian merchants. Theoretical knowledge and practical tips about drawing an inventory and a balance sheet were systematized by Fra Luca Pacioli de Burgo (1445–1514?), a Franciscan and a mathematics professor, in 1494 in Summa de Arithmetica, Geometrica, Proportioni et Proportionalita. In treatise XI (Particularis de computis et scripturis) Pacioli described the Venetian method of drawing up an inventory and of keeping basic account books, also presenting the profit-and- oss account and the balance of accounts, which were the beginnings of the future balance sheet. Thanks to the development of printing, Pacioli’s ideas were quickly popularized throughout Europe. One of the best works devoted to book-keeping available in Gdansk at that time was Sebastian Gamersfelder’s Buchhalten durch zwei Bucher nach italianicher Art und Weise (published in 1570). The widely described rules of drawing up a probate inventory and a balance sheet were adopted by Dutch, English and German merchants, as well as book-keeping teachers and notaries all over Europe, who adapted them to local legal and social realities (including the level of literacy and arithmetic skills). This also had an impact on the standardization of probate inventories in the 17th and 18th c. This article is part of research related to the preparation of a monograph on early-modern probate inventories in Gdansk.

Echoes of the 1580 Jesuit Mission to England in Early Modern Poland

The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne 61 (2013), issue 2.
 The article presents Polish reactions to the famous Jesuit mission in England of 1580, and thus also the beginnings of the formation of the worship of St Edmund Campion in Poland. They are connected with the publication in Kraków (1583) of a translation of Robert Persons’ account entitled De persecutione Anglicana, but also with the position that the history of Campion’s mission took in the work of Piotr Skarga SJ. The Polish writer, showing a lively interest in what was going on with English Catholics and inspiring political interventions in support of Jesuits imprisoned in England (including his subordinate, the Vilnius professor James Bosgrave), in subsequent editions of his very popular hagiographic collection Żywoty świętych [The Lives of Saints] presented Przydatek […] o świętych męczennikach [A Supplement […] on Saint Martyrs] which was modified several times, and in it a paragraph titled O męczennikach w Anglijej [On Martyrs in England]. Its most basic part consisted of—starting with the 1585 edition—the story of St Edmund Campion, St Ralph Sherwin and Alexander Briant’s mission and martyrdom, which was a free adaptation of the narration contained in Concertatio Ecclesiae Catholicae in Anglia by John Fenn and John Gibson (1583). Skarga’s interest in the figure of Campion was also reflected in the Polish translation of Rationes decem (1583) that he made at the request of King Stephen Báthory. It may be said that Rationes decem (also published in Latin in 1605) became one of the fundamental apologetic texts in Poland of the early-modern age, and St Edmund Campion, in a sense, became the patron of controversial theology, which would find its confirmation in the 18th century adaptation of Nicholas Sanders and Edward Rishton’s work De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani (1748) written by Jan Poszakowski.

Review: Remarks on Architecture: The Vitruvian Tradition in Enlightenment Poland, by Ignacy Potocki

Ignacy Potocki Remarks on Architecture: The Vitruvian Tradition in Enlightenment Poland Translated from the Polish and edited by Carolyn C. Guile University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015, 155 pp., 2 maps, 11 b/w illus. $74.95, ISBN 9780271066288 Remarks on Architecture: The Vitruvian Tradition in Enlightenment Poland is a short book of herculean proportions. It consists of an extensive introductory essay by Caroline C. Guile (fifty-six pages) followed by an English translation of Ignacy Potocki's unpublished eighteenth-century manuscript Remarks on Architecture ( Uwagi o architekturze ), along with a transcription of his original Polish text. This book represents an important contribution to early modern architectural history, offering many new insights into the fascinating but little-known architectural culture of early modern Poland. Especially valuable is the full translation of the treatise, which offers English-language scholars a rare opportunity to study a Polish primary source. Ignacy Potocki (1750–1809), a Polish nobleman, was a political activist and education reformer. His Remarks on Architecture , written before 1786, was a product of his elite class, education, and travels, and it reflects the climate of a critical time in Polish history. During the second half of the eighteenth century, one of the largest states in Europe disappeared from the map when Russia, Prussia, and Austria partitioned the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among themselves. Guile's introduction provides detailed context for this “political crisis and period of national eradication” (4), and it is within this historical moment that Potocki's treatise on architecture must be understood. One of the most interesting aspects of Remarks on Architecture is Potocki's view of architecture as a branch of Enlightenment philosophy. Like other architectural thinkers of his time, Potocki wanted to instruct his readers on how architecture, placed into the service of the state, could help to alleviate society's ills. For example, if the rich invested in public buildings, “idleness, poverty, and vice everywhere would turn into industry, financial self-sufficiency, effort, and work” (75). Potocki dedicated his treatise to the szlachta , the Polish …

