Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages: A Cultural History 9780755697212, 9780857711182

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Essays in Honour of Paul W. Knoll

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Contributors

János M. BAK is Professor Emeritus of the Department Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest (Hungary) and of History, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada). Jacek BANASZKIEWICZ is Professor of History, University of Warsaw and Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin (Poland). Nora BEREND is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Cambridge and Fellow of St Catharine’s College (UK). Florin CURTA is Associate Professor of History, University of Florida (USA). Piotr GÓRECKI is Professor of History, University of California, Riverside (USA). Richard C. HOFFMANN is Professor of History, York University (Canada). Tomasz JUREK is Professor of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań (Poland). Jerzy KŁOCZOWSKI is Professor of History, Catholic University of Lublin and Director and Professor, Institute of East-Central Europe, Lublin (Poland). Bariša KREKIĆ is Professor of History, Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles (USA). Grzegorz MYŚLIWSKI is Assistant Professor (adjunkt) of History, University of Warsaw (Poland). Krzysztof OŻÓG is Professor of History, Jagiellonian University, Kraków (Poland).

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Contributors

Henryk SAMSONOWICZ is Professor of History, University of Warsaw (Poland). Stanisław SZCZUR was formerly Professor of History, Jagiellonian University, Kraków (Poland). Nancy VAN DEUSEN is Professor of Musicology and Louis and Mildred Benezet Chair in the Humanities, Claremont Graduate University (USA). Thomas WÜNSCH is Professor of Eastern European History, University of Passau (Germany).

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Acknowledgments

For the two editors, work on this book has been a marvellous professional experience and a privilege. For this, we are immensely grateful to the editors at I.B.Tauris, Lester Crook, Elizabeth Munns and her successor Rasna Dhillon; to Patrick Geary and Richard Unger, who read the entire text and commented upon it extensively; to Peter Barnes, who professionally copyedited and proofread the text and to Richard Willis of Swales & Willis who managed the production of the book. Above all, perhaps, we owe thanks to the authors of the individual articles: for their work, their cheerful collaboration, and their patience. We also thank the Senate of the University of California, Riverside, and The Kościuszko Foundation, Inc., An American Center for Polish Culture, for generous subsidies in the production of this book. Piotr Górecki Nancy van Deusen

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A road well travelled Culture, politics and learning in the work of Paul W. Knoll, 1966–2006 Piotr Górecki

The setting Beginnings are, perhaps in the nature of things, difficult to anchor. This is especially true in the case of a book such as this one, which performs two closely interrelated roles: celebrating the work produced by a single scholar, Paul W. Knoll, over (nearly) the past half-century; and engaging with our understanding of that region of medieval Europe (and with it, inevitably, the Continent in its entirety) which Paul Knoll has greatly affected through his work. These two subjects, especially in conjunction, are all the more difficult because the decades spanning the outset of the work in the early- to mid-1960s and today have been a period of transition – in the scholarly, cultural and political world where Paul Knoll has been an actor – which can only be described as seismic. Therefore, in addition to our concern with the beginnings and the subsequent history of one distinguished academic oeuvre, and of one specialised field within medieval history largely created by that oeuvre, we need to locate both subjects in a dramatically shifting, even bigger context. One major area of transition has been the historiography. The place of Poland, and more generally of what is today known as East Central Europe, within our understanding of medieval and early modern Europe in its entirety, is vastly different today than it was when Paul Knoll embarked upon his scholarly career. Back then – with important but highly unusual exceptions, to be addressed shortly – this macro-region barely existed in the historical literature conceived and written in English. This void continued into, and arguably past, the 1970s – a fact reflected by the virtual invisibility of Bohemia or Czechoslovakia in the otherwise splendid commemorative note about Paul’s mentor at the University of Colorado, Samuel Harrison Thomson, published in 1976 by Gray Boyce, Ruth Dean, Richard Hunt and Bryce Lyon.1 An even more dramatic transition, over these same decades, is the political history of the region itself – a history for which the year 1989 is perhaps

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the culminating watershed, and today the most important benchmark, but which had been punctuated by a whole sequence of earlier, equally dramatic watersheds: 1953, 1956, 1968, 1970, 1978, 1980 and 1981. In this sequence, 1968 was especially important, and there is, especially in retrospect, some poignancy in the fact that an early article by Paul Knoll, based upon a lecture delivered during the very first week of that year, discerned precisely this transition during its early – though, as it soon turned out, entirely abortive – phase, an article about current politics discussing early symptoms of the long-term weakening of the Soviet bloc since the death of Joseph Stalin.2 A third transition during those decades affected the community of medievalists and early modernists in North America. Paul’s entrance into the profession coincided with, and was a part of, the early impact upon the profession of the generation of historians on the western side of the Atlantic who reached maturity two or three decades after the Second World War – historians who, in turn, had been trained by an earlier generation, rooted in the interwar period, and in some respects harking back to the great founders of the medievalist enterprise in the United States, Henry Charles Lea and especially Charles Homer Haskins. The substance behind these generalisations, over the long decades preceding the 1960s, would require a full treatment of American and Canadian medieval and early modern historiography in its formative period – a subject entirely beyond the scope of an introductory chapter – so let me limit my remarks about the scholarly world into which Paul Knoll entered over forty years ago to three observations. First, there is the matter of scale. In terms of sheer numbers of its active participants, the scholarly universe of North American medievalists and early modernists was much smaller in the first half of the twentieth century than it is in the opening years of the twenty-first. Moreover, this universe was housed, to a higher degree than has been the case since, in a relatively small number of specific academic locations – New Haven, Princeton, Toronto, among a few other places – which served as centres of scholarship and training for an expanding population of scholars, and, at least implicitly, as institutional models for other academic localities. Perhaps for this reason, and because the resulting expansion is, from today’s perspective, still relatively recent, North American medievalists appear to be sharply aware of a sense of intellectual lineage – a fact reflected by intermittent historiographical treatments of the profession and its specific strands, in terms of descent from particular scholars, or in terms of personal presence at particular universities.3 Although this kind of intellectual genealogy has its limitations (above all, the risk of de-individualising particular colleagues and their contributions)4 it is one point of departure for anchoring the beginnings of individual scholarly pathways in a dynamic context. For

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A road well travelled 3 example, it is surely significant that Paul Knoll’s mentor at Colorado, Samuel Harrison Thomson, began his own intellectual formation many decades earlier at Princeton, and that he later developed a deep interest in the intersection of politics, learning and culture, as exemplified by late-medieval Prague, its great university and the court of Charles IV.5 Second, a look back to the mid-twentieth century reveals, at that historiographical moment, what I would, for lack of a better phrase, call a strong degree of intellectual indeterminacy. That is to say, even though today, in retrospect, it is possible for us to identify (though not necessarily to agree upon) several distinctive conceptual and methodological elements of the North American academic profile – and to contrast that profile, with, say, its current French or German or British or Polish or Japanese counterparts – four decades ago the emergence of that, or any other, constellation of elements must have been utterly unforeseeable. Over a significant stretch of the twentieth century, it was probably entirely unclear just what kind of ‘medievalist world’ ‘we’, that is to say the historians who work here, would become. The one possible exception is a strong, almost self-evident sense that, whatever else it entailed, medieval history occurred in, or very near to, historical France and England. Apart from that shared, intuitive sense, the discipline was then ‘open’ – exactly in the sense applied by its distinguished practitioner Archibald Lewis to Europe’s medieval ‘frontier’ before its ‘closure’ in the fourteenth century.6 Third, unforeseeable though it may have been, that distinctive conceptual profile did indeed emerge. Aware here of the risk of grave oversimplification, let me suggest three traits that seem distinctive to this particular population of medievalists and early modernists. One is a strong interest in conceptualisation: the meaning, and periodic reassessment, of those central concepts and categories with which we understand the medieval past, sometimes expressed in the form of active debate. One classic example is Elizabeth E.R. Brown’s interrogation of the concept of feudalism, and its enormous impact on other scholars ever since its appearance in 1974.7 Another is the major debate about the ‘feudal revolution’, spanning the years 1994–7, in which the conceptual disparities were perhaps most sharply posed by the two American participants, Thomas N. Bisson and Stephen D. White.8 North American medievalists have been crucial participants in the ongoing quest for analytical categories related to the nature of power and its transformation in the post-Carolingian period, especially as focused on ‘the year 1000’.9 There are so many other examples that it is fair to say that, on the western side of the Atlantic, medieval history – perhaps history in general – is, in the first order, a quest for adequate concepts. Erudition supports that quest, but, in contrast to some other academic cultures, does not drive it, and is therefore in that sense secondary.

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A closely related trait is a shared recognition that concepts are malleable and subject to negotiation, among historians today and during the actual past to which they pertain; and that the relationship between concepts and those past realities is always complicated, difficult to specify and above all varied, throughout medieval Europe itself, and in its different historiographies. This general sense of open-ended variety relates quite closely to a third distinctive trait of the North American world of medievalists today, namely a strong, embracing openness to comparison and to interdisciplinarity. One example of this over the past few decades is a recurrent, stated desire in our profession to move the geopolitical focus beyond France and England. Today, that desire is reflected in a whole legacy of superb studies of Europe’s south, especially the Iberian Peninsula, and, increasingly, Italy; and of Europe’s east (or, at least east in relation to France), meaning, above all, Germany. That legacy stems from pioneering work, undertaken some decades ago, by distinguished individual colleagues – above all, Robert I. Burns in respect of Spain, and slightly later Patrick J. Geary, John B. Freed and John W. Bernhard in that of Germany.10 It has been accelerated by the responsiveness among North American academics to contemporary political transition in Europe itself, so that the dramatic expansion of Iberian and German studies, in the midst of which we now find ourselves, surely reflects the impact of the rapid democratisation of Spain and Portugal after 1975, and of Germany’s reunification nineteen years later.11 And yet – to return to my earlier point – when Paul Knoll was embarking upon his work nearly half a century ago, the emergence of these, and other, traits distinctive of our academic culture was utterly unforeseeable, let alone inevitable. As of that time, he, as a protagonist, well exemplifies the openness – the intellectual freedom – of the profession. At the same time, he exemplifies one specific field of specialisation within that profession, namely the history of what was then called Eastern Europe. The small handful of Paul’s older colleagues in this field who were then active in North America had their origins in two very different places. Some – Oskar Halecki and Francis Dvornik – were emigrés, who, soon after the Second World War, resettled in the United States, where they continued (and completed) distinguished careers begun much earlier in their home countries. Others had no genealogical connection to East Central Europe, and engaged with the region more or less fortuitously, driven forward by their own individual intellectual development, and (in my view, very pronouncedly indeed) by an intense, dare I say passionate, emotional involvement with this region or some part of it – an involvement which prefigures the emotional dynamic at work among North American academics today, in its resonances with that other year of collective liberation, 1918.12

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A road well travelled 5

Paul Knoll’s work: the continuities In the academic world surrounding him nearly half a century ago, Paul Knoll promptly established his own, distinctive intellectual profile – a profile which, despite several considerable transitions in his oeuvre, has in some respects remained remarkably constant. Let me begin with those major continuities. First, although right from its outset Paul’s work reflects a deep awareness of the distinctness of Poland and East Central Europe in the medieval and early modern world, his approach to that distinctness has always been robustly unproblematic. Utterly absent from his prose is any assertion, implicit or explicit, to the effect that his chosen area of study is important; or that it has been unfairly excluded from the medievalists’ research and teaching canon, and that his own work is therefore, in some moral and substantive sense, remedial; or similar suggestions of a historiographical grievance or complaint. On the contrary: everything Paul Knoll has written, right from 1966 until today, projects a quiet confidence that the story he is telling – a story about one part of the medieval and early modern world – is, in an utterly transparent way, sufficiently interesting, instructive and framed by his own superb knowledge of that world that such attributes need not be asserted, or ‘proven’ to the reader. Thus, we do not have here a historian on a mission; we have a historian with an abiding research passion. Issues of peripherality, of the importance (or otherwise) of the region, and so forth, do in fact arise in Paul’s work, but they appear relatively late, quite seldom, and for specific reasons: either when the sources produced in the actual historical past raise these subjects,13 or when such issues are the principal subject for the type of publication in question, typically a collection of essays.14 Second, Paul has consistently focused principally on what might be called the upswings, or the periods of robustness and consolidation, in medieval and early modern Polish history. His work is clustered around two such periods: the reunification of the kingdom under the last two Piasts, with special attention to Casimir the Great; and the earlier Jagiellon period, between the marrige of Hedwig of Anjou with Jogaila (or, to the Poles, Władysław Jagiełło) and the late fifteenth century. To be sure, Paul has moved chronologically in time, either backward or forward – on rare occasion all the way up to the seventeenth century, more often to various moments between the tenth and the thirteenth centuries. However, his contributions on the later end of this spectrum are rare and seem to have been elicited by the subject, or the genre, of the publications in which they appear.15 The early material, while much more ample, has, until relatively recently in his oeuvre, taken the form of backward glances which work to contextualise the later, fuller and more important story.16 Moreover, especially during the first half of Paul Knoll’s

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professional activity, some of those references to the long thirteenth century describe this as a period of decline, in pessimistic language.17 But let me immediately add that, as early as 1972, again in 1976 and continuously thereafter, rhetorical formulations of this kind are tempered by descriptions of the long thirteenth century as a time of creative, formative dynamism;18 and that in Paul’s contributions, beginning with the later 1980s, the entire period of Polish history culminating in the year 1300 has emerged as a fully distinct subject, important on its own terms rather than as a backdrop to the reign of the last two Piasts.19 Third, although in every piece of his writing his principal subject is crystalclear, it is difficult to compartmentalise his work in thematic terms. This is because that work is consistently, and purposefully, multilayered and multidimensional. That complexity is previewed, so to speak, right at the outset in 1966, when a straightforward political story of King Władysław the Short’s efforts to reunify the Polish Kingdom works to frame – although, at this early point, relatively briefly – several other themes or subjects: urban history, regional dynastic issues, the presence of the Teutonic Order, the diplomatic contacts between the king and the Avignon papacy.20 As is the case throughout his entire subsequent work, we as readers can analytically separate those and similar constituent subjects; but it is a marked characteristic of Paul’s prose always to develop a series of interrelated subjects in conjunction with, indeed in terms of, one another. Moreover, over his output in its entirety, that range of interrelated subjects has also remained, at least in its broad contours, strongly continuous. Paul Knoll is, first of all, a student of politics and culture – with a strong emphasis on the conjunction expressed by this phrase. Second, he specifies each of these two subjects with considerable complexity. On one level, his approach to politics is relatively straightforward: politics consists in an expansion of power by a dynasty over people and territory. Among many other instances, this is exemplified by his 1967 treatment of the stabilisation of Poland’s western boundary under Casimir the Great,21 by his many references to the far more turbulent circumstances on its northern and eastern frontiers,22 and by his analysis, in a book published in 1972, of domestic institutions in the reemerging Polish kingdom.23 However, in his hands politics is immensely enriched – indeed, it is defined – by its close association with culture. Culture, in its turn, consists of patterns of activity situated in several kinds of (figurative and literal) space: the court, the school and the city. With great consistency, the core subject of Paul Knoll’s oeuvre has been the interplay between the following subjects: first, the king, considered as an active agent; second, the court – of the king, the bishop or archbishop, and, at least implicitly, of others who mattered; third, learning – that it to say, the settings where advanced knowledge was

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A road well travelled 7 disseminated, the ways in which that knowledge was used, and the most tangible expression of that knowledge, namely books; and fourth, the urban scene – in particular, that part of the civic space which bridged the court, the cathedral and the city. All four subjects are focused specifically on Kraków; they, and the interplay between them, constitute a major case study of the city. Kraków is the place where the courts of the last two Piasts, Queen Hedwig, the early Jagiellons and the bishop are – from the historian’s perspective – most frequently or conveniently found. Above all, Kraków is the physical location of learning, centred in its university, within and around which the key intellectual and political resources of the reunited kingdom were most effectively focused, experienced and used. The choice of these particular locations for pinning down the intersection of politics and culture helps explain the importance of one recurrent, very important, expository device in Paul Knoll’s work: the strongly etched individual vignette, or, to put this differently, a well-crafted biogram. As he presents it, the political world, centred on court, cathedral, city and culture, consisted, at least in the first order, less of abstract or general categories of people – officials, cathedral canons, masters and students – than of specific persons, vividly portrayed, who, in addition to their individual traits and accomplishments, serve, in Paul’s big story, as the avatars of that political world. These protagonists played multiple political roles. They were learned, and they used that learning. They originated in a variety of places – in terms of status, geographical location, institutional affiliation and other criteria. Thus, Paul’s work can, with great profit, be read as a collective biography of people who mattered. The resulting population – the living stuff of Paul Knoll’s world – is enormous; a small subset might include (in a roughly chronological order of their lives) Bishop Gerward of Włocławek,24 Queen Hedwig,25 Janko of Czarnków,26 Cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki,27 Nicholas Copernicus28 and, perhaps above all, the great chronicler John Długosz.29 To be sure, Paul does provide a context of collectivity, scale and sometimes outright numbers – of scholars, for example, or of books30 – but the passion seems to be the pursuit of the learned, active individual. Yet, those protagonists are always contextualised, in terms of the settings in which they acted and the impact of their activities. It is these broader contextualisations that lead us to a more abstract and generalised understanding of the groups and populations comprising this world of politics and culture. A quite different feature of Paul Knoll’s work has been its ‘public’ aspect. Continuously, and throughout his career, he has been quite simply the expert of first contact in the anglophone world in all areas of the assessment, selection and, very importantly, publicity of ongoing work concerning medieval and early modern Poland and East Central Europe: a one-person, encyclopedic repository of superb knowledge, good judgment and constructively

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expressed rigour. He has also been, in North America, a senior colleague and mentor, a kind of advisor-at-large for those of us who began our study of this region in that free and open intellectual space which he has done so much to create. He has played a parallel role in Europe. He is at the centre of a large international network of contacts; has exercised a significant impact on the field of medieval and early modern history as it is pursued in Poland and in Germany; and has helped both to identify and reinforce excellent work produced there by (at this point) several generations of scholars – and to bring that work to bear on scholarship conceived and executed in English. All these roles are amply reflected by the chapters of this book. This trans-Atlantic role also takes the form of several specialised strands of written work, and venues for international contact. Paul has been an extraordinarily prolific and versatile book reviewer. His reviews range in format from the short reports for Choice, through conventionally-sized reviews, all the way to review essays – published in a variety of journals. Paul’s reviews encompass, but also purposefully extend beyond, his principal areas of interest noted thus far. Here are just a few examples. One major review essay concerns precisely his favourite subject – the conjunction of court, culture and learning.31 Another is devoted specifically to the long thirteenth century and the question of ‘feudalism’. In it – in addition to introducing to a non-Polish audience the work published as of the 1970s by several major Polish medievalists32 (and, through the footnotes, to the ample literature with which those medievalists had engaged) – Paul moves on to a close and detailed treatment of feudalism as a construct, especially in the Polish and East Central European context – a subject contested then as now, and in this review framed with reference to Elizabeth Brown’s article published four years earlier.33 Two substantial reviews focus on the battle of Grunwald (or Tannenberg) in 1410 – a major event marking one upswing of Polish history (and related to one of those important actors in Paul’s story, John Długosz), but not otherwise a recurrent subject in Paul’s writings.34 Shorter, conventionally-sized book reviews, well over a hundred of them in total, conform to this pattern. This use of the book review as a tool for surveying the full extent of learning, in and about medieval and early Poland and East Central Europe – and, in the process, for offering substantive, independent scholarly contributions to the literature and the concepts reviewed – reflect a deliberate, sustained engagement with the scholarship pertaining to Poland and the region at large. Paul Knoll’s role here is truly ambassadorial: an active, ongoing mediation between two vastly different academic cultures, quite parallel, and complementary, to the activities pursued over substantially the same years by those three other great ‘ambassadors’ of learning, František Graus, Aleksander Gieysztor and Jerzy Kłoczowski.35

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A road well travelled 9 The same role is reflected in a different genre in 1982, with Paul Knoll’s foreword to the English version of the book by Tadeusz Manteuffel on the earliest period of Poland’s history, originally published in Polish in 1976, and translated by Andrew Gorski.36 That foreword is, in the first order, yet another biographic vignette of a scholar – this time Manteuffel himself – extending chronologically back into the interwar, wartime and early postwar period, and positioning its subject as a pivotal figure in the history of that population of medievalists, in Poland, a part of whose work Paul had reviewed a few years previously.37 Yet, fully in character, there is more to the foreword. Manteuffel’s preoccupation with Poland’s earliest political system elicits from Paul another excellent discussion of the meanings of feudalism, in the different medieval historiographies, as of the year 1972;38 while Paul’s preoccupation with Manteuffel elicits a moving personal reminiscence of their meeting in Warsaw in 1966, as the first – one might say, the originating – event in Paul’s scholarly career, interlaced, at this point of the narrative, with a remembrance of Tadeusz Manteuffel’s own earlier relationship with Samuel Harrison Thomson.39 Paul’s ambassadorial profile is further expressed by his long association with two institutions: in New York, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America – as a member of its board of directors, and as a prolific contributor to its prestigious journal, the Polish Review – thereby, incidentally, propelling the Review into preeminence as a forum for scholarship focused on early East-Central European (as well as specifically Polish) history; and later in Budapest, with the Central European University, especially its Department of Medieval Studies, ever since the early plans for its activation in the early 1990s – quite simply in all aspects of the University’s and the Department’s work.40 One crucial part of this association has been Paul’s active involvement in the publication of the Central European Texts, the major editing and translating series produced by CEU Press. He has translated, for publication in that series, the autobiography of Charles IV of Bohemia, which appeared in 2001, and in collaboration with Frank Schaer and Wojciech Polak has translated, written the introduction for and partly revised the currently definitive edition of Gallus the Anonymous’ (or the Polish Anonymous’) gesta of the Piast dukes, published in 2003.41

Paul Knoll’s work: the transitions Within this framework of continuous subjects, methods and roles, Paul Knoll’s intellectual path has undergone several important transitions. One concerns the exact historical period at the centre of his interest. Although, as we have seen, at each stage of his career he has ranged across medieval and early modern history in its entirety, his overall focus has shifted from the first

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to the second big upswing of Polish medieval and early modern history: that is to say, from the fourteenth century and the last two Piasts to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and the Jagiellon period, with more emphasis on its beginnings – the start, as he put it in 1966 and later, of the ‘golden age’ in Poland-Lithuania.42 Coinciding with this shift in chronological focus is a similar shift in subject matter. The works concerned with the earlier upswing focus principally on politics and state-building. Their later counterparts move principally into the world of thought. This double shift occurred during the first decade of Paul’s work. The shift is marked, or reflected, by two groups of articles and longer monographs published in the course of that decade. Paul’s interest in the last two Piasts, and (principally) political history, appears in his earliest three articles – one about Władysław the Short, published in 1966, two others about Casimir the Great, which appeared in 1967 and 1968 – and in his book of 1972, a major synthesis of the reunification of the kingdom.43 The move to the Jagiellon period, and (principally) the history of thought, first emerges in 1974, with an article about the historical commonplace describing Poland as ‘the bulwark of Christendom’ (antemurale christianitatis), focused upon King Władysław Warneńczyk and the disastrous Varna crusade of 1444; and recurs in two articles, both published in 1975, where the University of Kraków in the fifteenth century is presented as an intellectual context for the young Nicholas Copernicus.44 This slightly later group of articles also differs from the former in terms of one expository technique: retrospection. Even though Paul begins these articles in the time of Władysław Warneńczyk, or Nicholas Copernicus, he promptly moves back into a substantially earlier history of the phenomena of which the two men serve as a culmination. Copernicus works to introduce the real subject of both articles, namely the intellectual climate at the university before and at the time when he enrolled as a student; while the dramatic failure at Varna in 1444 is presented as a late and defining moment in the much earlier history of an idea expressing a militant peripherality, stretching all the way back to the eleventh century and the image of King Bolesław the Brave striking the Golden Gate of Kiev.45 Exactly this kind of retrospection – ranging far back into Poland’s history, but anchored, at least as a point of departure, in a substantially later period – is developed most fully in 1976, in the monographic treatment of ‘learning’46 – moving, at the end, toward and somewhat beyond the end of the Piast period, but quite deliberately previewing that subject across the three centuries that preceded the last two Piasts. Among the output produced in that first decade, one article works as a bridge – between the slightly earlier work, concerning principally politics, and the later pieces emphasising ideas and learning; and, between that first decade of Paul Knoll’s work in its entirety, and much of its aftermath, right into

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A road well travelled 11 the present. That article is the treatment, published in 1968, of King Casimir the Great’s initial foundation of the University of Kraków between 1364 and his death in 1370.47 As its point of departure, the article takes the administrative, financial, military, economic and diplomatic activities of Władysław the Short, and especially of Casimir the Great – subjects which, though from different perspectives, had been developed in 1966 and 1967.48 At the outset of the article, Casimir’s plan to establish a university is understood as an aspect of his consolidation of the kingdom. However, the focus promptly shifts onto another context – the impact of learning on Poland in the years preceding the foundation49 – and then, with this as background, moves on to the story of the university’s establishment and its early existence between 1364 and 1370.50 That latter subject – learning and its significance for the university – emerges as the core of the article, and focuses tightly on the local world consisting of Kraków, the king’s court and the city’s ecclesiastical institutions. We have, in these pages, exactly that juxtaposition between the very big cultural and political issues and the very specific and localised sense of place and time that marks Paul Knoll’s approach to the intersection of politics and culture. That juxtaposition is here presented in terms of several discrete subjects, each developed in some detail. One of these subjects is, quite simply, Kraków. The problem of Casimir the Great’s initial placement of the university – as initially planned, and as actually implemented – opens up, thanks to Paul’s careful examination of the possibilities and the results, the subject of urban geography. Thus, we are, so to speak, offered a quick tour of the Wawel Hill (and so the castle and the cathedral), the king’s new town, Kazimierz, and those other streets, houses or town quarters among which the early foundation was interspersed; and, at some distance from the city, the royal salt mine at Wieliczka, interesting both as a physical location and as a source of revenues for the new school.51 Another subject of Paul’s article is the politics of initiating the university. This is developed for the first time in this article, largely in terms of individual vignettes of the key protagonists: the king himself, two bishops of Kraków, and the emissaries sent by the king and by the bishops to Avignon in order to elicit papal approval for the foundation.52 Then, there is learning itself, entailing both the curriculum – the disciplines pursued at the university – and the activity of several types of persons directly involved in that learning. The curriculum is sketched out with particular attention to books: the learned manuscripts which were brought into, used and produced, at the new school.53 The persons active in the learning include the scholars (presented above all as the authors, or at least the transmitters, of those learned manuscripts), bishops and other ecclesiastics, and other actors, who either pursued learning themselves, or set the institutional framework for its pursuit by others.54 Here too the protagonists are to a large degree presented as individual

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vignettes – vignettes in which, however, an important, perhaps defining, biographical event was interaction with books, and the consumption, enhancement and use of the knowledge embodied in them. Between that opening decade – the years 1966–76 – and the present, Paul Knoll’s work has ranged along several lines. On occasion, he has shifted his attention to subjects which are either altogether new, or framed in new ways. Thus, the second article he published in 1976 concerns specifically the Avignon papacy, and its role in the foundation of fourteenth-century universities – all of them, throughout Europe, with Europe’s regionalisation (especially between the ‘West’ and ‘East’, or ‘East-Centre’) secondary.55 Here we have a study that is Europe-wide, centred at Avignon, and from that perspective providing a broad context for Prague, Kraków, Vienna and Pécs – to be sure – but also for Bologna, Florence, Padua, Toulouse, Huesca and other cities and universities.56 Some years later, in 1991, the essay about Prussian humanism promptly turns into a thorough treatment of humanism, considered as a general subject – again, across Europe in its entirety, and across the fifteenth, sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.57 Humanism, considered as a similarly autonomous subject, is also pursued two years later, but now, as in most of Paul’s work, it is strongly situated in a time, a place and a setting: fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Poland, at the University of Kraków.58 One article produced during the long period separating 1976 from the present day returns, in its entirety, to the reign of Casimir the Great, and to two aspects of Paul Knoll’s early political history: dynastic succession and territorial claims. This is the 1986 study of the relationship between Casimir and his Hungarian contemporary, Louis the Great.59 In addition, the focus on these two protagonists is an example of Paul Knoll’s continuous use of a well-crafted individual vignette, or portrait, as one of his principal expository techniques. Especially interesting, fully-elaborated examples of that latter approach are his treatments of the great chronicler John Długosz in 1982, and of Queen Hedwig eleven years later.60 And here we come to another recurrent pattern in Paul’s work. As with Długosz and Hedwig, the vast majority of the individuals populating the oeuvre Paul produced after 1976 lived and acted during the fifteenth century, or at the earliest at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Thus, they entirely coincide with, and further develop, that second, Jagiellon upswing of Polish history, especially in its early phase. Apart from Długosz, Hedwig, Copernicus and the other great figures,61 individual biographies of scholars, drawn with great attention to detail, resurface throughout Paul Knoll’s writings right up to the present. This biographical emphasis is seamlessly intertwined with an equally individualised treatment of the subjects in which these individuals were learned; and with the detailed treatment of the written documentation through which

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A road well travelled 13 they experienced, and expressed, that learning – again, above all books. The resulting narrative comprises a collective bio-bibliography of advanced knowledge in fifteenth-century Poland. For example, the two articles contextualising the young Copernicus published in 1975 consist, each in substantial part, of intellectual biograms of specific masters teaching and producing at the fifteenth-century university62 – biograms interlaced with references to external influence (Aristotelian thought, for example) and to the particular disciplines and treatises, as available to – and further elaborated by – the core population of scholars.63 Occasionally, we have a chronologically earlier contextualisation, consisting of glances back at the thirteenth century – at one point, Vitelo makes an appearance64 – but, the overwhelming focus is on Kraków and the fifteenth century. The overall result is a small galaxy of recurrent scholars who, in conjunction with and in a presumed broader context, made up the University of Kraków as a social group: Bartholomew of Jasło,65 Martin Król of Żurawica,66 Martin Bylica,67 Nicholas Stobner,68 Sędziwój of Czechło,69 John Schelling of Głogów,70 Benedict Hesse,71 Wojciech of Brudzewo,72 Paul Vladimiri,73 Stanisław of Skalbmierz,74 John Elgot,75 Nicholas Lasocki,76 Gregory of Sanok,77 John Ostroróg78 and James of Paradyż,79 among others. This is coextensive with a full, clearly-drawn repertoire of academic fields and specialisations specific to that group: the liberal arts, especially rhetoric,80 theology,81 mathematics and astronomy,82 the natural sciences,83 Aristotelian philosophy and its alternatives,84 canon and Roman law,85 and international law and political theory.86 Some other directions of Paul Knoll’s work since 1976 are varied, and thus not easy to compartmentalise in terms of subject or form. Those directions continue, and further elaborate, a number of rather different, specific subjects (and professional roles) noted above. The 1993 article on ethnic, or ‘national’, self-awareness in late medieval and early modern Poland is a contribution to the history of ideas, centred on identity and politics, and in that sense resonates with Paul’s earliest piece concerning thought – the 1974 study of the idea of Poland as a ‘bulwark of Christendom’ – and with his 1989 discussion of ideas about Poland’s unity and division in the context of Polish-German interaction.87 The article about Kraków published in 1987 continues the strand of highly concrete, material, spatially-conceived urban history which had earlier emerged in the context of Paul’s quest for the material placement of the university within the city.88 The publication of two major encyclopedia articles – in 1987 on medieval Poland, and in 1996 on the Polish Reformation – and, in 2002, of a major introduction to Polish late medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque art,89 continue Paul’s ‘public’ role, that is to say, his active engagement in representing Poland’s history along lines that include, yet also transcend, his own research agenda.90

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However, as had also been the case at an earlier phase of his work, these strands, despite their continuities, frame one overall thematic transition, toward one new (though characteristically multifaceted and complex) major subject. Not surprisingly, that subject is intimately related to – indeed, it directly involves – everything that has been noted so far: Kraków; its university; its royal and the episcopal courts; the king’s and the city’s international contacts, especially with the papacy; royal state-building; and more. However, this subject is located, literally and figuratively, not in Kraków itself, but in the principal centres of papal and ecclesiastical power in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Europe: Avignon, Pavia, Constance and Basel. The subject is the interaction between the world of politics and learning situated in Kraków – now, too, presented in all its complexity, always visible and well-developed – and the political, diplomatic and intellectual activity taking place at those faraway localities. The result is a remarkable story of the presence and the impact of (as Paul affectionately describes it) the ‘Cracovian’ political and intellectual world in the highest echelons of the institutional Church, at two moments of the Church’s own transition: the Avignon papacy, and the aftermath of the Great Schism. In contrast to the 1968 article on King Casimir and the university,91 no one article, or monograph, published in or shortly after the late 1970s works as a marker of transition to this big new subject. Moreover, quite typically, the constituent elements of this subject had been present in Paul Knoll’s oeuvre right from its beginnings.92 Nevertheless, the focus, first on Avignon then, with increasing emphasis, on Pavia, Constance and Basel, is especially visible in a sequence of three articles: the 1978 all-European survey of the Avignon papacy and university foundations; the 1984 article on the University of Kraków and conciliar thought; and, published in 2004, the culminating section in Paul’s article on literary production, especially of conciliarist texts, also at the University of Kraków.93 Between them, these three articles trace a wide thematic arc, bridging Paul Knoll’s principal concerns at different stages of his professional output. First, they echo – reiterate, as it were – the much earlier transition from the late Piast to the Jagiellon period. Second, they underscore the pragmatic, political considerations which the Poles brought with them, out of the Kraków-based world of power and learning, to Avignon, Pavia, Constance and Basel, on behalf of their king, their Church and their university. Implicitly in 1978, and explicitly six years later, Paul notes the continued importance of one such pragmatic consideration, namely Poland’s conflict with the Teutonic Order.94 Thus the first part of his article on the University of Kraków and conciliar thought, published in 1984, completes the story (begun right at the beginning, in 1966) of Kraków’s response to that challenge – but now, in the later phase, at the Council of Constance, and with the intellectual and political

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A road well travelled 15 resources represented by the university’s skill in canon law and theology – once again exemplified by several finely-etched individual vignettes, especially of Paul Vladimiri.95 The second part of the same article presents the pragmatic use of learning from a related but different angle. The subject is the imprint made by the Polish participants in the Council of Constance, and especially in the Council of Basel, on conciliar theory, and on its practical implementation during the long decades between the end of the Great Schism and the ultimate failure of conciliarism after the mid-fifteenth century.96 This subject too presupposes, and incorporates, the existence of a vigorous, learned culture, again centred at, and emanating from, the University of Kraków. It too is told, as a story, by means of a sequence of portraits of especially interesting learned individuals – above all, perhaps, James of Paradyż.97 Third, therefore, the second part of the 1984 article returns to the subject of Kraków and its university, but now – in the mid-fifteenth century – as a mature, intellectually and institutionally autonomous learned community, engaged in intellectual and political communications and exchanges with similar communities in Vienna, Erfurt, Leipzig, Cologne and Paris.98 Thus we gain access, from yet another perspective, to a greater academic, political, and cultural world – a world of which Kraków, in Paul Knoll’s hands, had been an example ever since 1966. These thematic connections are reiterated by the very thorough treatment of the Kraków conciliarists’ work, which comprises the concluding section of the 2004 article on the literary output produced at the university.99 This recurrent web of subjects points us to the present and the future. Conciliarism – viewed from the perspective of the thick, biographically and conceptually multilayered setting of Kraków – is the subject of Paul Knoll’s currently ongoing work. In that sense, the contributions of 1978, 1984 and 2004 quite possibly mark out for us another major, discrete subject in the making – emerging, as other subjects have done earlier, within and out of the broad spectrum of the author’s interests.

The setting, revisited Paul Knoll’s oeuvre, in its entirety and in each of its principal subjects and phases, nicely resonates with one of his own favourite expository techniques: it is, in itself, highly individualised, that is to say very much a product of a scholar who, while fully engaged with contemporary work, has developed his own distinctive and intellectually versatile research trajectory. Yet, as was the case with, say, John Długosz, Paul Vladimiri or James of Paradyż, that trajectory is a part of (and affects) a world of scholarship – consisting, ultimately, of hundreds of other colleagues worldwide, and their output. Let me then turn back to one of the subjects with which this chapter began: the

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historiography of which Paul’s work is a part, and which it has helped shape. That historiography is really several historiographies. It is international – a fact well reflected by Paul’s prolific engagement with it, through his ‘ambassadorial’ activities. In particular, it includes work produced in East Central Europe itself; and work conceived, written and published in North America, to which I now briefly return. In retrospect, it seems especially important that Paul Knoll’s oeuvre began during the years characterised, in North America, by intellectual indeterminacy – a time when, to paraphrase H.L.A. Hart, the history of medieval Europe (and even more so of Europe’s distant ‘East’), as viewed from North America, was a subject with an open texture.100 The creation of that subject must have been a daring, perhaps intimidating, activity – a fact well conjured up by Paul’s reminiscence of his initial encounter, in the summer of 1966, with Tadeusz Manteuffel, the doyen of a very different kind of medieval historiography – one which, despite the great traumas of the early twentieth century, was then well-entrenched, long-established and (to stay with Hart’s metaphor) highly textured.101 Now, I do not mean here to create some kind of heroic myth of our own, North American, professional past. Yet, at least in my view, it is quite clear that Paul Knoll’s entrance into the profession, and into Tadeusz Manteuffel’s office in Warsaw, occurred at a time of one – as it turned out, great – medieval historiography in the making, the North American; and that, within that incipient medieval historiography, he has pursued his project with a continued sense of individuality and intellectual freedom. Of course, in these regards, he was, and is, not alone. A different book of essays could be written about any one of a number of those great North American medievalists whose careers, like Paul’s, began around the mid-twentieth century; and, of course, such books have been written.102 Such works, each intended to honour a specific colleague, are sometimes viewed as primarily celebratory. But they do not, principally, celebrate. They chronicle the texturing of our profession, much as Paul Knoll himself does when he writes about fifteenth-century Kraków: by a sustained reference to one, individual protagonist in this process. And then, there is the long North American historiographical aftermath. Among its other major watersheds, it has been marked by three moments of strong discontinuity, during which North American historians moved toward a collective discovery of an intriguing subject: ‘Eastern’, ‘East Central’ or, as Jerzy Kłoczowski put it (relatively late during this process), the ‘younger’ Europe.103 The first such moment occurred in the 1970s, with a climax in 1980–1. That decade entailed the first major upswing, in the Englishthinking world, of generalised attention to the extraordinary output of that generation of medievalists which reached maturity in the decades after the war – the same generation of which, as Paul had pointed out some years later,

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A road well travelled 17 Tadeusz Manteuffel was one of the doyens. Those were the years when the works of – among many others – Witold Kula, Aleksander Gieysztor, Brygida Kürbis, Karol Modzelewski, Dušan Třeštík, Jerzy Kłoczowski, Eric Fügedi, Maria Bogucka, Bronisław Geremek, Pál Engel, Henryk Samsonowicz and Stanisław Suchodolski began to draw the attention of historians beyond the small group specialising in Eastern or East Central Europe.105 This interest gained impetus from the dramatic events of 1980–1, thanks to which, in North America, East Central Europe, Poland included, moved from a presumptive obscurity into the realm of the presumptively good, positive and interesting. The great changes of 1989 reinforced that latter wave of interest – an interest which can properly be called moral and empathetic as well as intellectual. In addition, by the end of that decade, and then throughout the nineties, the North American culture of academic medievalists fully acquired the specific, distinctive profile which I briefly sketched out at the outset of this essay: strong emphasis on conceptualisation, in preference to erudition; contestation of basic concepts, typically through debate; a quest for new paradigms; and, in these contexts, a yearning for comparison or (which may or may not be the same thing) for models of looking at the medieval past that would presumptively include, rather than exclude, regions, peoples, social groups and religious groups throughout the continent – all of this in a spirit of a robust optimism that it can all be done. Hence, interest in the places which Paul Knoll has long studied has become, at the same time, somewhat pervasive and somewhat diffuse. The results of this broadening of our conceptual horizon are as difficult to predict today as the developments in our profession that enabled that broadening had been forty years ago. At present, regarding Europe’s ‘East’, we are not, I think, in the midst of yet another dynamic rupture or sudden upswing, but of a pattern of sustained activity. This activity has, as of now, produced a legacy, and a continuous flow, of sustained production, in English, of good work concerning East Central Europe conceived and executed entirely in North America, and in English. Moreover, on the western side of the Atlantic, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages is like Europe in the Middle Ages, in the sense that there are currently more colleagues, doing more work – all of it varied and highly individual yet, on several levels, related. When we note a similar trend in the United Kingdom, that population increases considerably. Several contributors to this book are among those anglophone colleagues. There is perhaps some symbolism in the fact that a crucial event in that aspect of our professional history can be dated back to 1989: the year of publication of Richard Hoffmann’s remarkable study of the economy and society of the duchy of Wrocław,106 and of the first of Robert Bartlett’s two books about Europe’s frontiers, the essays co-edited by Angus MacKay,107 which 104

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include Paul Knoll’s article on the Polish-German frontier.108 This burst of activity was, at that time, an aspect of a new interest in the frontier as a concept among English-language historians, on both sides of the Atlantic.109 In his scholarly contributions, Paul Knoll both antedated and anticipated those changes, and thereafter has actively participated in them. His work has been a continuing, individual story of texturing a field.

Polish matters Unlike (obviously) Paul Knoll himself, the readers of this book may not know Polish, or East Central European history. Therefore, let me briefly align some portions of Paul’s oeuvre with the actual chronology of Poland’s historical development. As we have seen, his work, especially over its first decade, had moved along a chronological course (roughly speaking from the fourteenth to the fifteenth centuries), whereas his principal contributions concerning those periods of Poland’s history which antedated or followed these two centuries were written relatively late in his career. These contributions, too, occurred at a rather specific moment in the chronology of his oeuvre. The principal treatments of the long period beginning with the first Piasts and ending with the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries appeared in 1978, 1987 and 1989.110 The most substantial work concerning the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries was published in 1996 and 2002.111 The articles in this book do not address, even implicitly, that second, later period of Poland’s history. Thus, the later sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries are outside the scope of this book, and of the present remarks. However, several articles do raise a number of issues which are specific to the earlier period of that history, and which Paul Knoll has treated in considerable detail in his work. Those issues cluster around what might be called the problem of beginnings: very large-scale beginnings, entailing the entire political, social, demographic, economic and ecological order, in terms of which Poland and (less directly) East Central Europe may be understood. Paul has addressed that problem on several levels. First, he has framed it by straightforward political history. This is most pronounced in his encyclopedia article on medieval Poland, and reiterated in the 1987 contribution on towns, and in the 1989 article on the Polish-German frontier.112 On this level, we are guided from the period preceding the earliest Piast expansion under Siemomysł, Mieszko I and Bolesław I the Brave all the way forward to the end of the thirteenth century and the various attempts to reunify the kingdom, culminating with Władysław the Short. In addition, framed by that political history is another subject, namely what might be called the basic building blocks, or elements, of that very early order over which the Piasts, especially the first Piasts, presided. Paul observes the fact

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A road well travelled 19 that right from its foundations, the Piast polity consisted of several complexes of towns – fortified centres, around which was settled a complicated and, from early on, an expanding population – and the countryside.113 This raises, for him and for us, the question of hierarchy of settlement, the differentiation between towns and villages, and the conceptual meaning of town and village in medieval societies.114 Paul also notes that, over the long early period, power over those complexes of settlement and population underwent a change – away from the absolute preeminence of a duke, and toward the rising role of an aristocracy (‘nobility’) and the clergy. The presumed early centrality of the ruler, to the exclusion of other agents of power, raises the problem of the earliest ducal power and lordship – conceptualised by Polish historians as ‘ducal law’ (ius ducale), a term which Paul himself both employs and explains, specifically in the 1989 article on the Polish-German frontier.115 Moreover, he informs us that throughout the early period the (overwhelmingly rural) subject population was confronted with confiscatory ducal power, along lines that were highly specific to Poland and East Central Europe. Hence the attention – again expressed most fully in the same 1989 article – to the importance in early Piast Poland of what is conventionally known as ‘service settlements’.116 Finally, Paul notes that in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries all those features underwent enormous, systemic transition. With this brief mapping of Poland’s early history and of some of its specific, relatively unfamiliar issues onto parts of Paul Knoll’s work, we may close, adding two final points. First, those issues – ‘ducal law’, ‘service settlements’, the long transitions of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries – were controversial when Paul wrote about them, and have, to a degree, remained controversial ever since. One of these controversies – the problem of the ‘service settlements’ – reverberates in this book, thanks to Florin Curta. Second, there are real connections, historical and historiographic, between the issues just raised, which fully appear relatively late in Paul’s work, and the quite different, continued, defining core of his pursuits: politics, learning and culture, especially as they are accessible in one Polish medieval town, Kraków. Now – with the major exception of Casimir the Great and his original university foundation – Paul himself does not explicitly make that connection. His principal interests do not lie in that long sweep of Polish history which in fact bridged the gap between, say, the town or learning under the early Piasts and those phenomena under their later descendants, the Jagiellons. But, among his other contributions, he has set out those, and many other, connections for us to pursue.

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2

The city and the trade route in the early Middle Ages Henryk Samsonowicz

The era of the ‘Great Migrations’ was a catastrophe for the cities of Europe1. In the territories of the Roman Empire, especially its western portion, cities were substantially destroyed. A few remained in ‘shadow’ form, such as Arles, whose entire surviving population subsisted in one of the intact amphitheatres. Others – Salona or Aquincum, for example – disappeared from the urban map of Europe altogether. To be sure, this phenomenon should not be excessively generalised. In the territories of the eastern empire, the former Roman civitates continued to play a significant role, while during the second half of the first millennium, Constantinople may be compared to the metropolitan areas of today. Likewise in the west of Europe, some cities of Roman origin continued to function; Seville even elicited a magnificent encomium from its bishop, Isidore.2 In the regions of the former barbaricum, the situation was quite different, because here towns – meaning localities with specialised economic functions, settled by a population sustaining itself not merely by agriculture – did not, for all practical purposes, exist. There were, to be sure, settlements of a type which – to coin a phrase used by some scholars – we might wish to call ‘proto-urban’.3 These might be inhabited by as many as several hundred people, who were engaged, along with other activities, in commerce and craft production. However, the economic role of such localities does not appear to have transcended a strictly local horizon, nor does their differentiation of economic specialisation appear to have led to the formation of new social structures. Most of their inhabitants (as has remained the case throughout Europe until the modern period) were engaged in a range of activities, and treated craft, commerce and services as supplementary to the more basic activities, which were typically related to agriculture. Moreover, their relatively uniform pattern of economic sustenance did not encourage contact with new people – one of the principal distinguishing traits of an urban civilisation. In the territories of ‘barbarian Europe’, this state of affairs began to change during the eighth century, with the appearance of a network of settlements of

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The city and the trade route in the early Middle Ages 21 an altogether new character.4 Their genesis is not fully understood. Among the triggering factors, we should note, as many scholars have observed in detail, the requirements of political power. Power, exercised no longer merely over people, but ‘over land’, called for the creation of centres of political, military and economic administration. Occasionally, as we know from the written accounts of the Rus’ or of the Polabian Slavs, settlements emerged around cult centres. In regions undergoing Christianisation, specifically the eastern portions of the Carolingian state, a significant stimulus to urbanisation was the creation of centres of ecclesiastical authority and pilgrimage. Sometimes the prospect of access to minerals – proximity to sources of salt, or to deposits of precious metal – came into play. However – without wishing to negate the importance of all such factors in the emergence and expansion of towns – it appears that the main thrust behind the creation of new economic centres in Eastern Europe was long-distance commercial exchange. This was quite different from the widespread local commerce – an activity which worked as one mode of supplementing the household economy, and which drew in, as active participants, agriculturalists, hunters and nomads, among others. Generally speaking (although we do know of exceptions to this rule), that latter type of commerce was conducted over relatively modest spaces, encompassed small quantities of goods, and focused upon local markets, which attracted inhabitants of nearby localities. The type of commerce properly called ‘distant’ concerned, to a much larger degree, a wholesale exchange carried out over long distances. It also entailed a highly specific, and much more complicated, protocol of activities; and it presupposed the existence of a differentiated, professional group. Long-distance commerce was accessible to those people who possessed the requisite financial means, an appropriate level of knowledge of ‘economic geography’, and rather specific psychological and physical capacities. We may trace the beginnings of their activity in Eastern Europe to the appearance of the people known today as the Vikings (or Varangians), and to the role they played in the creation of the early framework of Europe’s economy.5 As is well known, during the Carolingian period the territories of the former western Roman Empire ranked quite low, in terms of wealth, within the hierarchy of their contemporary ‘economic worlds’ (economies-mondes).6 In comparison with the Muslim caliphates (not to mention the countries of fareastern Asia) or with Byzantium, they were less populated, poorer and more thoroughly destroyed. The means for their reconstruction were found during the earliest stages of Carolingian power; as Henri Pirenne noted: ‘If it were not for Mohammed, Charlemagne would have been unthinkable.’7 Needless to say, the regions comprising Eastern Europe, deprived of contacts with the developed centres of economy and culture, occupied a proportionally even lower rung within that same hierarchy of ‘economic worlds’.

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The emergence of a market for the commodities with which these regions might supply the Mediterranean world created a conjuncture favourable to the economic peripheries of the time. The geographical mobility of the Vikings, who readily crossed thousands of kilometres, marked out a clearly identifiable network of roads connecting Europe’s north and south. As is well known, these trails were not used for merely peaceful purposes: Viking commerce was based, to a substantial degree, on plunder and pillage. Nevertheless, that commerce, to an increasing degree, also entailed economic dynamics, the interaction of supply and demand. Contacts with economically developed countries – Byzantium, the Arab world – also opened access to an increasingly valued form of wealth and prestige: money. This form of wealth opened avenues of social mobility to persons originating from new social groups. Sometimes such persons originated from among tribal elders; at other times, they were recruited from among those for whom the traditionally available forms of collective life had become too constraining.8 Commercial exchange with Europe’s south was enabled by the emergence of local centres, into which desirable commodities could be brought by plunder or purchase. Such commodities, first of all, had to be known to the Greek and Arab merchants who, as early as the eighth century, regularly visited these locations of permanent contact with the Vikings and with the indigenous populations; and, second, they had to be susceptible of relatively easy modes of physical transport, meaning, in this period, proximity to bodies of water. Among the most frequently used routes of access in the Continent’s south were the Black and the Caspian Seas, with their tributary rivers, the Dnieper, the Volga and the Danube; and, in the north, the Baltic, together with its lowland, readily navigable rivers, the Elbe, the Odra (Oder), the Vistula, the Dvina and the Neva. Along these water-based routes there emerged, from the eighth century onward, early urban commercial centres, marking out a route that extended from Flanders (Durstede, subsequently Bruges) through Haithabu, Old Lübeck and Rügen (Arkona, Strzała), Wolin, Truso and Wiskiautai, to Old Ladoga. Its extension stretched along the Volga (Great Bulgar) or the Dnieper (Kiev), through Byzantium or the Khazar dominions, to the Arab countries. These centres of exchange are noteworthy for two reasons. First – at the risk of stating the obvious – commerce which is territorially this far-flung encourages a wide variety of human contact. Second, such centres relate to the task of defining a ‘city’. This is because they entail a rather specific type of culture – one that is open, that is to say, receptive to new forms of collective activity and new ideas. The period extending from the eighth to the twelfth century is documented by various types of sources, written and material, which comprise the basis for our knowledge of Europe’s urban network. As a point of departure, let us consider schedules of toll obligations – a type of document which principally

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The city and the trade route in the early Middle Ages 23 concerns commodities involved in long-distance commerce, and which disregards products intended for everyday use. The Raffelstetten toll schedule observes that ‘the Bavarians and the Slavs . . . who depart in order to sell food . . . do not pay toll.’ Which commodities entered commerce on a grand scale?9 We can categorise them into eight groups: (1) consumable goods; (2) people (slaves); (3) cattle; (4) horses; (5) metal ores, specifically gold, silver, tin and lead; (6) fur and hides; (7) wax; (8) textiles (cloth, brocade). It seems that the most valuable commodity sought in the Scandinavian, the Slavic and the Baltic regions was human beings. In schedules of tolls, human beings resoundingly hold the first place in terms of levels of assessed value, far exceeding the assessments placed upon other commodities. Whether these human beings were in every case slaves bound and led in chains, is difficult to say. It is noteworthy that they were used for work in the fields, on warships and in harems – but that they were also formed into military contingents. Quite possibly, they may have sought on occasion to improve their fate by migrating south. Among the foodstuffs, we may include the types which were indispensable but not accessible in a particular region (salt), or which were desired as an attractive supplement to the diet (spices). Occasionally, grain was sent over long distances, in response to shortages caused by natural disasters. During the thirteenth century, grain was certainly exported by northern German cities to Scandinavia, in a permanent process of exchange. Trade in meat appears to have played a significant role. Toll schedules quite often note herds of cattle; trade may have been the most reliable mode of procuring fresh meat. For the early Middle Ages, we can clearly identify especially fertile regions, from which, if the need arose, grain could be exported; or which enjoyed especially suitable conditions for animal husbandry. Such regions certainly included, among others, the lands of the Île-de-France, Champagne, the river systems of the Moselle and the Rhine, the Low Countries, Limburg, Brabant, part of Flanders, and northern and central Italy. Within ‘New Europe’ – the Europe incorporated into the Christian community during the tenth century – the equivalent regions included, quite possibly, the steppe areas of today’s Ukraine, the lowlands of the major rivers flowing into the Baltic and the North Sea, and, in due course, forests, which were cleared less intensively than was the case in the West, and which supplied honey. Spices occupied an important place in the balance of exchange. Commerce in these commodities, imported from Asia, occurred along permanent, wellknown exchange routes. However, the modest written record concerning this product in the toll schedules – especially the near-absence of pepper, saffron or ginger – suggests that these goods were transported in small quantities. On the other hand, commercial exchange in salt apparently had a rather specific character. Needless to say, this essential element of sustenance had to