Auto-da-fe in Lwów in 1728: The Jan Filipowicz Trial and Jewish Re-Conversion to Judaism in the Early Modern Poland

This article discusses the question of neophytes’ return to Judaism, especially the case of Jan Filipowicz, who was condemned to death for this crime in 1728 in Lwow. The return of Jewish converts to their religion of origin was a relatively frequent occurrence in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but those charged with this crime, especially Jews from Lwow accused of persuading the neophytes to return, were not usually treated as harshly as Filipowicz. The exceptionally harsh sentence given to the rabbis responsible for the return of Filipowicz to Judaism resulted from the judges’ belief in the existence of a ritual of dechristianization, a special blasphemy against Christianity. The relationship of the courts and the Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the problem of apostasy among converts from Judaism is addressed. The penitential practices described in the court documents are similar to those described by the inquisitor Bernard Gui in the fourteenth century and to the ritual of dechristianization described by Jan Serafinowicz, the most famous eighteenth century convert.

Jews as fences in early modern Poland and beyond: function, ideology, almost philanthropy and almost diplomacy in a complex society

Jews were prominent among buyers and sellers of stolen goods (fences) in early modern Poland. This appears to have been a result of the economic niche they occupied and because of the view of Jewish law which was opposed to dealing in stolen goods but at the same time recognized that there was a legal basis for such trade. However, also Jews in Western and Central Europe played a central role in fencing. Even though the authorities could have repressed this trade in East and West, such ‘services’ rendered by moneylenders and dealers in used goods, who sometimes dabbled in the sale of stolen goods, were tolerated. What was unique to Poland was the rapid growth of the Jewish population, which probably caused an increase of Jewish fences and great concerns of the non-Jewish society in Poland for this activity of Jews.

Edycje źródeł do dziejów prawa miejskiego w dawnej Polsce:propozycja elektronicznej metaedycji źródeł normatywnych

Extant editions of municipal criminal court records from the 16th–17th century provide ample evidence of the proceedings that relied heavily on of written law and of attorneys often invoking the authority of lawyer authors. These observations add extra weight to the postulate of preparing new, critical editions of sources for the study of municipal law in medieval and Early Modern Poland. They should encompass both the German and the Polish text of the Magdeburg Weichbild, the Sachsenspiegel, urban statutes known as wilkierze (Willkür), and the records of judgements (ortyle, Urteile) of the Higher Court of German Law at the Wawel Royal Castle. The texts of the Magdeburg Weichbild, the Sachsenspiegel should be reprinted in extenso – at best by selecting one text representative of each of the main versions (MS branches) to be identifi ed in the course of preliminary researches. To ensure that all the texts are readily available to interested scholars equipped with up-to-date research tools it is recommended that paper or e-book editions be supplemented with matching database online editions.

Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500–1800 by Wanda Wyporska

Reviewed by: Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500–1800 by Wanda Wyporska Hans Peter Broedel Keywords Jacqueline Borsje, Wanda Wyporska, Polish Magic, witchcraft, early modern witchcraft, early modern magic, Polish witchcraft wanda wyporska. Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500–1800. New York: Palgrave, 2013. Pp. xv + 245. The first thing you notice when you pick up Wanda Wyporska's recent introduction to Polish witchcraft is the arresting illustration on the cover: a witch in peasant garb stands with a huge tankard in one hand, and her other on the back of her companion, a devil, who is the spitting image of Max in Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. He has the large, clumsy clawed feet, tail, and oversized ears of Max's pajamas, but in contrast to the witch, who smiles knowingly, the devil seems fretful, as if uncertain about his life choices and the wild rumpus to come. This image is apt as well as charming, introducing one of Wyporska's principal themes: that in early modern Poland, both witches and devils were complex characters who could evoke humor and sympathy as well as hatred, fear, malice, and blasphemy. Wyporska's Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland (a revision of her 2007 Ph.D. dissertation) attempts to develop a comprehensive understanding of what witchcraft meant in early modern Poland, and of the relationships between the witch of texts, and the witch "in the flesh," as encountered in trials. To this end, after some brief but necessary historical and historiographic scene setting, Wyporska examines some two hundred and twenty-five trial records from Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) spanning roughly the period between 1500 and 1800. Although the sample is far from complete because, as Wyporska points out, many records have been destroyed or lost, as one of the few systematic surveys of Polish witchcraft, her work constitutes a major achievement. Her analysis reveals that while Polish trials share much in common with better-known European examples, they have many distinctive features. Prominent among these is the stifling influence of the petty aristocracy, the szlachta, whose dominance over the judiciary determined in large part the scope and character of the trials. Also notable is Poland's confessional diversity, for during the era of the witch trials a Catholic majority lived alongside significant Protestant, Jewish, and radical reformed communities. In keeping with Central Europe generally, Poland's period of most intense persecution came late, peaking, Wyporska estimates, in the first half of the eighteenth century, but she argues that this was not due to the venerable notion of a [End Page 113] "cultural lag" between east and west, but rather to the economic, political, and environmental crises besetting Poland at the time. Other characteristics of Polish trials are more familiar. The witches in her sample were accused of typical maleficia, such as causing physical harm, stealing milk, and abuse of the Eucharist; they were often local "wise women" whose practices became increasingly diabolized over time, as well as women with evil reputations, servants, and simply those unlucky enough to have run afoul of their local lord. Significantly, however, ninety-six percent of the accused witches in Wyporska's sample were women, which is consistent with other studies that have shown that Poland had a higher proportion of female witches than almost anywhere in Europe, and Wyporska devotes a chapter to seeking an explanation. She shows that Polish society was oppressively patriarchal, that the socioeconomic position of poor women was undoubtedly precarious, that maleficia was most often perceived in the domestic sphere, and that witchcraft and fertility were often interrelated. But of course all of this was usually true for the rest of Europe. Then, as elsewhere, Wyporska turns to the canon of British witch scholars for guidance: the opinions of Lyndal Roper, Robin Briggs, Alison Rowlands, and Christina Larner are duly canvased and all find support from the evidence of Poland's trials (60). Although the gendering of witchcraft accusations is an enormously complicated issue, this lengthy nonanswer left this reader somewhat disappointed. The rest of the book surveys the witch as she appears in various genres of textual sources, and looks for points of connection between the discourses of demonographies...

Common Wealth, Common Good: The Politics of Virtue in Early Modern Poland–Lithuania, by Benedict Wagner-Rundell

Common Wealth, Common Good: The Politics of Virtue in Early Modern Poland–Lithuania, by Benedict Wagner-Rundell

Serfs and the city: market conditions, surplus extraction institutions, and urban growth in early modern Poland

I investigate the relation between institutions, markets, and preindustrial economic growth. In particular, I analyze the impact of coercive agricultural class structures on urban population growth in Poland. My main point is that the impact of the demesne economy based on serfdom on urban growth was neither inherently negative nor positive. Instead, I suggest that the effect of serfdom depended on market conditions. I propose a new mechanism that explains how higher monetary and labor duties charged by landlords to their enserfed tenant farmers could have made urban settlements more resilient to a market crisis. I find empirical support for this idea with use of new database on urban settlements.