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be transported from the localities where it was extracted, that is to say, initially, above all saltwater springs. One gets the impression that salt circulated together with other commodities, rather like a credit card account does today. Salt was transported in various directions (as in the instance recorded by the schedules of the toll houses on the Bug)10 and sometimes itself served as a medium for the payment of tolls assessed on other commodities. During the later, Christianised period, herring played a similar role. Moreover, while salt was one of the main commodities whose exchange was regulated by the state, it merely supplemented the full range of the transported commodities. A similar position was occupied by honey, the basic sweetening agent, and by wax, whose importance grew with the increase in the use of candles. However, honey and wax were, perhaps, less frequently used as mediums of payment for other commodities. Fur and hides played a far more important role in long-distance trade. As early as in the ninth century, the forests of northern and eastern Rus’ were the specific region from which the vast majority of the fur traded in European markets originated. This does not concern solely the luxurious and most prized kinds of fur; as is well known, the fourteenth-century transports out of Novgorod, which might contain as many as 20,000 pelts of fur each, included principally furs of small and extremely common animals: squirrels, martens, hares and foxes.11 Certainly, already in the twelfth century, trade between Novgorod and the cities on the southern Baltic, mediated by the ‘association of the German merchants who frequent Gotland’,12 was based on transactions in fur. It does not seem likely that this product was destined principally for Middle Eastern countries. Instead, it is generally believed to have been the trade equivalent of the cloth transported eastward along the Baltic ever since the Carolingian period. Judging from the descriptions of Arab journeys northward, it is quite possible that, apart from slaves, the aim of the Arab travellers was also to obtain fur of various kinds – in this case, perhaps of the more valuable kind, such as sable. Cloth trade definitely played a significant role in the making of urban centres. This product of medieval industry emerged as the basis for Netherlandish towns as early as the ninth century, and enabled the expansion of their commercial presence not merely into the Rhineland and the fairs of Champagne, but further, into the north of Europe. Units of Flemish, or perhaps Frisian, cloth (palia frisonica) were the single most valuable commodity traded for all the other products of the East. When, after the battle of Borhnöved in 1227, the central role in Baltic commerce passed to the Germans, cloth became the specific commodity whose exchange accelerated the formation of a chain of cities, which, in due course, came to constitute the core of the German Hansa: Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald, Szczecin, Gdańsk, Elbląg, Riga, Dorpat and Reval (Tallin). The old Viking centres (which, to

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The city and the trade route in the early Middle Ages 25 use Max Weber’s well-known typology, had been an example of ‘Asiatic cities’) were replaced by self-governing cities of the ‘European’ type, inhabited by citizen-townspeople. Toll schedules issued for them during the first quarter of the thirteenth century record above all payments assessed on imported cloth. The names used for this cloth (the frisal, the burnat) suggest a Flemish provenance of the payments, while the names of the ships used in its transport (the koggen, the maior navis) indicate an origin that is either German or Netherlandish. Quite probably the same, or closely similar, types of cloth were transported a bit later through the toll booths of Great Poland. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, over sixty types of cloth – the local, the Netherlandish, the Lusatian, the English, the Italian, even the French – were involved in the commercial network encompassing the Polish lands.13 Most of this commodity was transported to the north and east of Europe; on the other hand, there were Polish or Lusatian variants of the product, which satisfied demand in the piedmont of the Alps, and even of the Pyrenees, at the end of the Middle Ages. However, during the earlier Middle Ages, the Flemish was definitely preeminent among the more luxurious kinds of cloth, and we surely cannot speak of an export of an indigenous, Polish commodity westward. Placement of a toll both was intended to be a lucrative investment. However, in order for the booth to function effectively, it needed in addition to benefit the merchants. Hence, next to the toll booths was established a permanent framework intended to facilitate the crossing of rivers, of which we have a good example in Pomnichów. Elsewhere – as in the Truso region – massive dykes were built to ease travel across swamps.14 Investments of this kind reflect an existence of reasonably stable long-distance trade routes, something that differentiates, in yet another respect, long-distance trade from its local variant. Because that local variant usually did not require complicated methods of transport, a need for permanent points comprising a transport network did not arise. Instead, each locality interacted with its neighbouring points of settlement through the simplest and the most convenient spatial connections available at any given moment. On the other hand – as is attested by Constanine Porphyrogenitus’s description of the Varangians’ activities,15 and by the evidence about merchants reflected in the Primary Chronicle – the major commercial journeys followed permanent, well-known routes. On occasion, toll schedules also inform us about the geographical direction of the transport of merchandise – although, contrary to what we might expect, they do not always do so with precision. Cattle drives (the most economical mode of transporting meat in the pre-industrial era), or instances of transport of salt by water or by land (which are well known to us from Masovia), do not reflect the specific direction along which such goods were transported. Even the most valuable early-medieval commodity, slaves,

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who were typically exported toward Europe’s south, might instead, at least theoretically, have been brought into ducal estates in the northern region of a particular country. But in certain cases, the direction of transport leaves no doubt. The herring noted in the toll schedules of Pomnichów, Oleśno, Poznań or Gniezno was obviously exported from the Baltic southward. One may also surmise that, consistently with Ibrahim ibn-Ya’qub’s account, precious metals were exported from Prague to the Mediterranean countries. Charlemagne’s well known embargo on the export of weapons into Slavic countries also quite clearly attests to the flow of armaments from west to east. It seems that, toward the end of the first millennium, Kiev, the largest metropolis in Eastern Europe, was the main centre of trade in those slaves who were exported to the south; and that tin was exported from Prague in the same direction.16 Europe’s northwestern cities also sought access to the highly desired Byzantine and Arabic goods. This may be reflected by an attempt, partially successful, to reach the Black Sea by a land route – a mode of access which, while certainly shorter than the maritime alternative described earlier, required a much higher level of effort and expenditure to traverse. The early-fourteenth-century documents from Toruń show that, at the outset of its economic prosperity, this town, situated on an old trade route – a secondary branch of ‘the road from the Varangians to the Greeks’, linking the Baltic with the Black Sea – sought connections with Silesia and with the Rus’.17 The oldest of the three ‘Russian roads’, stretching along the Vistula and the Bug, extended up to Vladimir Volyn’skii, and from there turned toward Kiev. Two later ‘roads’, favoured by the kings of Poland, proceeded along a rather different route: in the direction of Lwów, the newly emerged centre of commerce with Black Sea towns. Just as was the case along the route running along the Baltic coast, Hansa merchants were probably involved in the formal establishment of a network of geographically-intermediate staging centres. Warsaw appears in the sources rather unexpectedly: as a fully self-governing town, partly built of stone (something quite rare in Masovia), subject to its superior court in Toruń and laid out on a plan conforming to the pattern that characterised the smaller towns in the dominions of the Teutonic Order during the thirteenth century.18 In the early period of its history, Warsaw probably served as an entrepôt on the southern route of those Hansa merchants who sought connections with Byzantium. The benefits of long-distance trade for town development are well illustrated in the description of the proposal made by Prince Sviatoslav, around 969, to establish Pereiaslavets, situated in the Danube delta, as the state capital. ‘I do not like it in Kiev. I wish to be in Pereiaslavets on the Danube, because there is the centre of my land . . . , and there all kinds of wealth come together: from the Greeks, gold, brocade, wine and a variety of fruit; from

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The city and the trade route in the early Middle Ages 27 Bohemia and Hungary, silver and horses; and from the Rus’, leather hides, wax, honey and slaves.’19 In addition, from early on (the tenth century at the latest), commercial towns attracted new kinds of investment, advantageous for merchants. In Drohiczyn, we have physical remnants of the production of non-coin mediums of exchange, that is to say, forms of non-metallic money: squirrel skins, shorn of hair and bound together with lead seals in bundles.20 Ibrahim ibn-Ya’qub’s narration about Prague – where the city is described, in the same sentence, as the ‘wealthiest in merchandise in the country’, and as ‘built from rock and limestone’ – contains a description of non-coin mediums of exchange, which were used in commerce, and, in Prague itself, were themselves exchanged for metallic money.21 If we have correctly understood Adam of Bremen, the inhabitants of Birka built an entrance into the port, which was ‘dangerous to their own people and to strangers’, yet which gave access to ‘the ships of the Danes, . . . the Slavs, the Sambians and other peoples of Scythia, arriving for their trading needs’. Presumably a most unusual kind of investment was ‘the lighthouse, called Greek fire by the inhabitants’, built in Wolin – a locality described by the chronicler as ‘the biggest city among all in Europe’, and as ‘a most frequently visited place of rest for the barbarians and the Greeks . . . inhabited by Slavs, Greeks and barbarians . . . and also by Saxon newcomers’.22 Investment in ports is known, among other places, from the Norwegian Konungahela, where ‘a wooden dock’ was built, at which merchant ships arrived.23 There seems to be no doubt that the larger demographic centres benefited from a service sector. Household and mercantile servants (including the unfree), prostitutes, taverners, brewers, but in addition beggars and socially unattached people – all those groups constituted a comparatively diverse collectivity, quite different in character from the inhabitants of the countryside. In the ninth century, Ubbaiadh Allah ibn-Hurdadbeh described the commerce conducted by Jewish merchants, across an enormous region stretching from Spain to China, and from the Slavic world to central Africa. These merchants’ ability to use several languages – languages indispensable for the transactions conducted – seems to have especially fascinated their contemporaries. Those Jewish merchants were reputed to speak ‘in Arabic, Persian, Roman’ (the last of these meaning either Latin or Greek, that is, the language of the Roman empire), ‘Frankish, Spanish, [and] Slavic’.24 As is well known, Jewish merchants were also present in the towns of the western and eastern Slavs, beginning as early as the turn of the tenth and the eleventh centuries. Their contacts encompassed both northern Italy and the western countries of the former empire. An example confirming the merchants’ reputation for geographical mobility (as noted by the later Hanseatic proverb, koplude loplude, meaning ‘the

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merchants are people who run about’)25 is the description of the activities by the Varangians in the territories of Kievan Rus’. They led extremely mobile lives, procuring goods in the lands of various east-Slavic tribes, then travelling with those goods ‘to the Greeks’. They began their regular cycle of activity in Kiev, and returned there after receiving payment from the Byzantines.26 One may speculate that that payment was spent on an ‘extensive pattern of consumption’; no less importantly, we may confidently infer the presence in Kiev, at least temporarily, of a population sustaining itself from commerce on a grand scale. As the Primary Chronicle shows us, that population was recruited from among the grand-princely retinue – people who comprised a new hierarchy of power and social prestige. The possibilities opened to them by their acquired wealth, as well as the power they wielded, created conditions which, in turn, worked to alter the urban landscape. In the Great Moravian State – as well as in other early Slavonic states, specifically the Rus’ and Bulgaria – chapels and churches were built within the main fortified centres in remarkable numbers.27 Over forty sacral objects have been discovered in Mikulčice, over fifty in Stara Tyrnov, and the numbers are similar for Kiev, Devin and Stare Mésto. We may surmise that this is a result of the formation, during the earliest phase of the creation of a state framework, of ‘aristocratic towns’: seats of new social elites, whose members sought revenues accruing from commerce, and for whom possession of ‘one’s own church’ was evidence of membership of a social stratum that wielded power. Without getting into the exact mechanisms that brought about this particular social system, let us note the emergence of heretofore unknown, specialised groups, situated near the aristocratic courts: people who lived exclusively from fighting, or were court servants or served as clergy, all of whom were obligated to draw on reserves of food and other sources of physical sustenance; and labourers, engaged in a comparatively extensive network of food supply, specialised craft workshops, and, in all likelihood, entertainment, connected with taverns, inns, the hunt and the tournament. It is quite clear that this professional and social differentiation underway in early towns was an outcome, or an aspect, of a transition from a tribal to a state-based framework. However, it also seems that the level of investment entailed in these transformations was enabled by grand-scale commercial activity. Today’s archaeology confirms the accuracy of Henri Pirenne’s view noted at the outset of this essay: the ores, the people and the ideas drawn from the south and from the east made possible the construction of state organisations, above all the Carolingian Empire. The patterns of exchange underlying that process were based on a network of emerging centres, which constituted entrepôts of grand-scale commerce. That network led not only toward an enrichment of the people associated with the new power, but also to a social

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The city and the trade route in the early Middle Ages 29 differentiation, and to the appearance of new callings, among which an especially important place was occupied by the merchant. Quite apart from their additional functions – whether military or political – the collective activity by the participants in grand-scale commerce was the principal causal factor behind the emergence of towns in those regions of Europe which had not been part of the Roman Empire.

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3

The archaeology of early medieval service settlements in Eastern Europe Florin Curta

‘Service settlement’ is a favourite phrase of several Polish and Czech medievalists, who use it commonly to refer to villages of specialised workers (peasants or craftsmen) serving the exclusive needs of neighbouring fortresses or manor houses.1 In Poland, Roman Grodecki first linked service settlements to ducal or royal estates and argued that such villages emerged to meet the exclusive demands of the Polish duke or king and of his court.2 In a now classic book dedicated exclusively to the problem of the ‘royal servants’, Karol Buczek took Grodecki’s thesis a step farther and argued that the royal servants living in such villages were bound to the land given to them by the duke or the king. Service settlements were therefore to be found around ducal or royal residences and palaces located both within and outside regional fortifications. According to Buczek, service settlements originated in Bohemia and as a form of labour organisation were a specifically ‘Slavic’ phenomenon, without any West European analogies.3 In the 1950s, this idea was very popular among Slovak historians and linguists, who promoted the idea that service settlements were a ninth-century, Moravian invention.4 Others rejected such opinions and argued instead that service settlements must be linked to the organisation of the Hungarian state and, as a consequence, could not be dated earlier than the tenth century. Maintaining the idea of a specifically Slavic institution thus became impractical, especially since no service settlements were known from sources referring to either the Elbe Slavs or Kievan Rus’.5 As a consequence, it became fashionable in the 1960s and early 1970s, especially among Czech and Polish historians, to explain service settlements as a Central (East Central) European adaptation of an essentially Carolingian institution.6 To Karol Modzelewski service settlements signaled the existence of groups of peasants or enslaved war captives turned into a specialised, servile labour force, with specific tasks pertaining to the feeding and military maintenance of the duke’s or king’s household. Village names that appear in

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The archaeology of early medieval service settlements 31 twelfth-, and especially thirteenth-century, charters were thus derived from the names of the specific tasks performed by the ducal or royal servants.7 In Poland, the largest number of place names deriving from servile tasks appear in the hinterland of Sandomierz, one of the sedes regni principales of the early Piast polity. Because villages with such names were located no more than thirty kilometres from Sandomierz, they are believed to have catered for the needs of the administrative and military personnel garrisoned in that provincial capital of early medieval Poland.8 Under the assumption that the sedes regni principales were primarily consumption centres, service settlements are therefore viewed as the hallmark of a dramatic reorganisation of the countryside accompanying the rise of the Piast state.9 As suppliers of either royal manors or of regional centres of royal power, service settlements are therefore commonly understood as by-products of the imposition of a despotic form of political power over land and labour force. However, the main reason for which the ‘regalian command’ model has been so widely accepted by Polish medievalists may be that it offers a ‘seductively stark contrast between the early Polish monarchy and society and their western counterparts’.10 To claim that service settlements were a uniquely East-Central European phenomenon is to stress the absolute power that early medieval rulers in that region had over their subjects. Henry VIII of England may well have destroyed the church and several houses to build his Nonsuch Palace on the site of the village of Cuddington, in Surrey.11 Long before him, Piast rulers had the incomparably greater power of moving around entire groups of population, as well as numerous prisoners of war, and of creating new settlements for them around regional centres of power. The current research on service settlements in medieval East Central Europe relies on a macro-economic model of a centralised state, mainly derived from the preoccupation of national historiographic schools with the inevitability of political organisation and the decisive roles of political elites.12 This is essentially a pre-archaeological model, which may still be found in East Central Europe, for example, in the work of Dušan Třeštík, Jerzy Strzelczyk or Gyula Kristó, although it is quite rare among archaeologists.13 However, while the foundation of regional centres of power may have well been accompanied by the re-settling of groups of military population, there is in fact no evidence that service settlements were planted at specific locations by royal fiat.14 Moreover, without a detailed archaeological study of regional settlement patterns it is impossible to ascertain the relative age of each service settlement known from documentary sources and to establish its relation to pre-existing settlement sites. Detailed studies of the so-called Kietze or Kietzsiedlungen of eastern Germany, which have long been viewed in German historiography as typically Slavic, have demonstrated that the number of such service settlements began to increase dramatically in the

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mid-1100s, the period of organisation of the margraviate of Brandenburg under the rule of Albert I the Bear.15 Many Kietzsiedlungen were undoubtedly new foundations, but several others produced potsherds that could be dated before the mid-twelfth century, which suggests that those settlements were in existence before the dynasty of the Askanians came to power in Brandenburg. A great deal of evidence for the Kietzsiedlungen of eastern Germany is primarily archaeological, which is not what one could say about the service settlements of early medieval Poland or Bohemia, none of which has so far been explored archaeologically.16 Ever since the 1960s, place names have been the most important category of evidence for the study of the medieval service settlements of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, with archaeology playing only a minor role, if any at all.17 While research perspectives on the archaeology of service settlements in Bohemia and Poland look rather unpromising, there has been a great deal of new work in the last ten years or so on the rural hinterland of ninth-century centres of power in Moravia, western Hungary and Bulgaria. More than a century of archaeological excavations in Pliska and its hinterland produced sufficient evidence for sketching the settlement pattern of the ‘first capital of medieval Bulgaria’.18 On the basis of older and more recent excavations of rural settlements, both within and outside the so-called Outer Town (the largest earthen rampart surrounding the palatial compound), Joachim Henning has recently proposed that the cluster of settlement sites within the Outer Town (many of which may be dated to the tenth and early eleventh century) be compared to the service settlements of medieval Poland and Bohemia.19 Since few if any of these settlements existed in the previous two centuries, the sudden explosion of sites is interpreted as a forceful implementation of relatively large groups of servile population, all attached to the palatial compound in Pliska and existing only in order to meet the supposedly great demands of that centre of consumption. In a stance reminiscent of the ‘regalian command’ model so dear to Czech and Polish scholars of the 1960s and 1970s, Henning further viewed the history of Pliska and its rural hinterland of service settlements as an example of a typically East-European macro-economic model, in sharp contrast to the economic and social structures commonly found in the early Middle Ages in Western Europe: ‘Political power in early medieval Eastern Europe had very few limits: palaces could be built at various points, as desired, while entire communities of peasants and craftsmen could be moved around as needed.’20 The premise of Henning’s interpretation is that Pliska was above all a large centre of consumption. The decision of the Bulgar rulers to establish a centre of power in Pliska thus created a considerable demand for victuals, for which there was no pre-existing settlement infrastructure. In order to meet that demand, those rulers therefore created settlements ex nihilo by moving

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The archaeology of early medieval service settlements 33 to the environs of their capital large groups of population from various other parts of their realm. But Henning also insists that most rural settlements previously dated by Bulgarian archaeologists before 900 or thereabouts are in fact of a later date.21 If so, then they must be dated after the capital of early medieval Bulgaria had moved from Pliska to Preslav, following the conversion to Christianity and Boris’s crushing of the last pagan revolt of the Bulgar boilades.22 At the time most service settlements came into being, Pliska had therefore ceased to be the gigantic centre of consumption which supposedly caused the population transfer responsible for the foundation of the service settlements. Moreover, recent use of aerial photographs has revealed that many of the sites said to be ‘rural’ and shown on Henning’s map of the Outer Town at Pliska, especially those to the northeast and east from the Inner Town, have massive stone buildings, which could indicate the existence of manors.23 These are therefore unlikely to be service settlements of the kind postulated by Czech and Polish scholars. To be sure, some of the sites indicated by Henning have in fact been dated before around 900, and could therefore have been in existence at the time the first major buildings appeared within the palatial compound of the Inner Town. A rural settlement dated to the eighth and ninth century (primarily on the basis of ceramic assemblages) has been found on the site of the later Great Basilica, but only a few houses have so far been excavated.24 Similarly, only a few houses are known from the rural site around the so-called ‘building no. 31’ in the immediate vicinity of the Inner Town, to the west.25 Several houses have been found near the southwestern corner of the Inner Town, at Cekha.26 Finally, excavations in the southeastern region of the Outer Town, about a mile away from the southern rampart of the Inner Town, have recently produced a relatively large settlement dated to the late eighth and early ninth century. No less than 36 sunken-featured buildings and six workshops have been excavated on that site. Some of them were enclosed by wooden palisades forming rectangular compounds interpreted as ‘manors’.27 Is there a pattern discernible in the distribution of these early settlements that could be interpreted as an indication of service settlements? A recent study of the settlement pattern in the hinterland of Pliska has shown that the distribution of sites depends upon access to water, a major problem in the steppe-like micro-climate of the Ludogorie, the region of northeastern Bulgaria in which Pliska is located.28 The cluster of early sites can only be explained in terms of proximity to the Asar Dere creek, the only permanent source of water in the area. This would explain why the earliest settlements near the palatial compound are those located at the confluence of the Kafar Dere and Deniz Dere, the two streams forming the Asar Dere. The large settlement in the southwestern region of the Outer Town grew around

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the confluence of the Asar Dere with an intermittent tributary. It is only when a sophisticated system for bringing water from a great distance was built at Pliska in the late ninth or, more probably, tenth century that the manors with stone buildings appeared in the area to the northeast and east of the Inner Town, an area otherwise devoid of water.29 The earliest datable settlement pattern at Pliska may therefore be explained in terms of the general landscape of the region, and not necessarily as a consequence of the despotic behavior of the ruler. What, if any, are the archaeological correlates of a service settlement? Judging from the published evidence, there can be no doubt about the agricultural character of the sites located within the Outer Town of Pliska. But Pliska also produced evidence of industrial activities. On the site of the tenth- to eleventh-century commercial quarter, next to the western wall of the Inner Town, Bulgarian archaeologists have found a number of smelting furnaces, which they have dated to the ninth and tenth centuries on the basis of the associated pottery.30 An important discovery of the most recent excavations at Pliska is that the relatively large industrial area located to the west of the palatial compound included not only a metal-working production centre, but also workshops producing glass, both for vessels and for windows.31 There can be no doubt that the workshop produced glass for the palace, the only possible centre of consumption in the region for that type of artifact. To Joachim Henning, the eighth- to ninth-century industrial centre at Pliska appears as an indication that ‘specific circumstances in the East led to the establishment of large, but in the long run often unstable, artisan centres dependent upon residences of rulers and exclusively serving their needs.’32 We are led to believe that Pliska was unlike any manorial centre in contemporary Western Europe in that the industrial centre emerging next to the palatial compound was not the result of a ‘natural growth’ from local, pre-existing resources, but a creation ex nihilo serving the exclusive needs of the East-European ruler. But was Pliska truly different from more or less contemporary centres of power in Western and Central Europe? At Karlburg, on the Main river, German archaeologists have recently revealed a Carolingian royal court (vill), with a cluster of sunken-featured buildings stretching downstream from the central manorial buildings for over a kilometre. Many if not all sunken-featured buildings were in fact workshops for the production of metalwork.33 Peter Donat’s excavations at Gebesee near Erfurt opened up the northern suburbium of the Ottonian royal court, an impressive industrial area with over 250 sunken-featured buildings. None of these was suitable for living, and all were used as workshops for the production of cloth.34 The current model of interpretation of the industrial centre at Gebesee has craftsmen (or craftswomen) coming from neighbouring villages to perform regular socage service for the royal court

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The archaeology of early medieval service settlements 35 by working in the workshops. Such an interpretation of the archaeological evidence resonates with what is otherwise known from the written evidence about the organisation of crafts and industrial production on Carolingian estates.35 Despite the lack of comparable evidence from written sources, there is no reason to interpret the situation at Pliska any differently. Those working in the workshops to the west of the palatial compound may have come from the neighbouring villages, such as that in the southeastern region of the Outer Town. Should we therefore treat such rural sites as service settlements? The significance of the industrial quarter at Pliska may be further highlighted by means of comparison with a different kind of site. DevelierCourtételle in northern Switzerland was an iron-smelting and smithing centre, the excavation of which has produced over four tons of slag and hammer-scale scattered over no less than six plots of buildings.36 The site also produced a collection of buildings and structures interpreted as relating to the storage of crops and the penning of livestock. Develier-Courtételle appears to have been a settlement of specialist metal-workers, whose inhabitants produced iron and steel artifacts in exchange for agricultural produce and livestock, or were cared for within a wider state framework.37 There is no sign that the industrial quarter at Pliska included any dwellings. It is of course quite possible that some, at least, of the inhabitants of the rural sites in the Outer Town may have provided their skills for the operation of the metal- and glass-working shops. If so, then the artifacts they produced were certainly not designed to be exchanged on site for agricultural produce. There are no storage facilities in the industrial quarter, and among all early settlements so far known around the Inner Town, only the large one in the southeastern area of the Outer Town produced pit-like features that could be interpreted as silos. All of them were located behind adjacent houses and no significant cluster was identified in any part of the settlement.38 The intra-site distribution of silos strongly suggests that they were used for individual accumulation. Nothing indicates therefore that the economy of this particular settlement was organised in such a way as to meet the exclusive needs of the elites residing in the palatial compound. Judging from the surviving evidence, the village in the southeastern region of the Outer Town was no different from other villages in northern or northeastern Bulgaria of the same or earlier date, but with no adjacent ‘central places’.39 The situation at Pliska is best understood when compared to that at Pohansko near Břeclav (Czech Republic), the closest one can come in East Central Europe to an archaeological example of settlements producing food for a neighbouring consumption centre.40 In the ninth century, Pohansko was not only an important ‘central place’, but also at the top of the settlement hierarchy in Moravia. Czech archaeologists have linked the political and

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administrative functions of the site to a palatial compound thought to be the residence of the Moravian ruler or of one of his deputies. Longterm excavations have revealed a massive fortification, as well as several cemeteries with weapon burials bespeaking the presence of relatively large numbers of warriors.41 The large area enclosed by ramparts, as well as the extensive industrial quarter discovered inside, suggest the existence of a relatively numerous population.42 It has been estimated that by the mid-ninth century, the site must have had between 700 and over 1,000 inhabitants. Recent archaeo-botanical studies have demonstrated that the staple cereal in Pohansko was wheat.43 However, the immediate hinterland of the fortification is not suitable for agriculture, as Pohansko is located on the flood plain of the river Dyje, near its confluence with the Morava. Moreover, the absence of any storage facilities and the relatively small number of agricultural tools and implements found inside the ramparts suggest that food was brought into the fortification from the outside. In order to feed the estimated number of inhabitants, the site’s catchment area must have been no smaller than 100 hectares.44 The archaeological exploration of that area has only begun, but a combination of fieldwork, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) analysis and systematic excavations has already produced some remarkable results.45 Only two rural settlements have so far been identified in the hinterland of Pohansko, one at Poštorná, the other at Líbivá, both within the present-day city of Břeclav.46 On the latter site, Jiří Macháček’s recent excavations revealed more than ninety settlement features and 37 post-holes. The analysis of the ceramic assemblages indicates the existence of two phases of occupation, with the latest coinciding in time with the fortification and palatial compound at Pohansko. Most prominent among the settlement features excavated at Líbivá were ten large silos, all grouped inside a special enclosure on the edge of the settlement at about ten metres from the nearest house. Adjacent to several individual sunken-featured buildings were other silos of smaller size. The existence of two types of silos suggests two types of accumulation, one for the individual needs of each household, the other for the storage of food to be shipped to Pohansko. Líbivá has therefore been viewed as a self-sufficient settlement of farmers, whose inhabitants produced food for the nearby ‘central place’. The exact nature of the relations between the inhabitants of Líbivá and the elites in Pohansko remains unknown. The analysis of zoo-archaeological assemblages may provide some support for the idea that Líbivá was a subservient settlement whose inhabitants were perhaps subject to the lord residing in Pohansko. At Karlburg, the pattern of meat consumption within the vill sharply contrasts with that of its attendant valley settlement. During the eighth and ninth centuries, most domestic animals were killed

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The archaeology of early medieval service settlements 37 for consumption in the vill before reaching three years of age, while bones recuperated from the valley settlement belonged to much older animals. In addition, while wild animals (mostly red deer) make up more than ten percent of all faunal remains from the vill, they represent less than one percent of all animal bones from the valley settlement.47 A similarly comparative analysis may shed more light on the relations between Líbivá and Pohansko within the broader context of the settlement hierarchy in the region. Such an interpretation has already been advanced for the hinterland of the contemporary estate court at Zalavár in western Hungary. The site has long been identified with the ducal seat of Mosapurc, which was granted to Pribina by Louis the German at some point between 838 and 847. According to the written sources, Pribina built a large fortification in Mosapurc, ‘gathered the surrounding peoples, and greatly thrived in that land’ for the following two decades.48 Ever since 1980, field surveys and excavations in the marshy hinterland of Zalavár, at the southwestern tip of Lake Balaton, have brought to light a number of rural sites located on islands and on the banks of the river Zala. Sites dated to the ninth and tenth century were at a short distance (one to one and a half kilometres) from each other. The largest among them was Balatonmagyaród-Hidvégpuszta, which produced twenty sunken-featured buildings, five clay ovens, and several silos. Both ovens and silos were somewhat isolated from the houses, on the northwestern edge of the settlement. The excavator interpreted the site as a service settlement founded at the time of the Frankish conquest of the area, shortly before or after Pribina built his fortification in Zalavár.49 Other archaeologists went as far as to identify the ‘surrounding peoples’ that Pribina gathered in Mosapurc with the population burying its dead in local cemeteries. Male skeletons with marks of lethal wounds were interpreted as members of Pribina’s military retinue if found in association with one or two weapons (spear heads, axes, swords), as in Garabonc I, or if without weapons as commoners, as in Garabonc II.50 Unfortunately, no anthropological comparisons have so far been drawn between burials of ‘commoners’ from Garabonc and those from other contemporary cemeteries in the area, such as that associated with the Carolingian manor at Zalaszabar.51 In the absence of such studies, the interpretation of male burials from Garabonc must be treated with caution. Nevertheless it is quite possible that some at least of the settlements in the hinterland of Zalavár were inhabited by people of unfree status toiling for Pribina and his retinue of warriors. As in the case of Líbivá and Pohansko, much is to be expected from the comparative analysis of consumption patterns on the basis of archaeo-botanical and zoo-archaeological remains found in Balatonmagyaród-Hidvégpuszta and Zalavár. Such an analysis has already produced some interesting conclusions

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regarding ‘central places’ in early medieval Rus’. As Riurik’s Stronghold (Riurikovo Gorodishche) near Novgorod became the most important power centre in the northwestern region of early medieval Rus’, a number of settlements seem to have emerged solely for the purpose of satisfying the needs of the prince and his retinue of warriors.52 On the other hand, the establishment of Riurik’s Stronghold in the late ninth or early tenth century was accompanied by drastic changes in the agrarian economy of the region. Archaeo-botanical studies have demonstrated that on the narrow strip of land between the northwestern shore of Lake Il’men and the river Veriazha, slash-and-burn cultivation of Neolithic tradition was suddenly replaced by intensive agriculture. At Georgii on the Veriazha river, Russian archaeologists identified plow furrows underneath the foundations of the late ninth- or early tenth-century fortification.53 A large village was excavated at Prost’ on the opposite bank of the river Volkhov from Riurik’s Stronghold.54 There were many silos in Prost’, some of them quite large, others still containing remains of charred seeds. The archaeo-botanical study of one such deposit of over 3,000 seeds shows that the preferred cereals of the local diet were farro (Triticum dicoccum) and spelt (Triticum spelta).55 Given that both are hulled wheat species, the study also suggests that hulling was performed on site, even though no corresponding facility has so far been found. By contrast, assemblages of charred seeds in Riurik’s Stronghold contain primarily barley (Hordeum vulgare vulgare) in the ninth century, and rye (Secale cereale) and wheat (Triticum aestivum) in the tenth century. This further suggests different consumption patterns, with cereals of different qualities for the Stronghold and the countryside respectively. Since Riurik’s Stronghold, much like Pohansko, had little, if any, arable land outside its ramparts, the relatively large quantities of barley, rye and wheat must have come from the agricultural settlements in the northwestern region of Lake Il’men known as Poozer’e. That the economy of some, at least, of these settlements was primarily agricultural is further confirmed by finds of agricultural implements. Excavations in a sand dune at Kholopy Gorodok, on a promontory separating Lake Kholop’e from the Volkhov River, a few miles to the northeast of Riurik’s Stronghold, produced a ninth-century hoard of agricultural implements (ploughshares, scythes, an axe and a mattock) and dirhems.56 A ploughshare has also been found in a sopka burial mound in Derevianitsy on the Volkhov River, mid-way between Riurik’s Stronghold and Kholopy Gorodok.57 A scythe and a sickle are among the implements found in Georgii in association with the open settlement in existence before the stronghold was built, as well as with the plough furrows underneath the stronghold’s foundations.58 A number of lines of evidence point to the existence of a special category

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The archaeology of early medieval service settlements 39 of early medieval settlement sites, for which there is currently no better name than ‘service settlements’. Nevertheless, in evaluating their significance for the social history of early medieval Eastern Europe, two points must be borne in mind. First, comparing the archaeological evidence from ninthand tenth-century Eastern and Western Europe, it becomes clear that there are substantial differences in both focus and methodology. In formerly Communist countries, the official Marxist ideology had long required archaeologists to focus more on the life of the ‘common people’ living in villages than on palaces or monastic sites.59 Even in cases in which the phrase ‘service settlement’ was never used, rural sites clustering around hill forts tended to be interpreted as attendant settlements.60 By contrast, a very recent survey of Carolingian rural settlements complains that ‘the attendant settlement zones, away from high-status nuclei or palaces, estate centres or monasteries, desperately need archaeological attention in order to assess their role in relation to the high-status foci that they supported’, and that the number of nucleated settlements and hamlets is ‘dangerously small for purposes of comparison’.61 This contrast may perhaps explain why Polish and Czech medievalists still point to Carolingian institutions as the origin of the East-European service settlements, while prominent historians of the West European Middle Ages illustrate their conclusions with archaeological evidence from Eastern Europe.62 The archaeological evidence considered here shows that, while there are many parallel developments, imitation of Carolingian attendant settlements (themselves poorly known archaeologically) can hardly be an explanation for the service settlements near Riurik’s Stronghold. On the other hand, it is methodologically wrong to assume that the agglomeration of rural sites around the Inner Town at Pliska is sufficient evidence for drawing comparisons with the service settlements postulated by Czech and Polish scholars on the basis of place names alone. A much more complicated picture emerges for Pliska from a closer analysis of the published evidence of rural settlements within the Outer Town. On the one hand, preliminary data from older and more recent excavations on the left bank of the Asar Dere, to the west of the Inner Town, provide such an outstanding sample of industrial activities that we can hardly avoid drawing comparisons with contemporary sites within the Carolingian Empire, such as Karlburg. Social structures are hard to trace by excavation alone, and as a consequence there is still a major gap in our understanding of the operation of the workshops and of the relation between the inhabitants of the attendant settlements within the Outer Town and the elites in the palatial compound. There is likewise still a major gap between the material remains of rural settlements, and their interpretation in terms of social structures. We may suspect that the difference between a village of free farmers and a service

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settlement whose inhabitants were not free may not have been marked at all, but the stark differences between the palatial compound and any other site in its hinterland leave no doubt about the fact that the hierarchy of settlements is a mirror of social difference. Although we can argue a direct relation between water streams (or lack thereof) and the siting of villages around the Inner Town, it seems that a close topographic relationship implies a clear interest on the part of the residents of the palatial compound, especially when taking into account the location of the industrial quarter. The same may not necessarily be true, however, for the later, tenth- to eleventh-century situation at Pliska. The prominent ‘manors’ to the east of the Inner Town, as well as the military and political events taking place after the capital was transferred to Preslav are complicating factors that need to be taken into account before drawing comparisons between Pliska and Sandomierz.63 We can possibly see in the sudden increase in the number of settlements within the Outer Town a sign of either the fragmentation of land property or a precarious situation in the countryside. The reasons which led to the multiplication of villages, some of which may well have been subservient settlements, are far more complex than the despotic will of a ruler who, in any case, was at that time in either Preslav or Constantinople. Admittedly, the question remains open. There is already sufficient evidence for storage of crops in some settlements, but it remains unclear for what purpose. Equally unclear is the relation between the latest phase of occupation in the palatial compound and the ‘manors’ erected just outside the walls of the Inner Town. In any case, it is to be noted that progress in the study of service settlements is in the end dependent less on place-name analysis, and more on intensive archaeological research. The latter can only be undertaken through long-term excavation and modern techniques of spatial analysis. As the example of Pohansko has shown, the understanding of a historical problem for which there are no written sources benefits greatly from the further refinement of a combination of stratigraphical excavation, field surveys and GIS analysis. Other ways to analyse social status, especially through burial, have been explored during the excavation of cemeteries in the hinterland of Zalavár. Finally, the study of consumption patterns is a very promising avenue of future research. This is now clear for the zoo-archaeological studies at Karlburg and the archaeo-botanical studies at Pohansko and Riurik’s Stronghold. Before more conclusive statements can be made, much further research is therefore needed in the immediate future. Although it is not yet possible to generalise meaningfully on a pan-European level about service settlements, the archaeological evidence published so far already suggests that the establishment of service settlements should not be viewed either as an exclusively East-European phenomenon or as a local imitation of

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The archaeology of early medieval service settlements 41 Carolingian prototypes. It is unclear as yet whether early medieval attendant settlement zones were created by royal fiat, or, as seems more probable, were yet another facet of the complex process of economic and social reorganisation accompanying the rise of early medieval states. In terms of methodology, it is clear that much of our knowledge of service settlements has depended simply on crude generalisations from a rather heterogeneous body of information; to improve on this we must seek the definition of a range of interpretative models. Just as important is to seek out the threads which connect them.

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4

Oath-taking in Hungary A window on medieval social interaction Nora Berend

Oaths, effective because they were part of a religious system, have been important in many cultures throughout history. The significance of oaths in medieval societies is well-known.1 For example, in the Peace of God movements, people swore an oath to uphold the peace; men also swore an oath of fidelity to their lord.2 Oaths were especially crucial in the legal process, both because they were transmitted by Roman tradition and because they were linked to the importance of oral testimony. They were a method of proof as well as a guarantee of truth.3 People attesting to, for example, the property rights of an individual or institution swore oaths. Plaintiffs could rely on the sworn testimony of credible witnesses to the event that formed the core of a case. The calumny oath was sworn by litigants in canonical courts, to guarantee that they would prove their claims honestly.4 Oaths taken by the accused and his compurgators could exculpate him.5 Oaths were taken by witnesses to tell the truth. Ordeals and trial by combat could entail swearing oaths, and with the 1215 ecclesiastical prohibition against ordeals, oaths replaced them, and came to be even more prominent.6 Taking an oath involved more than pronouncing certain words; they were also accompanied by gestures, most notably swearing on a symbolic object. Such gestures, as shown by Jean-Claude Schmitt’s analysis, entailed the engagement of the entire person, putting him in physical contact with sources of holy power. Such acts invited divine vengeance for perjury.7 The function of the oath and a testing of the boundaries is also highlighted by an interest in medieval literature in oaths that were literally true, but were worded in a way that was meant to be deceitful.8 It is also possible that, as has been shown for early modern Europe, people taking oaths had different attitudes, from playful to solemn, that did not always necessarily match the ecclesiastical views and accounts.9 Certain groups, branded as heretical by Catholic authorities, refused to take oaths at all, based on Biblical injunctions.10 In order for an oath to be recognised as valid, both the person taking the oath and those who were to accept it as a proof or guarantee had to abide by a recognised

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Oath-taking in Hungary 43 procedure and to understand the oath ‘as a provisional self-curse’.11 Within Christian society, such procedures were established in the early Middle Ages, and usually meant taking an oath on the Bible or on relics, lifting the right hand, sometimes with the index and middle finger extended, or touching the holy object.12 When oaths were meant to be binding in treaties, agreements or litigation between parties of different religious adherence, however, the issue of how to ensure the validity of the oath became much more problematic. Such a problem usually arose in the interaction between either two polities or a Christian ruler and non-Christian peoples outside his realm, and in interactions with Jews and Muslims within Christian societies. Christian suspicion about the reliability of the oath of non-Christians was easily aroused; one can cite the example of a long-standing topos about the unreliability of nomads, whose oaths cannot be trusted.13 Examples of such oaths show that in fact they entailed swearing two separate types of oaths, according to the custom of both parties; in the case of agreements between polities, the oaths were sometimes also accompanied by the writing down of the treaty. Usually each party invoked their own deity (or other transcendental authority) when taking the oath, in order to be truly bound by it. It made eminent sense to expect the other party to swear by what they held sacred, rather than by someone else’s religion, which would have been meaningless to them and therefore rendered the oath invalid. Sometimes, however, each party took two oaths, one according to their own custom, and one according to the custom of the other side. From the early Middle Ages on, treaties made by ‘pagans’ with Christian rulers entailed an oath by the non-Christian side based on their own law.14 In 907, a treaty between the Rus’ and the Byzantines was sealed by the Emperor Leo VI kissing the cross and the Rus’ swearing on their weapons and their gods Perun and Volos. Similarly, in the 971 treaty between the Rus’ ruler Sviatoslav and the Byzantine emperor, the former invoked the curse of Perun and Volos and declared he should be killed with his own weapons if he broke the treaty.15 Thirteenth-century Lithuanians used oaths by their gods, by the shaking of the hand, and ‘sanctified by the slaughter of an animal’, with the animal’s blood smeared on the face of the oath-taker.16 Even in the fourteenth century, the Lithuanian Duke Kestutis swore a Lithuanian oath and performed an animal sacrifice at the court of the Hungarian King Louis when they concluded a treaty; the king swore a Christian oath.17 When the Lithuanian ruler Gediminas and his sons, the princes of Vitebsk and Polotsk, made a trade agreement with Livonian merchants in 1338, the pagans swore ‘according to their own sacra’, while the princes, as representatives of Christian Rus’ – although the prince of Vitebsk himself was a pagan – kissed the cross, as did the Christian merchants.18

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Interesting instances of a double ritual include a peace treaty between Byzantines and Avars in 579/80, when the Avar ruler pronounced an elaborate self-curse on his sword, and then also wanted to swear according to the custom of the Byzantines and so took an oath on Scripture.19 At the peace treaty between the Byzantine Emperor Leo V and the Bulgarian ruler Omurtag in 816, each ruler swore an oath according to his own religion but also according to the other side’s custom: thus Leo V adopted the Bulgar rituals of oath-taking, described by divergent sources as swearing on a sword and sacrificing dogs, or as pouring water on the ground, turning saddles upside down and touching the reins, finally holding up grass, all of which signified a self-curse for perjury; the pagan Bulgars swore by touching the Gospel. Both sides were criticised by Byzantine commentators.20 A treaty in 944 between the Rus’ and the Byzantines was concluded by the baptised Rus’ swearing on the cross, and adding the stipulation that if any Christian or non-Christian violated the treaty, he should die by his own weapons; the unbaptised Rus’ swore as well, and the treaty also invoked the curse of both the Christian God and of Perun for violating the oath.21 In some medieval Christian kingdoms, significant non-Christian minorities lived in the realm, and this raised the issue of oaths in litigation between inhabitants of different religions, and of oaths extracted from non-Christian inhabitants; examples of such areas include the Crusader states, Sicily, the Iberian kingdoms and Hungary. For example in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, when litigation involved parties of different religions, Jews swore on the Torah, Muslims on the Qur’an, Oriental Christians on the cross and the Gospels written in their own language.22 Similarly in Norman Sicily, in litigation between Muslims and people of other faiths, Muslims swore on the Qur’an.23 In medieval Iberia provision had to be made for Jews and Muslims to take oaths in legal cases that involved them with Christians; they could not be required to swear on the Gospels, and various different types of oaths were created for them.24 In all these areas, mechanisms remained in place for legal decisions to be made within each non-Christian community according to their own customs, when the cases involved members of that community only. In medieval Hungary, groups holding different religious beliefs lived inside the kingdom; in addition, interaction with steppe nomads, who raided the realm but also settled in it, recurred. Therefore we encounter the need both to find exceptional solutions for treaties with outsiders, and to develop mechanisms for dealing with everyday issues such as litigation in the course of which oaths had to be taken. In addition, it seems from the sources that a local tradition of royal oath-taking existed as well as the standard Christian forms introduced in conformity to Western practices. Oaths were a frequently used form of proof in Hungary, just as elsewhere in medieval Europe.25 The

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Oath-taking in Hungary 45 medieval kingdom of Hungary incorporated a very diverse population, both through conquest and immigration. The heterogeneity of the inhabitants was also expressed in a legal structure where many different groups, Christians as well as non-Christians, had their own recognised legal status, with duties and privileges which were increasingly put into writing during the thirteenth century. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the number of sources increases, providing scholars with more material to analyse these issues, and when, at the same time, the diversity of the population has not yet started to diminish, three important non-Christian groups formed part of the kingdom: Jews, Muslims and a third group of non-Christians holding animisticshamanistic beliefs, who were ‘pagans’ from a Christian point of view, that is, they were seen as having no recognised form of religion, but only superstitious beliefs.26 Of the last, we have the best sources on the Cumans, who raided Hungary and then settled in the kingdom in the middle of the thirteenth century. In each case, evidence of oath-taking offers an opportunity to examine the forms of incorporation of these groups into a Christian society. The case of the Cumans is the closest parallel to those of the nomads mentioned above. The sources reveal their oath-taking after their second entry into the kingdom, when they concluded a marriage alliance with the king. After entering the kingdom prior to the Mongol invasion, the Cumans were attacked by the local population, who saw them as the vanguard of the Mongols, and they left Hungary. After the Mongol invasion, however, they were invited to return, and this time their loyalty to the king was to be ensured by a marriage between Prince István (Stephen), heir to the throne, and a Cuman princess. The ceremony also known from the steppe was then performed, cutting a dog in two while swearing an oath. Ten Cuman lords swore during the wedding feast over a dog ‘cut into two by a sword, as is their custom, that they would hold the land of the Hungarians, as men faithful to the king, against the Tartars and barbarous nations’.27 From accounts of this form of oath in the world of the steppe, it is clear that the significance of cutting the dog apart lay in wishing its fate on the party who broke the oath.28 Later on, as the Cumans integrated into local society, their particular form of oath was no longer practised: in 1279, when their representatives were obliged to promise solemnly in front of the papal legate Philip and the king of Hungary to observe certain forms of behaviour (including accepting baptism and settling down), there is no mention of such an oath.29 Both instances are significant. During the initial period of their immigration into the kingdom, they retained their own form of oath and promised allegiance to a Christian king through that oath; that is, their incorporation was expressed through their own custom, and consisted of allegiance to a ruler while retaining their own social and legal structure. This form of integration into a polity was what steppe nomads were accustomed to. Later on, however, as part of

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their further integration, they had to give up many of their traditions, including that of a type of oath abhorrent to Christians, and adopt the customs and religion of the host society. The incorporation of ‘pagans’ who were expected to convert was different from that of Jews and Muslims, whose religion was recognised by Christians. For the latter two groups, although conversion was often encouraged, it was not an obligation that was imposed on them in the same way as on the Cumans. A separate form of oath existed for the Jews as well. In this case, however, it was not simply a question of the Jews retaining their own forms of oath; in addition, there was a concern from a Christian perspective of ensuring that the oath Jews would take would be reliable. Given the background of deteriorating relations between Christians and Jews in much of Europe, with the mounting of Christian prejudice and persecution, it is not surprising that in many parts of Europe new forms of Jewish oaths were devised. Although they existed from the early Middle Ages on, oath formulas became more common from the late twelfth century. Christian authorities wanted to ensure that Jews, routinely described as perfidious by Christian authors, would take an oath that was truly binding. Apart from swearing on their own scripture, elaborate self-curses and ritual were added to the Jewry-oath in many parts of Europe in order to ensure this goal was met.30 In Hungary, however, the Jewish oath seems not to have incorporated the humiliating elements added in many other areas. The privileges King Béla IV granted to the Jews of Hungary in 1251 exempted them from swearing on the Torah for insignificant matters (it was up to the king to decide whether they had to swear). Although the text of the oath was not specified in the privileges, and does not survive from the thirteenth century, the privileges do state that the oath was to be taken super libris Moysi qui rodale appellatur, that is on Jewish scripture, which was usually designated as a roll, to distinguish it from the book format of the Gospels.31 A fifteenth-century oath formula in Hungary was still devoid of degrading elements; it was only in the sixteenth century that, as a result of German influences, humiliating clauses were added to the Jewry oath in the kingdom.32 The Jewish oath in Hungary, then, shows that the Jews lived in the kingdom as an accepted minority, and that suspicion and persecution in the mid-thirteenth century did not reach the levels it did in many Western areas. Muslims lived in the kingdom of Hungary as a small minority. We have fewer sources on them than on the Jews, and it is impossible to know whether there was a specific oath formula that pertained to Muslims. They appear, however, in three cases of litigation that came before the canons of Várad.33 This in itself is interesting, because the canons administered and recorded cases of ordeal, which usually were not applied to non-Christians.34 In all three cases Muslims (Ysmaelitae) accused Christians: one accusation is

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Oath-taking in Hungary 47 not recorded, the other two concerned theft. The accuser in one case was an individual, in the other cases groups. One case was decided by a settlement reached before a royal judge: in this instance the Muslim accuser received a payment, although it was less than he had originally demanded. The other two cases were decided by the ordeal of hot iron, which led to the exculpation of the accused in one case and their being burnt and thus declared guilty in the other. In the case that ended in a settlement, the Muslim accuser acted alone. In the two other instances, however, which actually did proceed to ordeal, the Muslim accusers were supported by others – they acted coadiuvantibus aliis. This may indicate the presence of oath-helpers.35 The Muslims of Hungary, then, at least as accusers, had access to a specifically Christian form of trial, ordeals. Forms of oaths differed not simply for the non-Christian minorities: we find a diverse set of formulas at every level of society, even including its pinnacle. Oaths appeared early in the Christian kingdom of Hungary, at least in the laws; they are alluded to already in the first surviving legislation – King István (Stephen) I’s laws. According to these laws, those who commit perjury are to be punished by the amputation of a hand unless they can redeem it by a fixed number of steers.36 This text already states that it concerns the powerful as well as the commoners (although the number of steers to be given by the two categories differ). Oaths varied according to the nature of the case: for example, the number of oath-helpers was determined according to the value of the disputed land or the damage caused, or according to the amount of the wergild or the seriousness of the crime in criminal cases.37 The oath of different status-groups (for example nobles or serfs) had a different weight.38 The place and manner of taking oaths varied as well: the most common, but by no means only, form was oaths taken in church, touching the altar or relics.39 In charters, various cases of different types of oaths among Christians can be found. A good example comes from 1236, when the abbot of a Benedictine monastery with two brothers had to swear that a piece of land rightfully belonged to the monastery: they did so by laying their hand on the Benedictine Rule – super librum regularum sancti Benedicti manus imponentes. In addition, two of the monastery’s serfs swore standing on the disputed land itself, putting earth on their head – super predicta terra stantes et terram super capita eorum ponentes.40 The latter type of oath, involved in decisions about boundary disputes, crops up several times in the sources.41 In 1288, King László (Ladislas) IV granted members of the church of Esztergom the right to swear on the extent of damages without the necessity of obtaining other testimony.42 Many groups had the right to take oaths in a specific church or chapel, for example, in the local monastic church.43 Some members of the elite swore in the royal chapel.44 Prelates wore their full ecclesiastical dress.45

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Royal oaths are mentioned without specifying the details, for example that of Béla IV in 1263 to keep the peace with his son István after civil wars.46 Kings swore in front of papal legates several times over the course of the thirteenth century. This was often on the Gospels, one of the standard forms of oath-taking in medieval Europe. For example, in 1233, András (Andrew) II took the oath of Bereg on the Gospels. His son Béla (IV) as younger king took a similar oath in the same year to the papal legate James, touching the Gospels, tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis, and also had a charter written, sealed with a golden bull, to keep an agreement together with his father.47 László IV in 1279 took a solemn oath on the Gospels to keep the articles dictated by the papal legate Philip concerning the Cumans – sollemniter promisimus et iuravimus ad sacrosancta dei evangelia.48 Even oaths in front of a papal legate, however, could be more complex. In one of his letters to King László IV, dated 9 December 1279, Pope Nicholas III reminded the king that he had promised super Altare, tactis evangeliis that he would obey the legate. Concerning the policy he promised to implement about the Cumans, he first solemnly swore in front of the cross at the altar, and then also swore pledging his royal faith according to the Hungarian custom – coram ligno crucis solempniter in Altari primo, et iterum Regia fide data Ungarico more iurasti.49 Further on, the papal letter elaborates on the latter form of oath – per manum dextram, Regia fide data, Ungarico more similiter, . . . tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis iurasti. This has been interpreted as shaking hands,50 an interpretation that lacks foundation in the text. The Hungarian custom referred to by the pope has to do with the king giving his royal promise. The pope probably understood László IV’s pledge as fitting into a series of promises made by Hungarian rulers either at the time of their coronation or at some other time during a king’s reign, which were also accompanied by the promulgation of a royal charter (such as the Golden Bull of 1222). This interpretation is buttressed by the fact that King László IV, in his earlier oath that year which the pope referred to, mentioned the oaths of previous kings of Hungary.51 The precise gesture made with the right hand is not explained, but parallels of status-group specific gestures can be found in Hungarian documents. For example, members of another group, ecclesiastics, took oaths putting their (right) hand on their breast when taking an oath – manum suam dextram super pectus suum faciendo – as described in fourteenth-century sources.52 Coronation oaths of Hungarian kings are known to have existed from at least the late twelfth century on, but detailed data is only available starting at the end of the thirteenth century. The coronation oath in the later medieval period meant swearing with the hands on a coronation cross (when the custom started is unkown). Its content came to include guaranteeing the privileges of the church and of nobles, and promising to uphold justice and the integrity of the kingdom. It differed from ecclesiastical oaths taken by

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Oath-taking in Hungary 49 Hungarian kings, which were sworn with the hand on the Bible.53 Royal oaths per fidem regiam are also mentioned in the later Middle Ages.54 These texts from Hungary provide a window on a society that incorporated different groups and different customs. Oaths, because they had to be seen by others as binding on the oath-taker, are key evidence concerning social interaction. They attest to the perceptions concerning the status and reliability of various groups and individuals and indicate the measures that were seen as appropriate to ensure that the oath could be accepted. It is clear that people of different status-groups sometimes took oaths on different objects. Whereas swearing on the altar, on a cross or on a relic was suitable for everyone, other objects were appropriate for members of certain groups. In this way, Benedictine monks swearing on their Rule were seen as fulfilling the criteria of reliability. Groups adhering to another religion might have their own oaths, as did the Jews, but could also be incorporated, at least as accusers, into the system of ordeals, as Muslims. A group undergoing a process of imposed religious change, the Cumans, experienced that transformation partially through the loss of their own form of oath. Finally, even for rulers, a particular form of oath existed in addition to the usual ones, pledging their royal faith to fulfil a promise. Oath-taking therefore mirrors the complexity of social interaction in medieval Hungary: the religion, social status and perceived reliability of the oath-taker, as well as the context and object of the oath, all played a part in determining the exact form of each oath.