The Catholic Church Towards Palace Chapels in Early Modern Poland

Palace Chapels which used to take part in representational program of the most of the aristocratic residences remain still rather unknown. In Poland researches on this issue are particularly difficult because of the tragic historical events that led to the situation in which there is no original, untouched 18 th century palace as Mariusz Karpowicz has stated. The lack of information on palace chapels in Poland should be then completed in other way. The attitude of the Catholic Church in Poland towards private places of worship, which is a subject of this article, can be regarded as one of the ways to broaden our knowledge about them. The text shows some efforts of the Polish hierarchs since the 17 th till end of the 18 th centuries to limit creating and existing of the chapels which has been presented with the comparison to similar actions of the French bishops.

Aktywność jezuickich kapelanów nadwornych prowincji litewskiej. Między ustawodawstwem zakonnym a praktyką

This article analyzes the activity of Jesuit preachers, confessors and private teachers at the king’s and noblemen’s courts in the Early Modern Poland. The first part focuses on the legislation concerning court chaplains at the turn of the 16th century. The author sketches then a collective portrait of court preachers, confessors and teachers belonging to the Lithuanian Province throughout the 17th and 18th century. In doing so, he presents the reciprocal influence between the Jesuit Order and its benefactors and proofs how far general rules were applied in this specific context. In spite of the marginalization of Lithuanian Jesuits at the royal court, the number of chaplains remained high. This was possible thanks to an increasing presence in the entourage of high nobility. Within this social layer many confessors and preachers were associated with the Radziwiłł and the Sapieha families. Even though in some cases Jesuit priests were engaged at court for many years, the tasks of confessor and preacher were usually performed for a short time by relatively young members of the Society of Jesus. Pastoral activity in the entourage of aristocracy represented therefore an early stage of the religious career. Among the features that made a certain Jesuit suitable to the post of court chaplain there were allegiance to his patron, relatively low social origin as well as a good knowledge of foreign languages, in particular French. In the end some aspects of the life of Jesuit court priests are sketched, such as the tasks unrelated to pastoral activity performed on behalf of their protectors and the emotional side of their relationship with them.

Animating Christ in Late Medieval and Early Modern Poland

ABSTRACT This article will continue the line of inquiry suggested by the previous contribution, but focus on animated sculptures of Christ created on the former territory of the medieval Kingdom of Poland, as well as in Silesia and Pomerania, and in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Articulated sculptures were a common sight in east-central Europe during the Middle Ages: they held an important place in liturgical and paraliturgical ceremonies, and were used during various theatrical religious activities connected to the main feasts of the liturgical year. Their elaborate construction enabled movements of specific body parts of the depicted person, and they had a powerful impact on the participants of these events. The tradition of using such sculptures in Poland is not commonly known, yet evidence for their use is vast. This article discusses a broad spectrum of recently discovered animated sculptures of Christ within the context of various texts and archival references concerning liturgical ceremonies that featured such articulated objects. I will finally argue that the tradition of engaging with medieval animated sculptures in Poland lasted long after the decrees of the Council of Trent were passed, and I will trace their survival and use well into the nineteenth century.

A Savage Magnificence: Ottomanizing Fashion and the Politics of Display in Early Modern East-Central Europe

This article examines the impact of Ottoman fashions on the clothing worn by men in early modern Poland and Hungary, and argues that fashion was an optimal tool for advertising political allegiance. Ottoman garments were coveted by the nobilities in East-Central Europe, and often displayed in portraiture, because they were imbued with associations of anti-absolutism and autonomy, even if the Ottomans themselves were reviled as invasive infidels. However, the legibility of the political statement these fashions made was limited to their local contexts—when viewed by foreigners they were perceived as exotic and Otherly. Various factors enabled the popularization and subsequent politicization of Ottomanizing styles, including the Polish and Hungarian nobilities’ self-fashioning as Eastern, and the widespread availability of Ottoman and Iranian commodities through import, as war booty, and through local imitation. This essay hopes to expand our understanding of the range of early modern responses to the Ottoman East, while challenging the notion of Europe as a uniform entity to which it was opposed.