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5

Conrad II’s theatrum rituale Wipo on the earliest deeds of the Salian ruler (Gesta Chuonradi imperatoris cap. 5) Jacek Banaszkiewicz

Over the past 15 years there has been a significant rise in interest among medieval historians in those stories, or chroniclers’ accounts, which confirm our increasingly widespread conviction that medieval political and social realities functioned thanks to periodic rejuvenation effected by an omnipresent ritualised practice – a practice that varied in its form and meaning, and that was proscribed by certain scenarios, of which both parties to a particular act were aware. Scholars have, so to speak, luxuriated in the sheer wealth of pertinent material which, as they realise, remains at their disposal. Out of this mass of material are carefully extracted all the fragments containing descriptions of some act performed by the protagonist (or protagonists) in an event (or a sequence of events); with a conviction that such activity, even if it does not constitute a rite that was actually used in the past, must at least, on first principles, have been subject during that past to then-binding forms of social conduct.1 Thus, while receiving from medieval historians those pictures of human behaviour, one would be supposed to get the then-practised rituals, or staging, whereby members of the community accomplished their goals – or (to put this as generally as possible) whereby they communicated with one another in a process of social interaction. The hunt in the material of medieval narrative sources for such ritual-laden (or such thickly-staged) stories has led to a rather unceremonious extraction, out of the narrative corpus, of such examples, or ‘ritual morsels’, as if they themselves were able to justify their substantive message and brought-into-being reality – without the need to relate their content to the contextual scope of a work in its entirety, or to other narrative productions which resemble the work.2 The compositional and literary background of such staged, ritualised pieces – or their narrative shape, a shape which is always authorially imposed, ‘fake’, and indeed related to a meta-verbal reality to an entirely unknown degree – such questions are, in the course of this hunt, of secondary importance. After all, we are concerned here with practices which really did happen in the Middle

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Conrad II’s theatrum rituale 51 Ages! Such considerations become entirely unimportant when we also offer ourselves this kind of luxury – as, indeed, Hans Kurt Schulze has done in his treatment of a certain passage by Wipo about Conrad II, and about an event immediately preceding Conrad’s enthronement – a passage which forms the specific material for our inquiry.3 This interestingly constructed and appealing little story has attracted much attention recently, and this not merely in biographical treatments of the first Salian monarch.4 Before we take a closer look at it, let us return for a moment to Schulze and to (as I would call it) the programmatic exclamation with which Schulze summed up the image conveyed by this story: Wipo war Augenzeuge. To be sure (Schulze further observes), Conrad II’s court chaplain might have slightly embellished the circumstances, but surely he did not simply fabricate, or make up, the core event itself. Obviously (Schulze adds), that event was arranged as a stage play!5 By means of that latter statement, Schulze defends the empirical value of this little tale – a tale which, as we will shortly see, seems incredible even at first glance. Nevertheless, even though the sequence of events described by Wipo does not, on its own terms and ‘in the natural scheme of things’, seem to be part of a historical reality, it becomes that reality provided we assume that it was arranged as a stage play by medieval orchestrators. Wipo had seen those events, and so his description conveys reality – slightly embellished perhaps, but reality nevertheless. It is a pity that Schulze did not present the possible reservations concerning that reality. All in all, the sequence of events – which is also classified by other scholars as a staging, a mise-en-scène, a theatre of political propaganda – is fully a part of the history of Conrad II, and of history in general. It is time to look, at long last, at the only actual piece of reality at our disposal: the short story by Wipo to which we have been referring. Wipo viewed this story as a narrative account of several acts performed by King Conrad right at the outset of his royal career. For the author, for the story in its entirety, and for the sequence of the events described in the story, the placement of Conrad’s deeds during the initial period of his position as king is of crucial importance. Wipo, as he himself put it, was telling a story de primis gestis Chuonradi regis, but, strictly speaking, those deeds belong to a time that is even more extraordinary and important.6 In the story, Conrad is the king-elect who has just travelled from Kamba and arrived at Mainz, in order to receive in the local cathedral of Saint Martin the royal anointment and the fullness of power over the country. This spatio-temporal placement of the circumstances comprising Wipo’s story is underscored emphatically and brought into the foreground by the narrator. Twice, in close sequence, Wipo conveys to us the extraordinary context of the accomplishments of Conrad’s rule; these accomplishments occur in ipsa die consecrationis [Chuonradi],

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and in ipsa processione regis, precisely as the king is in transit to the cathedral and the consecration ceremonies. What, then, had Conrad done to prompt historians today to assert that the king’s anoinment was preceded by a staging? And, to have prompted Wipo himself to document those very first gesta performed by the ruler, licet parva videantur? The king, together with the entourage, moved toward the cathedral. At that point, Wipo wrote, he was approached by three persons, each with a separate claim and with an individual complaint. Of the petitioners, one was a peasant of the church of Mainz, another was an unspecified orphan and the third was a woman described only as a widow. Conrad began to listen to the problems these three people brought to him. At that time, some of the accompanying princes tried to pull him away from the little group, urging him not to delay his anointment, but to take part in the church ceremony at the due time. The king-elect directed his answer not to those great lords, but to the bishops who were also present near him. ‘Because I am assuming royal office’, he said, ‘and because a worthy man never abandons that which ought to be done rightly, it seems more appropriate to me to do what I ought, than to hear what I ought to do from someone else.’ He enhanced this ‘all-wise’, rhetorically charged locution with additional truths, which he directed to those luminaries in his entourage who were urging him on. He observed that ‘I remember how you have often said that most worthy of admiration are not those who study the law, but those who carry it out. And if, as you maintain, there is a need to hurry so that the anointment ceremonies may be completed, then the more fully I know that I am approaching a great dignity, the more circumspectly I ought to strengthen my steps along the path of God’s work.’ Thus Conrad, in his own words. On his side, Wipo continued the story, and, from the narrator’s viewpoint, reported the subsequent events, comprising the episode in its entirety. The chronicler noted that, as he was uttering these words, Conrad remained in the same spot where the claimants had approached him: ‘He paused on his way and resolved their cases, according to the law.’ But this is not the end of our story. Wipo continued his tale about the final moments that preceded Conrad’s royal anointment. Just as the king finished with the three petitioners, and moved forward a bit, a fourth claimant appeared. At this point, we learn the exact nature of the grievance for which this next man to place himself upon the trajectory of the king’s advance was seeking a remedy. He had been (he assured the king) expelled from his homeland, through no fault of his own. What follows is discernible, strictly speaking, not to Wipo, but to us. As he had done with the earlier three petitioners for royal justice, Conrad displayed great patience and understanding with the fourth; but in this case, the king acted differently than he had done with the others. We know this because the chronicler tells us that ‘[t]he king took [the

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Conrad II’s theatrum rituale 53 fourth claimant] by the hand, led him through the crowd past the bystanders and up to the throne, and there caringly entrusted the case of this unfortunate to one of his princes.’ This report by Wipo, and this act by Conrad, conclude the description (and the enumeration) of the deeds performed by the ruler immediately before the application of the royal chrism in the cathedral. The narration at this point sets the scene for a whole series of rhetorical flourishes of delight with Conrad’s actions, interlaced with interpretations of the symbolic systems employed by the king, and of the prophetic significance of his behaviour. There is a recurrence of the problem (persistent in Wipo’s account of the ruler-elect’s initial acts) of the Salian’s haste – or, should I say, absence of haste – in the pursuit of the royal office. Wipo writes, ‘He was afraid to rush [to obtain the crown], lest he fail to attain the true majesty of king.’ After a while, and after noting how praiseworthy it is – inter nova gaudia, and inter deliciosa regis ministeria – to hear the cries of so many unfortunates and to bring their cases to a conclusion, Wipo again belaboured the idea of Conrad’s unhasty assumption of the supreme position in the state.7 In his propagandistic zeal, Wipo did not deny himself the opportunity to drive this point home in full. Even before he received the anointment and took a seat upon the throne, Conrad acted in exemplary fashion – consistent, we might say, with the prescribed, normative pattern. He was attentive to complaints by precisely those categories of people who deserved the king’s (and the Church’s) protection as a matter of principle. For centuries, one of the fundamental truths of medieval ‘social science’ had been the proposition that priests, along with the most vulnerable social groups – widows, orphans, and newcomers or ‘foreigners’ – merited a special degree of protection by the ruler.8 Because Conrad’s ‘pre-coronation snapshot’ appears to be, in every inch, so good and accurate, and because it is difficult to imagine that in the course of a ceremony which was this dignified (that is to say, at a time when everyone among the aristocrats wished to be seen in the proximity of the person who was about to become king), as many as four low-status persons could have achieved access to Conrad, historians are compelled, or at least prefer, to speak about these events as a mise-en-scène. This reading allows historians to overcome the quaint, artificial character of the entire affair. One may then also disregard all the illogicality of the narrated action, and all its conspicuous moments of incoherence – including, among others, the fact that at the beginning Wipo had his protagonist, who was supposedly reluctant to assume power, rapidly proceed from the assembly field to Mainz in order to complete the required ceremonies; and including the fact that later in the story, as the narration assumes an explicitly didactic purpose, Wipo delayed the ruler-elect’s entrance into Saint Martin’s cathedral.9

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At present, we claim that in the study of narrative representations made by chroniclers there is little value in interpreting the text by relating the events described in it to that readily and easily invoked construct called historical reality; this is especially true if we think that that latter mirage is an entity which can be objectively apprehended.10 The distortion inflicted upon the flow of events by the eye of the observer, and subsequently by the observer’s semantic repertoire, whereby the perceived phenomena are reduced into words and subjected to ‘meta-historical’ rules of narration, are so varied, complicated and difficult to grasp that an attempt to nail down the text of the story with the simple questions – did the narrated story happen, or did it not? and, if we are in doubt, what did in fact occur? – usually lead us not to the desired historical facts, but into a cognitive muddle. Therefore, without pretending to verify the facts conveyed by Wipo’s narration sub specie historiae, let us examine the structure of the plot, and of the events described by the chronicler in their entirety. Concerning our story, others (as we have noted above) have already observed that, in view of the selection of the place, and especially of the time, of Conrad’s deeds, the story assumes a special significance, in the sense that it foreshadows the kingelect’s successful governance in the future. Yet it is worth noting that the most important move – a device deliberately intended to build up suspense in the story, and to generate its most important ideas – is the placement of the protagonist in a situation where he must decide to take on a certain obligatory role – even a role of a kind that, for formal reasons, he ought not to undertake – a role in which this decision exposes him to the risk of various inconveniences, including serious danger. In Conrad’s case, as presented by Wipo, the intrigue is crafted with exceptional skill. By assuming, before due time, the obligations of a king and of a just judge, Conrad deprived himself of the ability to become an ‘ordinary’ ruler; although – only for a time, to be sure – he placed his own royal future in suspension.11 These self-delaying behaviours by Conrad in the course of his progression toward royal power – so meticulously displayed and ideologically interpreted by the narrating chronicler, as we have seen – remind us of a frequent situational outcome under similar circumstances, namely cases when the protagonist confronts an inescapable requirement to assume power. As Roger Collins notes, the future ruler or bishop, pressed by the electors or by the community that wishes to have him as leader, usually, and consistent with a standardised political rhetoric, tries in various ways to postpone the moment of assumption of high office.12 With Charlemagne, the subject of Collins’s book, this ‘refusal of power’ assumed the form of a somewhat delayed afterthought by the Frankish king concerning the event that had just transpired in Saint Peter’s basilica on Christmas Day. ‘Had I known what the pope intended – that he would bestow upon me the imperial dignity – I would not have entered the

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Conrad II’s theatrum rituale 55 church, even on the greatest holiday.’ This is how, in Einhard’s view, Charles excused himself: as a person overwhelmed by ‘unwanted’ power.13 Saul, the first king of Israel, hid in his house when Samuel and the people sought to endow him with kingship.14 The Visigothic king, Wamba, resisted accepting the crown so categorically that he had to be threatened with beheading. Others who had been selected by Providence – chosen as leaders of their people from on high – also procrastinated in their acceptances of the regal offer – an offer that caused the poor egg-trader Dagobert to deploy elaborate attempts at evasion. Meanwhile, Ine – who was, likewise by a higher dispensation, selected rex citra Humbram – was detained in the village hut, and discouraged from travelling to the royal palace, by his father and by the local community, who feared for his safety. John Agnus, who kept his distance from high politics, was also not eager to assume high office – in his, case the bishopric of Maastricht. He agreed to God’s verdict only after observing that his candidacy had universal support.15 We could surely add more examples of reluctance to assume the highest power; yet the above suffice to situate Conrad’s leisurely path to power, punctuated by delays required for the pronouncement of judgments about his subjects, within a highly adaptable but widespread canon of political rhetoric: the trope of a ‘refusal of power’. The literary effectiveness of the application of this canon in this particular story stems, in our opinion, from the fact that the absence of haste to assume power by the protagonist (who, by the way, did not specifically flinch from the royal dignity) does not merely serve, as is usually the case in the cited examples, to highlight the elect’s exceptional modesty – an absence of a lust for power – but in addition it has a constructive value: the candidate for the crown promptly and convincingly displays his excellent practical qualifications for the performance of the highest office. He acts like a true king, although he has not yet received the full mandate to do so. An ordinary (though, to be sure, successful) rulerelect would have gone through the expected ceremonies rapidly, and, as we hear from Thegan about Louis the Pious, would immediately upon assuming power turn precisely to those tasks which, as it were, occupied Conrad’s attention prematurely.16 Two centuries before Wipo composed Conrad’s gesta, Thegan, the auxiliary bishop of Trier, produced, in writing, a paradigmatic image of what a perfect king ought to do after being formally vested in power.17 Several months before his death, Charlemagne admitted his son Louis to power, so that when the great emperor was gone it ought to have been enough for his son to hasten from Aquitaine to the palace in Aachen, and assume his predecessor’s throne. And yet, what deeds opened the new monarch’s reign? We find that, very rapidly, Louis demanded a viewing of the treasure (or treasures) accumulated by the predecessor. Next, we hear that he divided those goods among his sisters;

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that he sent part of them to the pope; and that he dedicated another part to prayer for his father’s soul. Out of the remainder – and this sensitivity of the king as benefactor is of special interest to us – he made gifts to the priests, the poor, travellers or foreigners, widows and orphans.18 Louis embarked upon other courses of action, which the biographer used to illustrate the modes whereby, during the interval that followed his assumption of power, Charlemagne’s son convinced his subjects that he was an authentic and good lord of the community.19 Suffice it to say that this sequence of actions originating Louis’s rule closed with an inquiry – ordered by him, apparently addressed to the relatively poor, low-status social groups, and intended to discover a wide range of misconduct committed in the past.20 To carry out this task, envoys were sent to all the kingdoms subject to Louis, and the ruler ordered that anyone able to prove having suffered a damage immediately be allowed to appear before the king in person. By virtue of this procedure, the community’s top leader and the wretched victim might encounter one another, so that justice was served.21 Thegan noted that the envoys did discover a huge population aggrieved by local officials and counts. More specifically, he reported two categories of transgression by agents of royal power – forced seizures of patrimony, and subjections of poor but free persons to servile status – suggesting here that these transgressions must have been especially frequent, and acutely felt.22 Thus, the newly-minted ruler had a good opportunity to advertise himself as a just judge, sensitive to the misfortunes of the poor. However, like Wipo, other biographers had their protagonists acting in an official capacity, and putting their best foot forward – before, strictly speaking, the time for so doing had arrived. Suetonius wrote about Vespasian that, ever since assuming the principate, that emperor kept to the following constant daily schedule. He rose early, before dawn, and got down to work. He read letters and reports from his officials. As soon as he completed those tasks, he admitted friends into his presence. As they were greeting him, he was still putting on his shoes and getting dressed.23 In other words, Vespasian was commencing his public, official performance as emperor on each successive day of his reign, prior to assuming the full posture appropriate to the ruler, a posture that constituted rulership. During these moments, he was emerging from a zone of personal privacy, which he had not quite left yet, while already acting as emperor. To be sure, the emperor’s audience were his friends – a group that was specifically allowed contact with him while he was in the course of assuming the full imperial dignity. Nevertheless, Charlemagne’s conduct shows that, even during the time when the ruler was entering the formally-differentiated role of community leader, he may already discharge the duties of kingship with complete dedication. Without a doubt, Einhard trumped Suetonius; Einhard’s protagonist not

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Conrad II’s theatrum rituale 57 only admitted friends to himself as he was dressing and putting on his shoes, but, right in those very same moments of transition (or, to put it differently, of his authentication of himself as emperor), he discharged, when needed, an extremely important responsibility of kingship. We hear that putting on shoes and getting dressed did not prevent Charles from adjudicating a legal case that required his intervention. Whenever the count palatine encountered a case of that kind, the emperor immediately ordered the parties to be brought into the royal chamber, and ‘as if sitting on a judgment seat, examined the matter and pronounced a verdict’.24 In the context of these two stories, the subject of the ruler putting on or removing his shoes is especially notable. Here and in other sources, this act most effectively and vividly depicted the moment of the protagonist’s passage across the boundary of personal privacy, and entrance into (or out of) the zone of public power.25 Gerhard of Augsburg gives us an anecdote, quite touching in this regard, about the bishop of Augsburg, Saint Udalric. When this man of austere habits was in his advanced years, after completing mass he never went to bed before dusk. Moreover, in order to prevent himself from resting before the appropriate time, he remained sitting in his chair with his shoes on; and so, the biographer notes, as he waited for the right time to go to sleep, he suffered, nodding now to the right, now to the left, until he finally collapsed against the backrest of the cathedral throne.26 Charlemagne had no such inhibitions. We know that during the summer, after an afternoon meal, he routinely prepared dessert for himself, and removed himself from official circulation for a few hours. Einhard shows us how Charles habitually freed himself from imperial routine: the king ‘got undressed and removed his shoes as if for the night’.27 Within the narrative contexts in which we are now interested, the ruler’s act of removal or putting on his shoes is thus a clue to a particular valorisation of time, and to a particular valorisation of the events that occur before or after that act – in the same way as Conrad II’s activities are valorised by the caesura of the ceremony of his ascension to royal office. If the king is without shoes – and, moreover, undressed – and yet wishes to assume the responsibilities that await him just past the threshhold of the royal chamber; if the protagonist does not yet have the royal chrism, and yet does not concern himself above all with that chrism, but takes on the royal responsibilities instead – then, in every such case, we are dealing with a perfect ruler. The story about Conrad II which interests us here finds narrative reworkings, or analogies, not merely on the level of structure and meaning. In addition, we have accounts which – as they employ narrative outcomes where the main protagonist places his obligations ahead of all the consequences that threaten him as a result of that choice – bring to life a reality which is similar, in terms of its staging, to the reality we know from Wipo’s story. As

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he sketched out the history of the Piast dynasty ruling Poland, Gallus the Anonymous (the chronicler, or more properly the author of the deeds of his lord, Duke Bolesław the Wrymouth, active in Poland during the first quarter of the twelfth century, but undoubtedly educated in the West), discussed, among other subjects, one of that dynasty’s most outstanding members, Bolesław the Brave.28 In Gallus’s hands, Bolesław takes on the full proportions of creator of the greatness of the Polish kingdom; his reign constitutes a golden age. Gallus treated this ruler in several distinct passages, which, in conjunction, attest to this actor’s extraordinary traits. Among them was the Polish king’s immense sense of justice, coupled with humility. The representation of these two traits takes the form of a lengthy story. The starting point of the plot is Gallus’s assertion that ‘whenever a poor peasant or an ordinary modest woman brought a complaint against some prince or count, Bolesław did not budge from where he was until he heard out the case with which those poor people had approached him’.29 We hear that the ruler acted in this way habitually, even when he was otherwise preoccupied with important responsibilities, and when he was surrounded by a crowd of aristocrats and knights. There was more: as he attentively listened ‘to the complaint of some poor wretch’, he immediately ordered that an official be sent to fetch the accused. This part of Bolesław’s portrait – a just judge, and a defender of the oppressed – corresponds well to the image of Conrad II that we owe to Wipo. Explicitly, and quite similarly, both stories describe the price paid by every ruler for his desire to be, with no reservation whatever, a lord who delivers justice to even his most ordinary subjects. The pressure and the splendour of the aristocrats in attendance on the ruler, and the burden of state responsibilites weighing upon him, are confronted with an ideal: an ideal so obviously stipulatory and theoretical as the right to royal justice, enjoyed by even the most base, abject individual. Both kings, as we know, rose to the occasion, as expected; yet, what we learn from the two plots is that it was Bolesław who better fulfilled his obligations – or, that it was Gallus who presented the key event better than Wipo had done. After admonishing his companions not to disturb him in the activity he had undertaken, Conrad attended to the petitioners. However, the ‘trials’ were one-sided: the defendants – that is to say, the persons at fault in the three victims’ misfortunes – were absent. Strictly speaking, we do not know why Conrad treated the fourth complainant differently from the other three, and why he needed to drag him all the way before the royal throne, there only to place the case in the hands of one of his princes. Was he unable to resolve the case quickly himself, as he had done in the previous cases? Even if he suddenly began to hurry, the act of ‘meticulously entrusting’ the complaint to one of the princes must have been time-consuming. We are quarrying this episode of Conrad’s judgment quite intensively even

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Conrad II’s theatrum rituale 59 though we fully realise that, on the basis of similar conjectures, historians may augment their connection to an extra-narrative reality in a whole variety of ways. Yet we also have Bolesław, who – according to Gallus’s vignette – right after familiarising himself with the claim of the poor man or woman who had approached him, set in motion a full-fledged trial for the victim. As we have seen, the ruler immediately summoned the high-status accused to appear; and he entrusted the low-status plaintiff to a reliable royal companion, something that Conrad had done only in the case of the final, fourth petitioner. From this point onward, the legal case proceeded along a routine course. Gallus also informs us that after the high-status accused appeared, the caretaker of the case, and of the impoverished plaintiff, routinely reminded the ruler about the trial. The accused magnate arrived at the court promptly, just as the king had ordered him to do in the summons; he did not disregard the date of trial set by Bolesław. In turn, the king gave the accused dignitary a friendly welcome, showing the accused no dislike, but instead inviting him to the royal table. Legal proceedings took place only on the second or the third day since the accused lord’s arrival. Our story does not end with the message that, in confrontation with a rich man, the poor man is always right. The idea which informs the chronicler’s entire tale points us in a different direction: Bolesław the Brave, Gallus tells us, treated a case of a poor man exactly as he would treat a case of ‘some great prince’. When the king stood in judgment, it was not the position of the person but the merits of the controversy that mattered.30 As we look at the stories of Conrad and Bolesław – stories of two just kings and judges – we note that in Gallus’s narration the accused is treated with a higher degree of respect. In the face of the damage he allegedly inflicts upon the poor, the wealthy accused does not, as a generic type, suddenly morph into an evil official-culprit – a literary device which, had it been used, would have fictionalised this story even further. Likewise, the activities whereby Bolesław the Brave sought to deliver justice to the people who sought it are shown in fuller detail than is the case with Wipo’s narration about Conrad. In Wipo’s story, the actors against whom the accusations were lodged are not specified, even in the broadest terms. The weak are oppressed by the strong: this truism suffices for Wipo in the creation of the incident discussed here. Wipo treated the process of delivery of justice (an important subject, after all) with a similar superficiality: wham, bam, and presto, the widow, the orphan and the rustic all receive what they have sought. Surely, as we oscillate between these two stories, we do not wish to prove that one is more realistic (‘truthful’) than the other. We merely wish to note that Wipo’s example belongs to a certain genre of expressing, by means of a tale, the idea of an ‘industrious, dutiful’ ruler; an idea which included, above all, doing justice. Conrad’s biographer used this particular narrative structure;

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he developed his literary invention in that portion of his presentation where the protagonist was subjected to a severe test, the purpose of which was to ascertain whether, under adverse conditions, the protagonist would confirm that he was a good ruler, sensitive to the misfortune of his subjects. On the other hand, even though Gallus put this structural, situational asset to good use in his story about Bolesław, he shifted the core focus of the story onto the technical side of delivering royal justice to those who were at the lowest rungs of society and had been harmed by the wealthy. The impact of the story about the just king upon the reader presumably increased as a function of the effectiveness with which the tension between the ruler’s need to do justice to the poor, and the objective difficulties that hampered the ruler in the performance of that role, was resolved. In this regard, let us turn to one more account which belongs to the same family of stories. This account seems to enhance the other stories with a new element, the blueprint of intrigue – intrigue that compels the ruler, under very adverse circumstances, to come to grips with his obligation as a judge who does justice to the poor. We are referring to the story concerning Emperor Trajan included in the vita of Gregory the Great written by a certain monk of Whitby. The vita was most probably written in the first decade of the eighth century, while the anecdote concerning the emperor is included among Gregory’s miracle stories.31 Thus we hear that Trajan was hastily leading out an army prepared to fight an enemy, when suddenly ‘the ruler of the entire world’ brought the march to a halt out of pity for one widow. She complained to the emperor that right there, among the troops, were the people who had killed her son, and who did not wish to compensate her for the heinous crime. ‘When I return’, Trajan replied, ‘bring the case before me, and I will cause them to compensate you for your harm.’ But the widow demanded a more prompt disposal of her complaint, saying, ‘If you do not return from the campaign, no one will help me.’ At this point, right there on the spot, without removing his military gear, the emperor turned, for a moment, into a judge, and caused the culprits to pay the widow, in his presence, compensatory damages for the boy’s death. Some centuries later, Dante used the same little story to illustrate the trait of humility – which was so important to rulers – plus an additional royal trait which we know well, namely the willingness to treat justly even the least important subjects.32 Indeed, the Poet assures us that he is showing us only one of three reliefs, carved in the rock of the first terrace of Purgatory, in the place where people who have been excessively vain during their lives are now doing penance for the sin of pride. The set design of the event remains unchanged. A great army has set out for war, cavalry troops are everywhere, banners with golden eagles flap in the wind – and yet some poor little widow, who had somehow found herself

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Conrad II’s theatrum rituale 61 in the midst of this martial gathering, causes the emperor to pause as a result of her complaint. She asks Trajan to do justice to her, as compensation for her son, who had been deprived of his life. A dialogue between the two ensues. It does not differ from the dialogue we have noted in the story described a moment ago, except that it exceeds that dialogue by one additional exchange of utterances between the woman and the emperor. This time, the aggrieved woman compelled Trajan to action by means of the following rhetorical question: ‘What good will come to you from your successor’s good deed if you yourself forget to do good, to fulfil your obligations?’ Trajan once again decided to attend to the widow’s complaint immediately. Moreover, he gave a justification for that decision: ‘This is required by justice; moreover, mercy compels me to pause.’33 Similarly, compassion compelled the Czech ruler, Spitignev (substituted by the chronicler Cosmas in the role of Trajan), to interrupt a military campaign for the duration of a ducal trial.34 In this, ‘Slavic’ version of the incident, the stage setting for the course of events is less splendid than it later became with Dante. Nevertheless, we do hear that the Přemyslid ruler had been on the march with the army, and ‘with the insignia raised’, for almost one full day, and that at this point a widow approached Spitignev, lamenting and crying, and sought his protection from a menacing enemy. The whole picture is well situated within the realities of time and place by the chronicler’s observation that, as she sought to attract the duke’s attention to herself and her case, the widow intensely and repeatedly kissed Spitignev’s feet. Thus, she must have been running, for some time, on one side of the ruler’s horse; and must have placed the imploring kisses not, strictly speaking, on his feet, but on one of his legs, resting in a stirrup. Thereafter, she continued to follow Spitignev’s horse. These were the circumstances in which the dialogue just noted between the ruler and the widow took place. The widow used the same argument which, as we learn from Dante, persuaded Trajan: ‘Spitignev, if for a good deed you are able to receive a reward from God, why do disregard that reward?’ Accordingly, the duke interrupted the military expedition, presided over a trial and, by means of a just verdict, protected the widow from her enemy. Next, the chronicler drew out the moral and ideological underpinnings of this story (or, rather, of this narrated historical event), in order to laud and celebrate Spitignev as an exceptionally splendid ruler: father of the clergy, protector of widows.35 Cosmas juxtaposed the mercy shown by this Přemyslid (one of those Czech rulers whom he viewed as models of good rule) against the pompous pride characteristic of the lords of Prague.36 Our short story – which is preceded by the news of Spitignev building a more impressive church in the Prague castle – closes an otherwise rather superficial treatment of Spitignev’s reign, infusing the narration with

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apologetic features, especially in conjunction with its reports about the prince’s piety. It is difficult to surmise who, among our protagonists, risked the most in the game of attaining the position of the ruler who was the most just, and the most sensitive to his subjects’ misfortunes. Was it Conrad, as he agreed to delay his own anointment? Was it Trajan, as he interrupted a military campaign right at its outset? In any event, it is worth noting here a pair of concepts which well reflect the main ideas implicit in those (and other) activities by rulers of interest here: iustitia and pietas. Although in his commentary about the events that transpired with the ruler-elect’s participation in front of the Mainz cathedral, Wipo did not explicitly, by that word, identify pietas as one of Conrad’s virtues, the reader clearly senses that the author did, in fact, attribute this trait to Conrad. Apart from Conrad’s expressly noted, and praised, sense of justice (iustitia), Wipo also wrote about his protagonist’s sense of compassion or mercy (studium miserationis).37 After all, in a similar situation – but one that took place in the cathedral – Conrad showed that, for a newly-enthroned ruler, the pietas regis (Wipo’s words!) was not a meaningless concept.38 Moved by the archbishop’s speech – which concluded with a plea for forgiveness of the transgressions inflicted upon the king by a certain Otto – Conrad, ‘touched by mercy, began to cry’. Moreover, he absolved not only Otto, but everyone who had transgressed against him in the period before he became king. Pietas and misericordia stand close to one another, and so the Whitby monk described Trajan as acting toward the widow misericorditer.39 Meanwhile, like the protagonists in the events that interest us here, Bolesław the Brave was, of course, motivated in his actions by iustitia – coupled, however, with humilitas.40 It is easy to prove that a modest and humble man is also filled with the fear of God, that is to say, with love; and that his conduct is informed by a tenderness and affection toward another. Therefore, pietas, humilitas and misericordia are located in a common semantic field, and the values represented by each are to a large degree interchangeable. Hagen Keller has observed precisely this kind of proximity between iustitia and misericordia. He has also put forward an argument, important for us and well-founded, that the coupling, in the form of a slogan, of these two virtues and values – iustitia et pietas – may also be viewed as an ideological motto chosen by Henry III, and intended as an advertisement for his rulership.41 In Keller’s view, the programme of royal conduct based on these two pillars matured, or perhaps became especially conspicuous, in the intellectual circles of Regensburg. What is especially interesting is its clear presence in Wipo’s work.42 Iustitia et pietas are also visible, indeed preeminent, in the ideological programmes of royal power reflected by the iconographical sources of this period, such as Henry III’s lectionary from Monte Cassino, or the Book of Pericopes compiled for the same ruler and kept in Bremen.43

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Conrad II’s theatrum rituale 63 At present, we neither wish nor are able to pursue this somewhat different subject – a project that would considerably broaden the field of our inquiry. Let us settle for the following conclusion. The first monarchs of the Salian dynasty used a potent propagandistic construct, which served to support their rule. It is even quite possible that Wipo himself actively participated in the formulation of that construct. Conrad II’s biographer presented the two scenes that opened the king’s reign precisely in the spirit of, so to speak, the flagship slogans conveying this set of ideas. He accomplished his mission by turning to a well-tested narrative script – updated, to be sure, with much ingenuity – which, for centuries, had served to manifest precisely the virtues of a ruler who was now put on the pedestal by the new dynasty. The tradition of seeking help directly from the ruler, above all in cases which were especially painful to the petitioner, was as old and venerable as royal office itself; it was always alive, as can also be noted for the later medieval period.44 The most suitable occasions for realising this undertaking were public, ‘festive’ appearances by the king, above all appearances initiating his reign – or appearances that served as replicas of that initiation, namely entries into the capital, or towns in general. Using a variety of methods, desperate and aggrieved people (as well as ordinary criminals) sought to attract the monarch’s attention in hope of a favourable resolution of their problems.45 This large population surely includes the four people who sought help from the new king, and whom we know from Wipo’s account. Yet, whatever may ‘truthfully’ have taken place at that moment when, on 8 October 1024, Conrad II progressed toward the Mainz cathedral, it is all in any event both overlaid and structured by the narrative – not by a rite, not by a staging, but by the narrative – which summons to life its own reality, ‘appropriately represented’.46

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6

The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education in the Polish Lands Jerzy Kłoczowski

We are becoming increasingly familiar with the organisation of the schools of the mendicant orders (the studia) between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. An important breakthrough in the study of this subject was the conference held at Todi in 1976, where an ambitious attempt was made to sketch out a broad, Europe-wide overview of these studia during the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries.1 On that occasion, one of today’s leading historians of the medieval European university, Jacques Verger, clearly demonstrated that we may speak of two parallel networks of advanced learning in the West in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: universities in the strict sense, which were assuming a definitive shape during the first half of the thirteenth century; and the mendicant studia – that is to say, the studia of the begging orders – which had been deeply enmeshed with the university world since the outset of the thirteenth century, or, more exactly, since the turn of the 1220s and 1230s.2 We may note, on the one hand, the close similarities between those two systems, their common university-based intellectual culture, and their resemblance in terms of mentalities and the basic approach to reality – and yet, on the other, their differences, understood institutionally, or related to the functions for which the university and the mendicant communities were designed. We should also recall that both systems were based on privileges and legal status granted by the supreme, universal power – the papacy. The connections between the two systems are related above all to the specific discipline, and faculty, which achieved primacy within the university community (above all in Paris, slightly later in Oxford and Cambridge) in the course of the thirteenth century – theology. The mendicant studia were meant to endow their students with a solid, fully university-level, theological formation. Because a prerequisite for studying this subject in universities was the prior completion of a department of liberal studies (the arts), the mendicants developed in their provinces a network of schools of the arts, intended to prepare the candidates for subsequent theological study.3 The Order of Preachers (the Dominican Order) was the first to establish its own system of

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The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education 65 studia, which in due course became a model for the other mendicant orders. Close research in recent years has shed additional light on how, right in the first years of the Order’s formation – indeed, while Dominic was still alive – the place of the studium (specifically including a university studium) was clearly defined in the life and the principles of the Order of Preachers. The earliest, painstakingly reconstructed constitutions of 1220 comprise the basis of a school system which was intensively expanded thereafter.4 We are also deepening our knowledge of the operation of this system in the Polish Dominican province – one of the original twelve provincial organisations of the Order, originating in the years 1222–5, during the early, ‘heroic’ years of this exceptionally dynamic and superbly organised monastic enterprise.5 The extant source base allows us relatively good insight into the fifteenth century; the documentation of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, however, is far sparser. And yet, in light of our current knowledge about the two-tiered system of higher learning which had existed since the thirteenth century, we confront a fundamental question: did the Dominican schoolsystem function in Poland, and, if so, how and when? And may we consider that system as the first symptom of the existence, in Poland, of the European framework of higher learning, as a legally-established institution, with its own, routinely implemented curriculum? In this context, we must not overlook the Friars Minor (the Franciscans), who simultaneously collaborated and competed with the Dominicans in Poland from the late 1230s onward.

1 Let us briefly recall the most important elements of the system of Dominican studia, and of their relationship to university studies. Each Dominican monastery was also a school, devoted to a permanent study of theology, and obligatory for all friars. In that capacity, the monastery was led by a teacher called a ‘lector’, who was required to have completed a four-year study of theology. In the monastery school, the vast majority of friars acquired the theological background needed for the performance of pastoral, preaching or confessional functions; thereafter, until the end of their lives, the friars were able draw on the schools for the intellectual, or the moral, support needed in their work. Indeed, they were obligated to take part in the courses designed for them. In other words, one feature of the Dominican school ever since its beginning was ‘continuing education’, so admired throughout the world today.6 In Paris, where they appeared in 1217, the Dominicans encountered a very strong institutional base of support within the emerging university. About a dozen years later, they had their own two monastic schools – chairs of theology, which were also a part of the theology department, with all

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the rights and privileges pertaining to that department. The Paris monastery of Saint James’s, superbly situated in the centre of the university quarter, became a studium-collegium intended to service all the provinces. Until as late as the second half of the fourteenth century, the Paris studium-collegium comprised the centre of the entire Dominican school system in Europe.7 It is worth recalling that it was precisely the mendicant convent-collegium, of which Saint James’s in Paris is an institutional prototype, which inspired the formation of the secular university collegia, beginning with Robert Sorbon’s collegium in the mid-thirteenth century. In time, the collegia came to assume a great importance in university life; right up to the present day, Oxford and Cambridge provide a vivid example of the enduring strength of this institution.8 On the initiative of the papacy, which was especially interested in the custody of and control over the development and the teaching of theology, Paris long retained a de facto monopoly in the conferral of professional degrees in theology, that is to say, the master’s title. Oxford, and slightly later Cambridge, had the same rights, but in practice the students who received degrees there were almost exclusively English.9 The monopoly enjoyed by Paris fully ended for all practical purposes only as a result of a grant of similar privileges to the university in Prague in 1347–8. After that grant, this process gradually began to affect more and more centres, both the old and the newly established.10 Every Dominican province was allowed to train a few of its students in Paris for a few years, and to do so across several generations – an arrangement which gave the Order an elite that was, relatively speaking, uniformly well-trained intellectually, and important in the maintenance of the organisation’s structure – a task which was quite difficult for a community this numerous and dispersed over hundreds of monasteries throughout the entire Western Christendom. The need to train large numbers of lectors for all the provinces and monasteries became apparent quite early. In view of the Order’s dynamic development, the establishment, in 1248, of four new studia generalia in addition to Paris – Oxford (officially recognised in that capacity in that year), Cologne, Bologna and Montpellier – was not adequate to the task. In order to meet its own needs, each province was required to organise its own school network. The great majority of young friars settled for the level of preparation available in conventual schools, and adequate for pastoral work. Only the most talented (perhaps ten, maybe just over 12, per cent of the entire population of friars) were directed to the schools which were created specifically for the purpose of forming their own professorial cadre. Of paramount importance was the acceptance, and the faithful observance, of the principle that the curriculum of such schools was to correspond to the curriculum used in Paris. In practice, this meant an attempt to create throughout Christendom

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The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education 67 dozens, in time hundreds, of small daughter-campuses of the University of Paris. From the outset, an attempt had been made to base the programme of study in the Order on the Paris curricula; however, those curricula were themselves a subject of intense debate during the first half of the thirteenth century, relating above all to the reception of Aristotle. Only in 1255 did the Paris department of the arts at last confirm a complete sequence of courses that incorporated Aristotle’s writings in their entirety.11 At the same time, after protracted conflicts and papal interventions, the theologians accepted the Aristotelian conception of the liberal arts as a mandatory route toward advanced theological study. To be sure, this left for a long time unresolved the dilemma of the relationship between the two authorities viewed as supreme, Augustine and Aristotle; but Aristotle himself (variously interpreted) became established for a long time, as truly the foundation of scholasticism. Those great masters of Paris University who were also mendicants, such as Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura and many others, played an enormous role in this crystallisation of a mature scholasticism, as expressed in the curriculum of both the arts and theology.12 It is noteworthy that as early as 1259, the Dominican general chapter established the definitive version of the curriculum for the mendicant studia, a version fully resonant with the then-current Paris course of study; a course that included Aristotle, whose acceptance had long elicited serious reservations from the perspective of a traditional ecclesiastical outlook. A course of study mandatory for every student of the arts and theology was established with precision. Each province of the Order was placed under an obligation to create a network of schools implementing that course of study. For the arts, the course comprised grammar, logic and natural philosophy; for theology, it consisted of studies based on Peter Lombard’s Sentences and the Bible. The curriculum and the system of schools, in their entirety, were developed by a commission established by the general chapter, and consisting of Dominican friars recruited from among the most outstanding scholars of that age and generation – including Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great and Peter of Tarentaire (the future Pope Innocent V).13 Harnessed into the programme of implementing this very ambitious and bold undertaking was the Dominican monastic organisation – a framework which was truly outstanding within the context of the other major contemporary monastic orders. Interesting material is recorded in the extant acts of the Dominican general chapters and provincial chapters – the latter, unfortunately, surviving only in fragments. In many respects, the Dominican and other mendicant evidence helps us close major gaps in the documentation concerning the University of Paris in the thirteenth century. The Order paid special attention to control over the functioning of the schools, and to

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visitation; and it introduced such changes as became necessary over time. Especially important were the changes and enhancements introduced by the general chapter in 1305, between 1313 and 1315, and in 1405.14 The relatively well-preserved acts of the chapters of the Italian provinces and of Provence give us a good insight into the actual workings of the system in a single province from the second half of the thirteenth century onward.15 The system was based on small groups, or classes, each including a few (perhaps up to about a dozen) students, and led by lector-professors and by their assistants, the master-students. At the lower levels of the curriculum, such groups were transferred after one or a few years away from the monasteryschool, and into some other house of the Order; the purpose of this was obviously to distribute the economic burden of maintaining the group (which was exempt from the ordinary obligations of friars) across the province in its entirety. Grammar schools were meant to ensure something quite basic, namely a good knowledge of spoken and written Latin. Later came the schools teaching logic, usually categorised either as the Old or the New Logic, depending on the actual books studied. Crucially important in the development of their teaching was the incorporation of Aristotle’s new texts (especially the Organon) into scholastic thought. Logic, understood as the art of reasoning, and together with grammar and rhetoric, comprising the university trivium, was the foundation of the entire subsequent university intellectual formation. It was often described as the ars artium, ‘the art of the arts’. Logic was followed by the discipline generally described as philosophy, which included both the philosophy of ‘nature’ and moral philosophy (or ethics), and whose basic foundation was the group of Aristotelian treatises consisting of the Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics and Rhetoric, all of which were to be studied, jointly, over three years – as provided for in 1327 by one of the extant Dominican teaching programmes, in Toulouse.16 Many years of study – three of logic and two of philosophy, for example – were indispensable prerequisites for a study of theology at a level consistent with the curriculum of the Paris theology faculty, a study crucial for the Order and for its functions.17 The essential foundation here included, of course, Peter Lombard’s Sentences and the Bible. A school of theology designated to service a single province was called a studium particulare, or solemne; the word particulare referred to a restriction of the recruitment to a single province, in contrast to a studium generale, which was open to students from all provinces. The curriculum in all theological schools was modelled upon the programme and the methods used in Paris. Needless to say, the overall intellectual level of those studia generalia, which were staffed by the best, most select professorial cadre, and which were destinations for small numbers of the most talented student-friars, far exceeded the level of the local or regional

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The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education 69 schools. Within the system as a whole, Saint James’s in Paris managed to assemble a true ‘elite of elites’, helped in this by its de facto monopoly on the granting of the professional titles of bachelor and master of theology – titles which were honoured throughout the entire Christian civilisation. On the other hand, granting the degree of lector (in principle after four years of theological study) fell within the competence of the leadership of the Order itself. It is worth illustrating this scheme with examples of its specific applications – of which the extant acts of chapters from the province of Rome are especially full. Thus, for example, in 1288 we encounter in that province two studia artium, each of which enrolled ten students, plus a full dozen studia in naturis (or studia naturalibus) – meaning schools of (needless to say, Aristotelian) natural philosophy. Three years later, in 1291, the acts mention only four studia of natural philosophy, with a total of 32 students; five studia of Old Logic, with a total of 39 students; and three studia of New Logic, with 26 persons engaged in them. This telling example reveals quite well the fluidity of this – as we may aptly call it – ‘flying Dominican university’, and the adaptation of its schools to the needs of the moment. Needless to say, each individual school was established in a different city and monastery; ‘circulation’ was a recurrent practice, allowing the sharing among a group of monasteries of the high cost of maintaining any one individual school. In 1331, the chapter register notes a total of 181 alumni from the Roman province, distributed among 27 schools-studia: 26 alumni at three studia of specialised theology, 58 in 13 studia of philosophy, 30 in six schools of logic, and 15 enrolled in the studia generalia – studia of their own provinces (Naples and Florence), and studia that belonged to other provinces (Toulouse and Montpellier). The 27 schools were situated in a total of 21 localities. Although we lack profound comparative studies concerning the different provinces, there are many indications of a considerable variety in practical arrangements, and of a considerable fluidity, within the framework of a single, well-defined and apparently wellcontrolled system.18 Crucially important for the organisation of territorial networks of schools was regional cooperation between monastic houses situated relatively near each other; quite simply, they communicated among themselves in order to create, by a shared effort, a single school that served the shared requirements of several communities. Very important in this regard was the subdivision, mandated by the general chapters between 1271 and 1275, of provinces into smaller districts, each headed by a vicar appointed by the provincial, and acting on the provincial’s behalf, within a precisely specified territorial unit.19 The Order generated several names for such districts; in the Polish province, they were called contratae (or nationes). Within the boundaries of that

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province (after the secession of Bohemia), we encounter the contratae of Little Poland, Great Poland, Masovia, Prussia, Cassubia and Silesia. Their origins undoubtedly extend back to the final decades of the thirteenth century. Throughout the Order, we have clear traces of the fact that it was precisely within the framework of the contratae (or, to use their alternative names, the nationes, or vicariates) that the schools devoted to the arts and theology were established. Again, the surviving acts of the province of Provence give an example of the trajectories along which, we may surmise, other provinces also moved. In 1275, this province was divided into six districts – here called vicariates – each of which was obligated to create one studium of logic: ‘Ordinamus quod in qualibet vicaria sit unum studium logicale’.20 Change in location of schools was, as we know, common practice, although the larger and wealthier monasteries in a contrata undoubtedly hosted schools on their premises relatively frequently – if not, indeed, permanently. This permanence was especially important for the schools of theology, which required larger resources and a more substantial intellectual endowment that did the schools of the arts.

2 This entire context of a ‘flying university’ – a phenomenon increasingly understood and appreciated today – enables us to take a new and more accurate look at the question of specific interest to us, namely the situation in the Polish province. We need to assume as a first principle – an obvious proposition, as it were – that the developing province, encompassing the Polish and the Czech lands as well as Western Pomerania, simply had to accept and implement this general system of schools – truly a crucial feature of the Order of Preachers, the existence and function of which had long enabled the Order to perform its basic preaching and penitential roles. The only problem here concerns the degree of a Polish, or a Czech-Polish, regional distinctness within this system – the question of that system’s professional level, and of its capacity for adaptation within this region in response to emerging requirements. Current research gives us fairly good grounds for accepting the view that, during the second half of the thirteenth century, a Dominican network of higher philosophical and theological schools, using the curriculum of the University of Paris, emerged in the Polish province of the Order, that is to say, in Poland and Bohemia.21 Especially noteworthy from this perspective is the decree issued by the 1261 general chapter held in Barcelona. The decree was adopted two years after the introduction of a new, very Aristotelian, arts curriculum as obligatory throughout the entire Order. This important text is worth citing in its entirety:

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The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education 71 Iniungimus prioribus provincialibus et diffinitoribus provinciarum Hyspanie, Romane provincie, Theutonie, Polonie, Ungarie, Dacie quod ordinent, quod fratres iuniores et docibiles in logicalibus instruantur. In provincia veri Theutonie instituant duo vel tria studia huiusmodi in conventibus ydoneis ad predicta.22 This list of provinces seems to encompass territories heretofore relatively untouched, so to speak, by the philosophical and theological scholastic movement, which was concentrated – in a rather broad circumference – upon and around Paris. Provence, France, England and Lombardy (in northern Italy) are all provinces not mentioned in the resolution, which suggests that they were well on their way to the implementation of the regulations concerning the schools of logic and philosophy promulgated in 1259. From the perspective of Paris, the concern here is with peripheral provinces, which require a forceful reminder of the obligation that has been placed on them. What is quite interesting is the fact that the most peripheral provinces – functioning in entirely different conditions – namely Greece and the Holy Land, are not mentioned at all. Evidently, within them there was, at least for the time being, no chance for, if I may so put it, a modernisation of their modest educational possibilities. Poland, Bohemia and Hungary are, quite notably, treated on a par with Spain, with central and southern Italy, and with Germany – a fact which (within the broader context of clear differences between the ‘younger’ and the ‘older’ Europe, differences which were still very pronounced) bears a very special emphasis. The chapter treats these territories as clearly normal, capable of taking action themselves and of creating new structures – a state of affairs that must have arisen during the nearly 40 years of their existence. The regulation concerning Germany seems to indicate that the local realities in that province permitted the establishment of two or three constellations of schools of logic. On the other hand, the remaining provinces elicited more preliminary steps – steps surely reflecting a concern, above all, with the procurement of a cadre of lectors equipped to conduct courses. The earliest confirmation in the sources of the existence of a studium of the arts in the Roman province dates to 1269, which is eight years after the 1261 resolution by the general chapter, and ten years after the regulation of 1259.23 We may attribute this time-lag to resistance within the conservative, traditional milieux of the friars to the instructions issued in 1259 – instructions which had introduced secular texts, of which not all were considered orthodox for purposes of regular study. At the beginnings of the Order there had been a clear emphasis on the need to concentrate on the Bible and on theology, without ‘secular’ contamination. The intellectual breakthrough away from this position emerged within the Order’s elites, concentrated in the University of Paris. The moment of breakthrough was the bold decision

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of 1259, confirmed by the Order’s supreme lawmaking authority, the general chapter. However, needless to say, its impact and implementation presupposed, and required, a profound change in the mentalities and the intellectual formation of the Friars Preachers. Doubtless important in this regard was the support lent to the curriculum taught by Dominican scholars (above all, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas) by the outstanding master-general of the Order between 1254 and 1263, Humbert of Romans. Through his administrative skill and wide-ranging written output, he placed the Order’s development upon the firm foundation of a solid intellectual culture.24 Fragmentary and incidental as it is, the evidence concerning the Polish province in the thirteenth and the early fourteenth century reveals – and this should be most emphatically asserted – a normally functioning school-system. To be sure, that system was probably weaker and less developed than its counterpart in the leading, much wealthier provinces, but it did exist. It simply had to exist, within the enormous organisational body of the Order in its entirety, a framework in which the individual provinces were under close control, subject to continuous and repeated admonition; control which, if the need arose, was bolstered by friars recruited from provinces more developed in some relevant respect. Existence of schools is directly attested by references, recurrent in the sources, to lectors in Poland’s Dominican monasteries. These references may be to lectors of the monastic schools (which were, in effect, public schools, because non-Dominican clerics were allowed to take part in them), and of the whole network of schools devoted to educating the most talented friars, systematically and at an essentially university level. From 1259 and 1261 onward, the training of theologians – which was required in order to service monasteries as they increased in numbers and in size – was also to be enhanced by the schools of the arts, which were indispensable prerequisites for theological study. The relatively rich source material from the fourteenth century multiplies our evidence of lectors of various kinds. In addition, we find very clear confirmation of the position of the lector in the monastic community of the Order – a confirmation of, so to speak, the normality of the lector’s role.25 We may conclude that the system of Dominican schools of arts and theology, clearly implementing the curriculum used in the departments of arts and theology at the University of Paris, most likely assumed its definitive form during the 1270s, with perhaps some continuity into the 1280s. The origins of, or the earliest attempts to establish, such schools may date back to the very beginnings of the Polish province. It is surely not coincidental that the first provincial, appointed in 1225, was a Paris student – an educational pedigree long held in special esteem by the Order – by the name of Gerard, to whom we may probably attribute the beginnings of Dominican schools in the province.26 But let us not forget that only those schools which educated

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The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education 73 a relatively restricted elite within the province acquired a university-curriculum profile; and that that process could truly get underway only after the bold, top-down decisions made in 1259 and 1261.

3 Theological study was the essential aim of the Dominican school system. That study was, above all, a response to the requirement by all monasteries for an adequate cadre of lectors – needless to say, including a cadre active in the schools internal to the Order (schools that were not public, but very deliberately mendicant). The lectors were promptly entrusted with a variety of functions outside the schools: they were elected as priors, entrusted with inquisitorial and other roles, or appointed as bishops. Thus, the requirements for graduates of the theological studia significantly exceeded the normal ‘academic line’ of the lector. For this reason, each province was required to possess at least one school (and frequently two or more schools) of theology, with a multi-year programme focused on the Sentences and the Bible. A school of this kind was referred to as a studium particulare, or a studium solemne. Originally, even in the legislation of the Order, such schools were also called, simultaneously or interchangeably, by the name studium generale; the precise distinction between the two kinds of studium (a distinction referring to the geographical extent of recruitment allowed to a school, either from one province, or from the entire Order) was a later development. As a rule, each studium of theology, regardless of its name, implemented the same multi-year programme, and each was an advanced school of theology – with, of course, wide variation in scholarly level attained by the individual studia.27 The type of studium which was later classified as ‘general’ was designed to attract a very small handful of the most outstanding student-theologians from each province, who thereby received the opportunity to deepen their knowledge, and quite possibly (though as an exceedingly remote prospect) to earn the title of bachelor or master of sacred theology – an educational accomplishment possible, until as late as the mid-fourteenth century, exclusively in Paris, Oxford or Cambridge. But this was a very difficult and costly project, and in practice almost everyone settled merely for a stay at Saint James’s in Paris, for example, without acquiring those academic degrees and titles. Of course, acquisition of the title of lector within the Order was an entirely different matter.28 In the second half of the fourteenth century, the Polish province experienced a clear intellectual preeminence of (indeed, a competition between) two large monasteries, in Wrocław and in Kraków.29 We may, without a doubt, extend this state of affairs far back into the thirteenth century, with Kraków’s unquestioned position (apart from a few interruptions) as the principal, we

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may truly say the capital, convent in the very large Polish province. We may also assume the presence of an advanced studium of theology, servicing the entire Polish province, most probably in Kraków, although we should not rule out the possibility that similar schools (permanent or temporary) were situated in monasteries elswhere. The exact nature of this main centre of a school network within the province is a subject of debate, principally concerning the acquisition by this central school of the title and the privileges of a studium generale. We do know that at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and definitely in 1304, the general chapters obligated every province to create a studium generale, apart from Denmark (that is to say, essentially all Scandinavia), Greece and the Holy Land. However, as early as 1305, the general chapter prohibited the enrolment of students from outside the Hungarian, Czech and Polish provinces in the studia located in those provinces.30 In subsequent decades, we do not find Kraków or any other Polish monastery on the lists of studia generalia included in the acts of the general chapters – a silence which confirms the continuing effects of the prohibition of 1305. Bohemia, which had belonged to the Polish province in the thirteenth century but became an independent province at the beginning of the fourteenth, acquired permanent studia generalia in 1347, clearly in connection with the establishment of the university there.31 The mendicant studia were intended to serve in that province as a foundation for a theology department – a department which, we will recall, was then in the process of breaking down the monopoly on the granting of academic degrees in theology enjoyed by Paris and the two English universities. Because of the Dominican Order’s consistent policy toward its own studia generalia we can more fully understand the complexity of the relationships between the Order – with its system of schools – and the universities. The depth and the multi-dimensionality of these relationships are beyond doubt. Since the University of Paris served, for many years, as the theological centre of Christendom, a crucial strategic priority for the Order was the maintenance of institutional connections with the university’s theology department. When, in the course of an exceptionally bitter conflict in the 1250s between the secular and the mendicant masters, the latter were about to be removed from the university, the arbitrating commission established by the archbishops proposed the creation in Paris of a separate, independent mendicant university. The Dominicans and Franciscans resolutely rejected this proposal: they wished to remain within a single, organic, educational framework.32 At the same time, however, they also sought to retain their independence, and full control over their own school system. As the legal construct of studium generale assumed its definitive shape during the second half of the thirteenth century, the Dominicans invested that

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The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education 75 construct with their own, specific content.33 A studium generale, established with the consent of the pope or the emperor, acquired in particular the right to authorise its graduates to teach throughout the world (ius ubique docendi). From now on, this right clearly differentiated a university – a studium generale – from other schools. On their side, the Dominicans (and, in their footsteps, other mendicant orders) reserved for their highest authority, namely the general chapter, the right to establish their own studia generalia; they were allowed to do so by papal privileges. A mendicant studium generale of this specific type meant, above all, its openness to all the provinces of the Order. Unlike all the other studia, it did not function as a provincial studium, that is, a studium limited in its recruitment to a single province; and it was directly subject to the highest authority of the Order. Furthermore, it was situated in an established, specific locality, without the fluidity and migration between locations which was characteristic of the province-wide systems of schools comprising ‘the flying university’. In creating a network of its own studia generalia, the Order of Preachers was clearly motivated by the need to strengthen its own school system and educate its own elite of lectors, and not by the need to accommodate its own school network to the gradually expanding network of universities throughout Christendom. The Order knew the distinction between a studium generale fratrum and a studium generale saecularium – meaning, respectively, a mendicant studium, intended for the Order’s own friars, and a ‘secular’ studium, incorporated into a university, and therefore necessarily also open to secular students. At the end of the thirteenth century, there were a total of seven Dominican studia generalia: shortly before 1300, Paris, Oxford, Cologne, Montpellier and Bologna were joined by Barcelona, and by a studium in the Roman province, which was in due course permanently situated in Florence. Among this group, only two, Paris and Oxford, were also ‘secular’ studia – that is, studia integrated with the theology faculties active in those cities. Two other studia, at Bologna and Montpellier, were direct ‘neighbours’ of the universities situated there, but the latter lacked theology departments. The remaining three locations – Cologne, Florence and Barcelona – were not university towns. Quite curiously, the theology department at the University of Toulouse, established by the Dominicans as early as 1229, was not treated by the Order itself as its own studium generale. The situation was similar in Cambridge, where, around 1250, a clearly mendicant theology faculty was established, with a central role played by the Dominicans.34 It appears that the most important reason for this was a reluctance to create two studia generalia in a single mendicant province. Toulouse belonged to the province of Provence, with its own studium generale in Montpellier, while in England, since the midthirteenth century, the same role was performed by Oxford. From the end of

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the thirteenth century onward, boundary changes, and the creation of new provinces, enabled an expansion of the network of studia generalia. Only at this point did Toulouse – now at the head of its own province – acquire the rights of a studium generale. Naples, initially envisioned as the location of a studium generale for the Roman province, was able to create a studium of this kind after it became part of the province of Sicily. The logical outcome of the strategy pursued throughout the thirteenth century was the general chapter’s ambitious resolution of 1304, noted above, to establish a studium generale in every Dominican province, the old and the newly established – except only for those provinces which were assumed, a priori, to be incapable of this undertaking, that is to say the Danish (or Scandinavian) and Greek provinces and the Holy Land. We do know that this attempt was not entirely successful. In particular, the Polish, Hungarian and Czech provinces most likely lacked the resources needed to create their own studia generalia, understood in the sense in which the Order referred to that institution. In the light of this situation, during the subsequent decades the general chapter frequently revisited the subject of sending students from the provinces lacking studia generalia to the provinces that had them. For example, in 1316 it was decided that the provinces of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary had the right to send two of their students each to the studia generalia situated in Italy and Germany35 – a resolution which was changed in 1326 to a right of sending two students to all of the existing studia generalia.36 Despite all the difficulties, including the financial, the practice of educating the elites of each province abroad was, without a doubt, recurrent and solidly entrenched.

4 The second half of the fourteenth century brought about crucial changes in the well-established system of the Dominican studia – and, indeed, of the mendicant studia in general, which by then functioned everywhere in accordance with the Dominican model. The watershed was the gradual loss of its monopoly by Parisian theology, a loss initiated by the papal consent to the establishment of a university in Prague in 1347–8. From then on, the number of theological faculties in the universities increased, and from 1378 onward the primacy of Paris was definitively ended by the Great Schism.37 Generally speaking, in the southern regions of Christendom the theology departments situated in universities were created on the basis of mendicant studia previously in existence, whereas the north was dominated by the reception of ‘secular’ departments of theology, patterned on Paris – a reception that, needless to say, did not preclude participation by mendicant studia. Bologna is a good example of the ‘southern’ solution. After 1360, professors of its

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The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education 77 theology faculty were recruited from among the lecturers at the local mendicant studia – one Dominican, three Franciscan, two Carmelite, two belonging to Augustinian hermits – plus one cardinal, who was also a Benedictine monk.38 Strictly speaking, under the ‘southern’ university model, mendicant studia performed, right from the outset, the actual functions of theology faculties – a fact that did not change significantly after their formal incorporation into universities. The data on doctoral matriculations in Bologna seem to reflect this situation quite well: out of 447 masters of theology promoted there in the years 1364–1500, 419 were mendicants, 24 were secular clerics and four were monks.39 During the same period, in neighbouring Padua, mendicants comprised about 80 per cent of the entire teaching staff.40 Things were quite different under the ‘northern’, Parisian model. Among the many universities which had arisen in the Empire since the closing years of the fourteenth century, the most mendicant – indeed, Dominican – in character was Cologne, where the well-known studium of the Friars Preachers served as the base of the theology faculty. Between 1388 and 1517, the 58 professors who were also Dominicans comprised approximately one-third of a total of 187 teachers working there during those same years.41 The situation varied widely across different universities, and underwent changes over time. Thus, for example, in Prague the theology department was initially intended to be based upon the mendicant studia generalia, but as early as the end of the fourteenth century professors recruited from the secular clergy appear to be predominant.42 Out of these same circles of secular clergy also emerged the first professors of the University of Kraków – a university which was renewed in 1400, and where a theology department was established during, or soon after, that year.43 Parallel to the process of associating the Dominican studia generalia with the rising number of university theology departments – a process that encompassed the second half of the fourteenth and the entire fifteenth century – was an increase in the numbers of such studia themselves, from seven in 1300 all the way to 27 in 1550.44 The proliferation of theology departments was also significant in the light of a problem which became quite pressing with time, namely the small numbers of Dominicans able to receive the title of master of sacred theology in Paris, Oxford or Cambridge. The formal procedure, the time required and the cost created enormous difficulties in this regard, especially for candidates from outside Paris (and France in general) and from outside England.45 The recurrent difficulties with which foreigners were confronted in Oxford or Paris were also quite significant. A mid-fourteenth-century Italian chronicler, himself a master of theology, observed that in all of Italy he had encountered a mere three of his mendicant brothers who possessed this academic title.46 In all likelihood, in the same period only two existed in Germany.47

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Needless to say, this situation created pressure for a solution to the problem. In addition to the growing number of theology faculties, the outcome was an increasingly available alternative – based on papal privileges permitting, under the appropriate circumstances, the conferral of a master’s title by the masters-general of the Order, and, above all, by the general chapter.48 The overall result was a rapid increase in the numbers of Dominicans, and other mendicants, endowed with the title of master. This process continued throughout the fifteenth century, with results that were important both to the systems of the studia, and to the functioning of the orders themselves. For example, based on the membership of the Dominican general chapter, it is possible to demonstrate that in the course of the fifteenth century masters of theology became predominant in this highest locus of the power within the Order.49 This entire context, of which I have been briefly reminding the reader, is essential for a fuller understanding than we currently have of the definitive establishment of a Dominican studium generale for the Polish province, in Kraków. According to one hypothesis, this occurred at the very end of the fourteenth century – 1394, to be exact.50 One source of support for this hypothesis is the fact that the province managed to receive its first handful of degrees of master of sacred theology by nomination from the general chapter. Paweł Kielar is inclined to connect one specific recipient of that degree – Francis Oczko from Brzeg in Silesia, provincial in the years 1393–6 – to the implementation in the Polish province of the institutional framework developed by the Order nearly a hundred years earlier.51 The circumstances, thoroughly described by Kielar, clearly appear to reflect an important event, and thus support the likelihood of its occurrence. Nevertheless, we need to state bluntly and explicitly that the hypothesis just presented does not, in essential contours, get us beyond conjecture. This has recently been demonstrated, with absolute clarity, by a close and convincing analysis.52 Therefore, we need to return to the text of the general chapter resolution of 1419, which I extracted many years ago out of the valuable transcription made in manuscript form by Wawrzyniec Teleżyński.53 This is the earliest clearly authentic record of a decision by the general chapter concerning Kraków – a city which, from this moment onward, was routinely included in the lists of mendicant studia generalia. Moreover, we may interpret the notice about the 1419 decree of the general chapter, happily preserved by Teleżyński, as a decision to create a studium of this kind. Of course, this interpretation does not rule out earlier attempts (which are indeed very likely from the end of the fourteenth century onward) to elevate the rank of the old studium of theology in Kraków, at a time of the ultimately successful effort to create a university theology department in the city. The Dominicans, who had long enjoyed in Kraków a near-monopoly on the systematic teaching

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The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education 79 of theology as a university discipline, must have been supremely interested above all in the emerging theology department. Among the obstacles to the intended transformation of the Kraków studium, two seem to have been especially important. The first was the deep division within the Polish province between its northern and western districts, dominated by Germans, and the districts encompassed by the then-current boundaries of the Kingdom of Poland. This conflict is clearly visible at the end of the fourteenth century, and reflected in the attempt to create a separate province of Lower Germany between 1415 and 1417, with the support of Pope John XXIII. A decisive posture by the Polish king and Church – personified by the Archbishop-Primate Nicholas Trąba – was required to achieve, in 1417, a return to the status quo ante, and to confirm the traditional boundaries of the Polish province for a long time thereafter.54 We may surmise that this genuine stabilisation is what allowed the first general chapter that met after these events to make the crucial decision to designate for the newly-ordered province its own studium generale, based on its own trained cadre, which had been available in that province for some time beforehand. We also need to take into account the tensions between the scholars – especially the theologians connected to Prague, and involved in laying the groundwork for university-level theology in Kraków – and the Dominicans. Quite important here are the patterns of relations within Prague itself, where the Collegium Carolinum, intended for secular theologians and founded in 1366 on the model of the Sorbonne, appears to have been especially dominating in the theology department;55 and where – although the mendicant (including the Dominican) studia generalia were connected to the department – their true role requires a further scholarly inquiry.56 It is also an open question at present whether the very conspicuous absence of collaboration between the Order of Preachers and the Kraków theology department was a result of tensions imported from Prague, or of local, Kraków-based patterns of interaction.57 This fact differs so dramatically from the situation long established throughout Christendom as to require an especially close inquiry, and a serious attempt at an explanation, framed by a broad, Europe-wide context of comparable relations. As we well know, an attempt to bring the two institutions closer, by way of incorporation of the Dominican studium into the university, was made only several decades later, in the mid-fifteenth century.58 This fact corresponds to a more general tendency, which emerged with clarity in the course of the fifteenth century, namely the loss of stature and importance by those Dominican studia generalia which did not become associated with university theology departments. Thus, for example, in the province of Saxony, neighbouring on Poland, the heretofore leading studium generale in Magdeburg receded perceptibly into a rank quite distant from the other studia

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based on the new universities, especially the university founded in Erfurt in 1392. Currently, however, we do not clearly know the exact significance for the Dominican Kraków, or for the province, of the formal association with the university, or of the act of incorporation into the university.

5 In conclusion, we may accept it as established that the beginnings of the Polish system of higher education, of the university type – a type resonating with the university culture established in Europe from the thirteenth century onward, and in existence continuously thereafter, in the midst of ceaseless debate and transition – are related to the Order of Preachers, very strongly rooted in Poland since the thirteenth century. To invoke an expression so well known in Poland: during the second half of the thirteenth century, the Dominican monasteries and the mendicant elite of the Polish province comprised a peculiar kind of ‘flying university’. The Order’s schools implemented the Paris programme of the arts department – in its innovative, Aristotelian version, definitively accepted in Paris after the long debates around the midcentury. Mendicant professors – Albert, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura – had played an enormous role in the definition of those programmes, which became the basis of the then-modern culture of schools, scholasticism, and universities. However, for the Dominicans, study of the arts was merely a point of departure for the study of theology, which had, within the context of the contemporary scholastic culture, become a university discipline different from traditional, patristic-monastic theology. The Dominican schools of theology, situated at different rungs (starting with the conventual schools), were the first to implement in the Polish lands theology understood as a science of that kind, closely connected to the solutions devised in Paris, and used as a model for all of Christendom.59 We ought to consider this educational system – present throughout all of Christian Europe, and closely tied to the system of universities in the strict sense of that word – as, at the same time, more or less parallel to the universities, yet, in the contemporary world of higher education, quite distinct. What remains an open question is the degree to which the Order of Preachers in Poland shared all these pioneering roles with the Order of the Friars Minor, who were equally strongly rooted in the Polish lands during the thirteenth century. The Friars Minor received from the Preachers the essential elements of a school system; yet, for them, the place of school culture always looked very different from the view of the strongly ‘school-and-university-based’ Dominicans.60 For the entire thirteenth century, the preponderance of schoolrelated documentation concerning the Dominicans is so overwhelming that

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The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education 81 as a result the other orders, the Franciscans in particular, as it were recede into relative obscurity. In the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that documentation changes in favour of the non-Dominican mendicants. What remains quite difficult is to be entirely certain about the relationship between this source-driven perspective and reality. On the other hand, it seems beyond doubt that the cathedral and collegiate schooling in the Polish lands long retained a rather more traditional character. For example, university-level theology entered those schools very gradually during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. We may safely assume that, for several generations, Dominican (and probably Franciscan) schools also played the role of public schools of theology, open to interested secular clerics. We may assume that virtually every Dominican monastery (and the more important Franciscan houses) which had a permanently functioning school obligatory for all friar-priests was, at the same time, a convent and a collegium: a model institution, adapted and greatly elaborated by the universities of the European Middle Ages. Right up to the present day, that institution in many places shows a trace of the great ‘flying university’ – enormously significant for the very foundations of culture, European as well as Polish.

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7

Matrimonium sub fide Judaica contractum Were mixed Christian– Jewish marriages possible in late medieval Poland? Tomasz Jurek 1

The conubium has always been fundamental to the processes of assimilation between social or ethnic groups living in close proximity. Mixed marriage opened the way to eliminating differences between such groups. To put the same proposition in reverse, we might say that an absence of marital ties tends to strengthen, indeed perpetuate, social or ethnic difference. As a classic example we might consider the fate of the Jewish diaspora, which had for centuries lived in Europe, surrounded by a Christian majority, but which had retained its distinctness of religion, custom and culture – specifically by avoiding intermarriage with that majority. That distinctness was sustained by bilateral prohibitions. Ever since antiquity, Jewish law had prohibited marriages to non-Jews; such unions were, in their essence and from the outset, void. The basis for this view was the prohibition, expressed as early as in the Old Testament, upon forming ties with the foreign peoples whom the Chosen People had displaced from the Holy Land.1 This principle remained binding during the Middle Ages.2 On the other side, Christian legislation prohibited marital association with Jews.3 Though early medieval synods often forbade marriage with Jews, they treated such marriage as illicit, sinful and punishable – but, in its essence, valid. Gratian’s Decretum (ca. 1142), in a systematic compilation of these individual pieces of legislation, introduced the prohibition upon marriage with ‘infidels’ as a norm of universal canon law. According to the formulation by twelfth- and thirteenth-century canonists, a difference of faith (cultus disparitas) acquired the status of an impedimentum dirimens, that is, a circumstance precluding the possibility of entrance into a legal marriage – which was, after all, viewed as a sacrament.4 ‘If a member of the faith marries someone outside the faith, this is not a marriage’, wrote Robert of Saint-Victor at the beginning of the thirteenth century.5 Accepted as valid, however, was an engagement (sponsalia) with persons outside the faith, as long as this was coupled with the promise of a

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Matrimonium sub fide Judaica contractum 83 conversion, which was viewed as a condition for the subsequent entrance into marriage.6 These concepts began to reach Poland with the diffusion of canon law during the thirteenth century. The earliest regulations limiting contact with Jews appear in the statutes of the 1267 provincial synod led by the papal legate Guido.7 These regulations were among the several provisions drawn from the legislation of the universal Church, which limited the freedom of everyday interaction between Christians and Jews. The prohibited activities included common eating and drinking with the Jews, participating in their weddings and entertainments, and buying food from them. Jewish homes were to be concentrated in a specific section of each town, and strictly separated from Christian dwellings. Jews were obligated to wear distinct dress to make them easy to recognise. They were not allowed to visit Christian taverns or baths, or to hire Christian servants or nursemaids. The purpose here was clearly to limit opportunity for unwanted sexual contact. Immediately below, in the same breath as it were, is expressed a strict prohibition precisely on this subject:8 a Jewish man caught in ‘fornication’ with a Christian woman was to be subject to a high monetary fine and imprisonment, while the woman who took part ‘in such despicable union’ was to be banished from the town. Although in this case prohibition against mixed marriage was not formulated anywhere in the document in explicit terms, in the light of the other provisions it was obviously a part of the reality. After all, if eating or dancing with the Jews was prohibited, marital cohabitation was surely unthinkable. The norms of the 1267 legatine statute were applicable to the entire Polish ecclesiastical province, and entered the local tradition of canon law. They were echoed, indeed repeated in their entirety, by the statutes of the provincial synod of Archbishop Nicholas Trąba, held in Wieluń and Kalisz in 1420.9 We may therefore speak about a permanence of anti-Jewish norms – though, on the other hand, the need for their reiteration may also mean that they were not strictly followed in practice. In light of our knowledge about patterns of Jewish settlement, it is clear that the legatine demand for a separation of Jewish homes from Christian sections of cities, ‘by a fence, a wall or a ditch’, for which Guido had established a deadline of a few months, was never implemented. Were the remaining provisions of the statutes respected? Current historiography presents the problem of Christian–Jewish marriages unequivocally and unambiguously: such unions could have occurred in the West only during the earlier Middle Ages, and were thereafter virtually impossible.10 Studies by Polish scholars repeat this view concerning their country: ‘Obviously, marriages among Jews and Christians were unacceptable’.11 However, this opinion rests above all upon normative formulations of the kind just noted; it is always worthwhile to confront the resulting knowledge with information drawn from sources

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reflecting practice. In the Polish context, those latter sources are above all book registers, issued by a variety of courts – noble, urban and ecclesiastical – which survive in large numbers from the turn of the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries onwards. At present, I should like to present two sourcebased case studies concerning mixed marital unions. Both studies are drawn from fifteenth-century books of the episcopal (that is, consistory) court in Poznań.12 Poznań13 was one of the most important cities of the late medieval Kingdom of Poland, and, as the seat of the bishopric and capital of a district, the unquestioned centre of the province of Great Poland – though by European standards it must be considered a small town, estimated at between 6,000 and 10,000 inhabitants in the fifteenth century. For the city, the Jagiellon period, beginning with the Polish-Lithuanian union of 1385, was a period of high prosperity, fuelled by the expansion of trade between Germany and Lithuania. One symptom of the city’s level of development was the presence of a relatively strong and dynamic Jewish community.14 That community’s significance is well reflected by the assessed levels of tax paid by the Jews of the individual cities in the Kingdom in 1507. In that year, the Poznań community was assessed at a level of 200 florins, which was the highest level owed in Great Poland, and, within Poland as a whole, second only to Kraków, the capital city, with its assessment of 300 florins.15 The size of Poznań’s Jewish community may be assessed at several hundred heads, and thus a small percentage of the city’s entire population. The economic base of the strength of the Poznań Jews was their engagment with credit operations, and with usury. That base began to break down only toward the end of the fifteenth century, from which period onwards trade and craft production became the basis of the Jewish economy.

2 On 27 March 1431, two inhabitants of Poznań16 appeared before the consistory court of the city. On one side was Hedwig, recorded simply as ‘a woman’ (mulier); on the other, John, described as ‘a new Christian’. The subsequent record makes it clear that beneath that latter expression lurked a reference to a recently baptised Jew. Hedwig sued John in order to compel him to consummate his marriage with her, ‘in the face of the Church’. This is because she had been meeting with him for a year, when he was still an adherent to Judaism. Over that year, he solemnly reiterated to her, invoking God, that he planned to receive baptism, that he wished to take her as wife, and that he promised her marital fidelity. Nevertheless, after being sued, he denied everything. Though he did not negate his entire relationship with Hedwig, he maintained that, even if they had established some kind of liaison, at that

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Matrimonium sub fide Judaica contractum 85 time he was still ‘a sly Jew’, and, as a follower of Judaism, was unable to enter marital obligations. Having heard the arguments of both sides, the officialis adjourned the case in order to decide whether to allow the woman to present her proof. Two weeks later, on 11 April, Hedwig’s legal representative expanded the plea which had been made earlier, by noting that, after receiving baptism, John had renewed his ‘marriage, which had been entered into in the Jewish faith’, and, as a result, began carnal cohabitation with Hedwig. This time, the officialis resolved his earlier doubts, and ordered the woman to present an appropriate proof of her side of the argument.17 This led to the presentation of witnesses: two women on 13 April, and, on 16 April, two men.18 We know that they testified, but not what that testimony was. This is because it was recorded in a different set of court books, the so-called Depositiones testium, which are not extant for this period. After another exchange of statements between the parties – whose substance, again, we do not know precisely, because the notes referring to them are extremely laconic19 – the officialis finally made a decision. On 28 May 1431, he pronounced sentence in favour of John, aquitting him of Hedwig’s claims. Her legal representative immediately declared an intention to appeal the sentence to the court of the metropolis in Gniezno.20 What is of fundamental importance for us is to specify the exact subject of this conflict. The woman was demanding a confirmation, in facie ecclesie, of a marriage which, as she maintained, she had previously entered into with John per verba. Here we are encountering a reference to a practice, still current at the time, of entering into marriage by means of an utterance, before witnesses, of the appropriate words – words which expressed a declaration of choice of a spouse, and a promise of due fidelity to that spouse.21 Although in principle the Polish Church demanded entrance into marriage in a church, before a priest, and with the performance of the appropriate religious rituals, it accepted the validity of the secular mode in the creation of a sacramental marriage. This is because that mode fulfilled the pre-condition which was most important for the establishment of a marriage tie, namely the consent of the parties.22 Marriages per verba were especially widespread among the relatively poor social strata; on occasion, such marriages were described as having been entered into modo rusticano. Nevertheless, we do encounter a clear insistence by women that secular marriage be supplemented with ecclesiastical ritual, since that step offered the union a stronger guarantee of stability. This is what occurred in this case. However, it presented a special difficulty, because the betrothed man was turning out to be a Jew. In Hedwig’s eyes, that fact did not constitute an essential obstacle, because her partner was alleged to have uttered explicit promises of fidelity, presumably by means of a solemn oath. Quite possibly this promise had taken place before witnesses; after all, the woman was able to summon as many as four persons

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in support of her claims. It seems beyond doubt that the mutual betrothal was accompanied by cohabitation, which continued over a year of encounters, in Hedwig’s hut, or perhaps in her cellar (the word celarium used in the record is somewhat ambiguous),23 in the course of which it is quite difficult to imagine that cohabitation did not occur. Therefore, though at a certain point in the trial Hedwig’s legal representative situated her entrance into sexual relations with John chronologically in the period subsequent to his baptism, in fact relations between them must have begun earlier. Hedwig was convinced that this was the exact point at which, strictly speaking, the marriage began. This conviction is clearly confirmed by the notices cited here. In the first, the scribe felt obliged, after describing in the text the circumstances of the union between John and Hedwig, to add on the margin that the woman ‘is demanding that he be compelled to complete, in the face of the Church, the marriage which had been entered by the utterance of words’. Likewise, the second notice states unambiguously that, after his baptism, John ‘confirmed and renewed the union, entered into in the Jewish faith, by the utterance of words’. Therefore, both Hedwig and her legal representative took the view that a marriage contract entered into by a Jew who had not yet been baptised was valid. Apparently, the officialis saw the matter differently. He did not immediately agree with the arguments presented by the woman plaintiff. He took some time to reflect on whether she might be allowed to present proof, thus betraying his disagreement with her interpretation of the facts. It is worth noting, however, that he did not dismiss her interpretation out of hand, and also that he did not in any sense chastise the woman for her sexual relations with a Jew – severely prohibited though such relations were by recently-reiterated provincial statutes. Working in Hedwig’s favour was the fact that John had supposedly promised her that he would accept baptism. The officialis’s doubts were eased by the additional declaration, made by Hedwig’s legal advisor, that after his baptism John had renewed his marital vows. In the judge’s eyes, this changed things completely, since he immediately instructed the woman plaintiff to present witnesses. Though the final verdict went against Hedwig, that fact does not necessarily mean that the court disagreed with her interpretation of the nature of her union with the defendant. The highly formalised sequence of events which comprised medieval procedure raised many possibilities of loss in claims that were, on their merits, justified. We do not even know the course and outcome of the witness testimony. Quite possibly, the witnesses were unable to corroborate convincingly Hedwig’s assertions. In all likelihood, that is exactly what happened; had it been possible to prove that, as she asserted, the marital promises made per verba were renewed after John’s baptism, the officialis ought to have accepted the legal validity of the marriage formed in this way. This was, after all, the common practice of ecclesiastical courts.

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Matrimonium sub fide Judaica contractum 87 The only person who acted in this whole matter consistently with canonical norms was the newly baptised John himself. This is because, right from the outset, he kept reiterating that his union with Hedwig could not have been a marriage, since he, as a Jew, lacked the capacity to enter a marriage. However, his motivation is transparent. Quite simply, the man wished to avoid being forced to remain with a woman whom he no longer desired. It is perhaps not insignificant that Hedwig seems to have belonged to the poorer strata of the population; this is suggested by the consistent reference to her in the record as a mulier, without any kind of surname, or nickname, or even an identification of her father. The frequent use of her given name, Hedwig, makes it impossible to indentify her any further. We can, however, observe John’s subsequent fate. That fate is quite interesting – and instructive concerning the character of this restless man. As early as one year after the successful termination of the case with Hedwig, and the rebuttal of her grievances, the same man emerges in the record as the husband of another woman. On 24 May 1432, before the court of the bench in Poznań, ‘the baptised Jew’ Hannos (meaning John in German-language texts) entered a settlement with his wife, Margaret, widow of the Poznań merchant Kokundorf, and with her brothers, Matthew and Peter (Pecze) Morlin.24 The Morlins stipulated that for a period of five years John and Margaret might not buy out the rent revenues which had been conveyed in writing to her son, as a result of her earlier marriage to Kokundorf.25 Quite clear here is the fear, by the wife’s family, that John might embezzle from his stepson the money that was due to him by succession from his father. This fact shows that, in the opinion of that milieu, the ‘new convert’ had married Margaret exclusively because of her wealth, and that his intentions raised suspicions. The family into which he married, the Morlins, were relatively modest craftsmen.26 Indirectly, this suggests that ‘the baptised Jew’ himself must have been poor. The Morlins’ fears turned out to be justified, and the union between John and Margaret was unsuccessful. The marriage, in all likelihood, had been entered into shortly before the making of the May 1432 settlement just noted. A few months later, we note clear traces of dramatic misunderstandings between the spouses. The consistory court was compelled to intervene. On 11 August 1432, the Poznań officialis instructed the two parties to remain peacefully within their marriage, and to abandon all their quarrels. An indication of a perilous escalation of those quarrels is the fact that both spouses were compelled to swear, upon a crucifix, that they would renounce all plotting against each other’s lives. John swore that, from now on, he would not beat his wife ‘beyond measure’, damage her limbs, or kill her. On her side, Margaret swore that she would not poison her husband by giving him toxic food.27 Despite mutual assurances, the marriage in all likelihood did not long survive. When, in 1444, Margaret was entering yet another settlement with

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her brother Peter, the relevant notice lacks any mention of her husband, or about her own widowhood.28 Furthermore, in 1450 Margaret continued to appear as a Kokundorf.29 Thus, the marriage with John must have collapsed some time earlier. In its entirety, the story of the converted Jew named John shows us a restless young man with a disordered life. John undoubtedly abandoned his forefathers’ faith of his own volition; in the years 1430–1, we do not know of any anti-Jewish disturbances in Poznań which might have generated a compulsion among Jews to convert. His union and suspect marriage with Hedwig turned out to be a mere passing adventure. Likewise, the marriage into the family of craftspeople, the Morlins, did not give him stability, because John was ultimately unable to find himself in that new milieu. His fate is, surely, unconventional – but quite possibly at the same time characteristic of a poor member of a minority group, attemping, to no avail, to escape from that group.30 In the context of our initial question concerning the existence of mixed marital unions, this case shows that in the lower social strata it was possible to maintain with the Jews sexual relations that were prohibited by ecclesiastical law; and, moreover, that the people engaged in such unions were ready to treat them as marriage.

3 Less clear is the second example which I should like to present. On 7 March 1429, a legal case was in progress before the consistory court of Poznań, brought by a nobleman, Gregory of Gulcz, against a Jewish woman, Jochna of Poznań. The defendant was represented in court by a Master Nicholas Młynek, who is described in the record as Jochna’s ‘proctor and husband’.31 Master Młynek was clearly one of the professional advocates practising before the consistory court, and earning their living by offering learned legal services to disputing parties. The fact of representation of a Jewish woman by an advocate of this kind is not at all surprising. As a rule, Jews who appeared before the consistory court sought help from advocates.32 Nor would there have been anything odd about Nicholas Młynek’s marital status. Although they were in permanent contact with the consistory court, and personally situated on the boundary of the clerical orders, advocates were nevertheless usually laypeople, and there was no impediment against their getting married.33 But could Nicholas have been a husband of a Jew? The word used here, maritus, is entirely unambiguous, and it is impossible to assign it any other meaning.34 One might, just barely, speculate that we are dealing here with some kind of scribal error. The entry in the consistory court book was undoubtedly made on the basis of a rough earlier version. In writing down that earlier version, the scribe may have made a mechanical error. However,

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Matrimonium sub fide Judaica contractum 89 the entry could not possibly have concerned some other person referred to as maritus. As we can see from other entries about this case, the matter concerned exclusively Jochna herself. We would in any case need to assume that the scribe altered the order of the words in the text, which seems impossible. It is somewhat more plausible that the word maritus is a distortion of some other word. On palaeographical and logical grounds, we might speculate that the original words were procurator et nuncius. And yet, nuncius – a word meaning, among others, an agent in the legal process – was a term employed not in consistory court documents, but exclusively in the books of noble (that is, land and castle) courts.35 Therefore, it is difficult to accept the need for an emendation of the entry. We must, after all, accept that fact that the entry does indeed state procurator et maritus. What was the subject of Jochna’s case in the consistory court? She was sued there by Gregory of Gulcz.36 Previously, those two parties had been involved in a dispute before the noble land court in Poznań. Concerning this dispute, we have entries of January and February 1428, and of January 1429, from which we know that Jochna had demanded from Gregory the payment of five marks in debt.37 This was therefore a typical case concerning debt due to a Jew, a subject with which the court books are replete. This is because the land court was the proper forum for matters of this kind. As late as 6 January 1429, we have an entry in the court books from the trial between Gregory and Jochna, but shortly afterwards Gregory initiated the case in the consistory court. On 21 January he established as his representative there the attorney Stanisław Stadnik.38 The matter was first heard before the bench of the consistory court on 7 March – from which day we have the entry cited above, referring to Nicholas Młynek as Jochna’s husband. The subsequent sessions took place on 8 April and 20 April.39 In the second of the two sessions, Jochna’s representative asserted that the parties were already pursuing a case in the secular court. Stadnik answered, as Gregory’s representative, that the subject more properly belonged in an ecclesiastical forum, because it concerned usury. However, the officialis never pronounced a verdict. This is because, shortly thereafter, the parties entered a preliminary settlement before the land court, and at that time Gregory agreed to withdraw the case from the consistory court. The dispute was to be entrusted for resolution to the captain, the palatine, or the vice-palatine.40 These details are important to us. It turns out that Gregory sued Jochna over the practice of usury. This may seem odd: after all, Jews were allowed to practice usury.41 Cases concerning debt to Jews were heard in secular courts, and always involved Jewish plaintiffs against unreliable Christian debtors. In principle, the consistory court ought to have been concerned only with cases of usury practised by Christians, who were prohibited from engaging in this activity by canon law. We do encounter such cases in the court books.42

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However, allegations of usury at an excessive level also occurred against Jews before the ecclesiastical court. Because of usury, Słoma, a Poznań Jew, together with his wife Rosa, were even subject to excommunication.43 Thus the situation of Jochna, accused of usury before the officialis, was not entirely extraordinary. That situation need not, therefore, suggest changes in her status which might cause her to be treated as a Christian. Nevertheless, the case involving her must have been very difficult and ambiguous, because Gregory withdrew his suit, and thus did not expect to prevail in it; and because, as part of the settlement, the case was remanded for resolution to the highest authorities of the land. We do not know what solution these authorities devised in response. Can the matter be further illuminated by inquiry into the personal histories of the main protagonists? Fortunately, the individuals concerned are very clearly reflected in contemporary sources. Nicholas Młynek worked as an attorney in the Poznań consistory court. It is difficult to follow his exact activities in that capacity, since to do so would require an exact perusal of dozens of volumes of court proceedings. According to the sources currently known to me, Nicholas Młynek played the role of advocate from 1427 to 1440.44 He originated from Margonin, a small town in northern Great Poland,45 definitely from a burgher family, about which, however, we know very little. Like other advocates, he often used the title magister, which does not at all mean that he had obtained this title in a university; magister was a customary title ascribed to lawyers who had a consistory court practice. However, Młynek certainly had the capacities of a notary public (we know that he composed notarial documents),46 and thus it is possible that, somewhere, he had snatched a bit of university training. Starting with February 1433, we encounter his wife, Barbara.47 She was a daughter of Master Christopher, Nicholas’s older colleague on the consistory court, who had originated from a burgher family from Miłosław.48 In the Poznań city books, Nicholas Młynek appears as a burgher, and is designated by the epithet providus (typical for persons of this estate), as he sells a garden, carries out transactions in various rent revenues, or warrants the acts of his fellow burghers.49 He was definitely still alive at the end of 1440. On the other hand, on 31 January 1443, we have a record of a suburban garden qui fuit olim Nicolai Mlinek,50 which seems to indicate that at that time our magister was deceased. And now concerning Jochna. The Poznań land and city books contain multiple records of her. She is referred to as daughter of Manlin the Old,51 widow of Abraham,52 and, later, wife of Pessach.53 Is this always the same person, and, if so, how do we relate her to that Jochna who was allegedly the wife of Nicholas Młynek? The latter had a legal case against Gregory of Gulcz. That case was undoubtedly connected to the case which Jochna was simultaneously pursuing against Nicholas of Wargów. This is because,

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Matrimonium sub fide Judaica contractum 91 as it turns out, the two men’s financial obligations to Jochna were closely interrelated: Gregory was the principal debtor, while Nicholas Wargowski was Gregory’s warrantor.54 The Jochna who was Wargowski’s creditor is undoubtedly the same person as Jochna the creditor of Janusz from Wielkie, and of James from Gorzew – since their cases are frequently recorded in the books in sequences,55 and thus must concern the same Jewish woman. Moreover, because the case against James of Gorzew concerned the debts of his mother, Catherine, we must identify our Jochna with the Jochna who pursued a drawn-out legal case against Catherine of Gorzew.56 That case continued until Jochna’s death, after which it was re-initiated by her husband, Pessach.57 In turn, we also have clear evidence that Pessach’s wife was Manlin’s daughter.58 Finally, there is no doubt that this same daughter of Manlin’s had earlier been Abraham’s wife. This is because Abraham’s widow and Manlin the Old had common debtors, Andrew Krupka of Skórzewo and Nicholas of Chomęcice; Manlin very often took Jochna’s place in these matters;59 and Abraham is recorded as Manlin’s son-in-law.60 Tracing out, at this point, all these detailed bits of evidence was necessary, in order to prove that, regardless of her specific descriptions in particular instances, the Jochna who appears in the Poznań sources during this period is always one and the same person. And thus the course of her life may be reconstructed, as follows. She was the daughter of Manlin the Old. Her father was among the wealthiest and the most active Poznań usurers of his time.61 Her first husband was Abraham. In all likelihood, this was Abraham, son of Aaron, the wealthiest banker in Poznań at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.62 Abraham himself also engaged in very lively credit activity. Jochna, it seems, appears in the sources only as a widow, beginning in 1426.63 She therefore embarked upon her own activity in the usury sector only after becoming a widow for the first time. As is clear from the perusal of the land books, in her time she was among the most active lenders. The overall extent of her credit cannot be assessed, because the court entries reflect fragmentary, and often unclear, data about the level of debt obligations. It is possible to note, however, that she succeeded in acquiring the landholdings of one of the debtors.64 Usually she appears simply as Jochna Judea de Poznania, and thus she conducted her business independently. As early as January 1431, however, she had a another husband, by the name of Pessach.65 Because this person had previously not appeared within the close group of the Poznań bankers, he either had to have originated from among the poorer members of the local community, or had to have been a recent newcomer from the outside world. In February 1434, Jochna still appeared in the land court in her own person.66 Yet, on 18 March we have an entry which, while recording Jochna herself as the party, in the subsequent text discusses the debt obligations as due to

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Pessach and to Jochna’s children.67 Quite possibly, therefore, as of that day Jochna was dead. She was explicitly identified as deceased in an entry of 13 April.68 She was survived by the children of two of her Jewish marriages – all of them, it appears, still very young at the time of her death. At that time, the only child mentioned by name was Muszka, undoubtedly a son from her union with Abraham.69 The affairs of the deceased wife continued to be managed by her husband Pessach. In the sources known to me, he continues to make appearances until 1448.70 Thus, Jochna was a married woman before 1426, and, at the latest, since 1431. We therefore have a gap, into which her union with Nicholas Młynek attested by the entry of March 1429 may theoretically be placed. But was it really possible for Młynek and Jochna to have been married? It seems unthinkable, especially since we are in now in a social circle close to the cathedral and the higher clergy, where anti-Jewish limitations imposed by canon law were surely treated far more seriously than may have been the case among the common people. Jochna could probably not have become the wife of an attorney engaged in the consistory court without first having accepted baptism. Yet, from our perusal of her entire life, we know that she always remained a Jew. We note her in the city books in the spring of 1429 – that is to say, at the time when Młynek is supposed to have been her husband – in a series of court trials, always with her usual epithet, Judea de Poznania,71 and later as having entered into another one of her Jewish marriages. We are, however, left with the fact that, on 7 March 1429, the consistory court scribe explicitly wrote down the words procurator et maritus. Perhaps we may infer here the existence of an informal union between Nicholas Młynek and the Jewish woman. Quite possibly, the word maritus, used here only once, was a deliberate act of sacrasm on the scribe’s part: a possible concubinage between an attorney of the consistory court and a Jew must have been scandalising in the ecclesiastical milieu. Quite possibly, there had been a preliminary contract of betrothal, stipulating conversion by the future wife. Canon law recognised the validity of a contract of this kind. However, the wedding and the baptism probably never occurred. Consistent with the looseness of the union is the fact that, soon afterwards, both parties entered new, legal marriages – Jochna before January 1431, Nicholas before February 1433. In any event – at least if we do not accept here an outright scribal lapsus calami – Młynek’s ‘marriage’ to the Jewish woman can probably only be imagined as a transient, loose union. Who knows whether we may also not suspect the attorney Nicholas of a purely material motivation? After all, his partner was one of the wealthiest persons in the Poznań financial world. All this must, however, remain a hypothesis – a hypothesis which is difficult to confirm with certainty.

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4 The two examples presented here are not entirely free of uncertainties. The first shows us a well-attested union between a Jewish man and a Christian woman, but the nature of that union remains unclear. In the second, we cannot be certain of the existence of a union between a Jewish woman and a Christian man at all. In any event, we surely have here atypical, unusual situations, from which it would be difficult to draw any generalisations. Nevertheless, they are worth examining closely, and presenting in detail, because they serve as instances of a phenomenon heretofore virtually unnoticed. As it was actually lived, life in past centuries turns out to have been richer than its images, which are so well entrenched in the scholarly literature. Some types of intimate relationships among members of the mutually self-isolating Christian and Jewish communities were, after all, possible. The most significant outcome of this highly fragmentary study is one methodological insight. An accurate picture of the life of the Polish Jews, especially of their bilateral relations with the Christian society surrounding them, cannot be drawn from a mere analysis of different kinds of normative documents, or from fragmentary remarks in the historiography. What is necessary is a broad and comprehensive inquiry into the sources reflecting court practice, which, by the later Middle Ages, are quite ample: the books of the noble land and urban courts, the city books, and, perhaps above all, the extremely interesting books of the consistory courts.72

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8

Notes on the provision of water for the city of Dubrovnik in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Bariša Krekić

The city of Dubrovnik (Ragusa), on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, reached the peak of its development in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its role as intermediary in the trade between the Balkan hinterland and the Adriatic and Mediterranean area brought to the city substantial wealth and significant demographic growth. However, Dubrovnik is located in a region which did not provide sufficient foodstuffs or drinking water for its population; thus it was forced to import a great deal of food, but it was much more difficult to cope with the problem of water supply. There could be no purchase and import of large quantities of this substance: everything depended on natural resources, that is to say on rain and springs. In earlier times, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there were some public and private wells and cisterns in the city. There is mention of some cisterns, and of imports of water on small boats from the nearby area, as early as in the city Statutes of 1272.1 As the city grew during the fourteenth century, the Ragusan government intensified these imports.2 However, by the first half of the fifteenth century, all of this could not satisfy the needs of the city, despite the increase in the number and the size of ships sent to bring water. This became especially true after textile production started in Dubrovnik in the early fifteenth century.3 As a consequence, the Ragusan government decided to resolve the problem of water for good by financing the construction of an important and very expensive major project. In June 1436 a detailed agreement was made between Dubrovnik and the Neapolitan Onofrio de la Cava for the building of an aqueduct approximately five miles long, which would bring to the city the water from a source at Šumet, on a hill above the Ragusan suburb of Gruž (Gravosa). Work on this big enterprise seems to have been finished in a mere two years, and the aqueduct remained the only source of water for Dubrovnik until the mid-twentieth century. Onofrio also built two beautiful public fountains, near the western and eastern entrances to the main street of the city.4 During the subsequent decades the Ragusan government carefully watched

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Notes on the provision of water for the city of Dubrovnik 95 over the aqueduct, adding minor water resources to it from time to time.5 The authorities threatened with severe punishment anyone who dared to harm the precious structure. In 1443, when it was realised that there were people who abused the aqueduct by making holes, opening channels and diverting water for their own use, or otherwise impeding the free flow of water, the government decreed that anyone who committed such malfeasance would have his right arm severed.6 A later order directed the officials in charge of the aqueduct ‘to cut and eradicate all vines and trees which have been planted around the canali’.7 Rainwater was no less important than the water from the aqueduct, and the authorities constantly tried to improve its collection and preservation. In December 1478 and again in June 1479 they ordered that rainwater runoffs which had changed their earlier course should be made to return to their previous location.8 Indeed, the spring and summer of 1479 seem to have been a period of serious water shortage. In early May the government appointed a special committee, consisting of three patricians, ‘to review all cisterns existing in Dubrovnik and to report, separating those which are good from those which are not good’. Masons and other craftsmen were prohibited from working for private citizens; instead, ‘they all must work for one month on communal works’.9 A little later the officiales aqueductus were authorised to open the aqueduct ‘to clean it of mud and roots’ and then ‘to repair and cover it’.10 Probably because of a persistent scarcity of water, in July 1479 the government again appointed three patricians ‘to talk to craftsmen, [and] thus to understand where it would be most convenient and best and least expensive to preserve water in Dubrovnik’.11 The government also supervised very carefully the water resources outside the city, and regulated their use.12 However, the owner of the land containing a water spring could allocate the water to another person in return for compensation. Thus, in February 1480, the patrician ser Marinus Triffonis de Bonda granted to Peter Miletić, from the Ragusan peninsula of Pelješac, the use of water ‘called Vota which originates and flows on the possession of ser Marinus’ in Pelješac. Peter and his family, with their animals, were allowed ‘to go to the said water and use it as long as Peter lives’. For his part, Peter was to give the patrician two chickens each year at Lent.13 In August of the same year another patrician, ser Marinus Mart. De Georgio, made an agreement with a group of ten peasants from the Ragusan region of Konavle, according to which the patrician would allow them and their families to use ‘forever’ a pond (loquam) on his land in Konavle, and they were to give him and his descendants every Christmas ‘one bread [loaf], one good chicken and one bucket of sour milk’, and every Easter one hyperper and six grossi.14 Cisterns existed in Ragusan homes, churches, monasteries and public places, as did fountains, the most important of the latter being the two already

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mentioned, built by Onofrio de la Cava.15 In February 1480 a mason promised two patricians, representing the cathedral church of Saint Mary, ‘to repair and solidify two cisterns in the said church of Saint Mary, so that they may hold and preserve water well and without any defect’ for the duration of three years.16 Contracts for the building of cisterns could be very elaborate. In June 1480 three masons agreed with a commoner to build within two months a cistern in his house for the price of thirty hyperpers. The cistern was supposed to last ten years and, if during that time it developed any faults, the masons were to repair them at no charge.17 Yet another interesting and elaborate contract was written in December 1480, when a mason promised to the patrician ser Franchus Jo. De Sorgo to make him a cistern ‘the Greek way’.18 The location of a cistern did not depend solely on the decision of its owner, but also, very frequently, on the convenience of that facility for the general public. In December 1480 the Minor Council allowed Luka Radovanović ‘to make at his own expense a cistern on the land belonging to the church of Saint John de Pusterna’, where he had already started excavations for that purpose, ‘because, when the Lord Rector and the Minor Council saw the said place, and when the master-masons were taken to that place, it was evident that the cistern would be convenient for the whole neighbourhood and also, in case of necessity, for the whole city’.19 Yet another example of care for the interest of the community came in 1487. On 13 March of that year the Senate rejected a petition by the nuns of the monastery of Saint Claire – all of them patrician women and girls. However, persevering in their efforts, the nuns resubmitted their petition to the Senate at some point between 13 March and 23 June 1487. In this petition the nuns begged the Senate to grant them a piece of land adjacent to their monastery, so that they might enlarge their living space. They pointed out, in very lively and direct terms, that their numbers were growing and that they were living in impossibly cramped quarters. The Rector himself and the Minor Council had visited the monastery and acquainted themselves with the nuns’ miserable condition, but nothing was done to correct it. Although they were fully aware of many matters with which the Rector and the Council were occupied, the nuns nevertheless urged the authorities to grant them the land they asked for, ‘because extreme necessity is forcing us’, especially during the summer when ‘respectfully speaking, indescribable quantities of bugs and fleas’ were torturing them, ‘and this can be understood by those who have experienced them as we are experiencing [them]’. The problem was that on the land that the nuns were requesting for the enlargement of their monastery, there was a cistern. The nuns offered to build a new cistern and a fountain in a place accessible to the public at all times. They were also willing to make sure that the new cistern would be salizada cum creta, so that ‘the water of the said cistern will never be contaminated.’20

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Notes on the provision of water for the city of Dubrovnik 97 On 23 June 1487, during the debate in the Senate on the nuns’ petition, ser Junius Pasqualis de Sorgo promised that he would cover all expenses should it be necessary at any time to repair any manchamentum of the water in the cistern on the nuns’ land arising from this concession. Sorgo also promised that the fountain would be located so that everyone could use the water, except for the times when the government closed it.21 Immediately after this, the Senate, with 26 ballots for and ten against, approved the nuns’ petition and granted them the land they had asked for. The Senate’s decision concerning this concession explicitly referred to Sorgo’s obligation.22 The fact that the nuns had succeeded in achieving their goal can also be deduced from an act of 16 July 1487. A man from Senj, on the northern Croatian littoral, came to an agreement with ser Junius Pasqualis de Sorgo and his companions, officials who were to supervise the construction work on the new cistern which was to replace the one adjacent to the monastery of Saint Claire. He was to bring to Dubrovnik by the end of August a variety of equipment needed for the building of the new cistern.23 While the case of the nuns’ cistern seems to have been favourably resolved, cisterns and wells could also be a cause of conflicts among people, especially when they were shared by several. Thus, in June 1480, litigation broke out between ser Vladissauus de Goze and his nephew ser Clemens de Goze. They had a cistern in a jointly owned courtyard, and the controversy ended up in the Minor Council. The Council decided that the cistern should take only rainwater, and that ‘if any one of them affixes to the wall of the said courtyard any pots to place flowers or odoriferous herbs’, such pots should be removed within three days. It seems, however, that this order was not obeyed, because in October of the same year both patricians were admonished once again by the Council, to the effect ‘that none of them may from now on keep pots over their cistern’.24 At the same time two members of the Minor Council were authorised to spend up to fifty hyperpers from the state treasury ‘to clean and repair the old water channel’.25 The care with which the government supervised not only public but also private and ecclesiastical cisterns, and everything else that had to do with the supply of water, is quite understandable. As already mentioned, Dubrovnik was situated in an area where prolonged dry periods were not a rarity. One such period was 1426, when, in October, the Minor Council ordered ‘that our Ragusan clergy, as is the habit, organise a solemn procession tomorrow, Friday, and on Saturday . . . as a token of respect toward Almighty God and the whole heavenly court, so that they may deign to grant us salutary rain’.26 The year 1513 was another dry year. In July the government decided to close all wells along the aqueduct ‘from the source of the water to the city’, with the exception of two cisterns.27 By October the water-supply situation

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had significantly worsened, and on the fifteenth of that month a fine of 25 hyperpers was imposed on anyone opening canals at any point along the entire length of the aqueduct.28 The end of that month must have seen a drastic shortage of water in Dubrovnik: the authorities appointed officiales fontane on duty near all fountains and wells in the city, with the task of seeing to it ‘that people can use those waters in abundance during this extreme drought’ (in hac extrema siccitate).29 Such shortages of water, which Dubrovnik suffered from time to time, were due primarily to the lack of rain. In November 1513 the government decreed that a well be built at a fresh-water spring inside the city itself, and ordered a search for another spring in the same area of the city.30 Paradoxically, these measures seem to have been adopted between two big storms that hit Dubrovnik at this time. Although there is no systematic study of the climate and rainfall in the region in late-medieval and Renaissance times, there is data which allows us a partial insight into the weather situation in Dubrovnik. In November 1512 a powerful storm with violent rain inflicted damage on parts of the fortifications and on the harbour, where it was necessary to repair ‘what the tempestuous sea had destroyed’.31 Yet another even more powerful storm hit the city and the whole territory of the Ragusan Republic in September 1514. The government talked of a ‘deluge of rain’, and losses were extensive. Some roofs in the city itself had suffered damage: in the village of Slano, to the north, the salt-works were damaged, and the town of Cavtat, to the south, was also hit.32 One can assume that this unusually violent storm came after the scorching summer heat which is frequent in Dubrovnik. The storms certainly helped replenish the Ragusan sources of water. Nevertheless, the authorities’ vigilance over the flow of rainwater was maintained when it came to the aqueduct. For example, in August 1567 the Senate ordered that all homeowners from whose roofs water was flowing downward onto the street must, by the end of December, under the penalty of twenty hyperpers, ‘conduct the said rainwater down inside the wall, so that it no longer falls from on high . . . onto the public street’. Houses built in the future were subject to the same rule, on pain of severe fines.33 There were from time to time problems with the engineers of the aqueduct (protomagistri aqueductus), who were supposed to supervise this important construction and to make sure that it was in sound condition and functioned in a satisfactory manner at all times. In September 1529 the engineer Peter was dismissed ‘because of his neglect . . . of the said job’.34 In 1566 the engineer of the aqueduct, Pasco, from Nin – a city in northern Dalmatia – and all the workers who had been repairing a cistern in the monastery of Saint Andrew, were sentenced to a reimbursement of all expenses incurred by the monastery toward the repair of the cistern, ‘because through their fault the cistern has been ruined and holds

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Notes on the provision of water for the city of Dubrovnik 99 no water’. In October 1550 a new and detailed decree was issued concerning the duties of the officials entrusted with the care of the aqueduct.36 35

* * * Water had an extraordinary importance in the life of Dubrovnik, even more so than was the case in many other medieval/Renaissance cities, because of the specific geographic and political position of the Republic, squeezed as it was into an extremely narrow strip of land and a few small islands along the Adriatic Sea coast, between two opposite and frequently hostile worlds: the eastern and Balkan, at the time increasingly dominated by the Ottoman Empire, and the western and Adriatic, dominated by Venice. This situation enhanced the importance of fresh water as an indispensable means to Dubrovnik’s very existence as a free city-state, and to the survival of its inhabitants. Surrounded by the sea and barren mountains, Dubrovnik badly needed a steady supply of water because – for all the famed diplomatic skill and wise statesmanship of its governing patricians – without food and water the state would have been forced to capitulate to any one among its powerful neighbours. But, as has already been mentioned, while food could be bought with Dubrovnik’s vast wealth and transported on its numerous ships, often from distant regions, water could not. Therein lies the importance of the aqueduct, the fountains, the wells and the cisterns; and it also gave scope to the wisdom of the people who built and constantly supervised those facilities. However, water also played an important role in other aspects of Dubrovnik’s daily life, in particular in the struggle against fires, which were a permanent menace to all medieval cities. True, Dubrovnik was on the seashore, and seawater was certainly used to put out fires, but one can surmise that, on many occasions, especially when the danger was imminent and drastic, people used water from nearby cisterns and fountains to put out the flames. The great fire of 1296, which consumed a large portion of the still-wooden city, was one such case, and there were no doubt other similar instances of grave danger.37 The gradual and systematic replacement of wooden with stone houses, and the paving of city streets and squares with stone and brick, beginning in the early fifteenth century, reduced the menace of fire and the need to use water from cisterns and fountains to fight it. This was certainly a significant development at a time when water was increasingly used for the needs of a growing population and for the newly introduced production of textiles. It is not surprising therefore that the Ragusan authorities paid so much attention to the problems connected with fresh water and that they strove consistently through the centuries to make water accessible to all inhabitants of the city. It was yet another proof of their well-known versatility and far-sighedness.

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9

Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages Grzegorz Myśliwski

In the economic history of Western Europe, the thirteenth century is the apex of development, the watershed of an intercontinental economic system which extended, until around the middle of the subsequent century, from Flanders, through Italy, Egypt and India, all the way to China.1 The dissolution of this system around the mid-fourteenth century coincided with several areas of crisis that afflicted the West until the mid-fifteenth century.2 In contrast, for the countries of Central Europe, the end of the central Middle Ages and the late medieval period, were, in the opinion of most historians, a time of formation and of the intensification of economic contacts with the cores of the Western European economy: Italy, Flanders and the Brabant.3 One segment of this long-term process was the history of contacts between the Republic of Venice and Wrocław (Breslau in German) – a city serving as the hub of Silesia, a province among Central Europe’s most developed regions. In the thirteenth century, the significance of these two cities differed diametrically. As is well known, after participating in the partition of a large part of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, the Venetian Republic acquired hegemony over significant territories in the eastern Mediterranean basin, and reached the apex of its political and economic power.4 Despite the troublesome consequences of Turkish expansion in the late Middle Ages, in this period Venice’s economic profile, and place on the economic map of Europe, remained preeminent.5 By the mid-fourteenth century, the city had no fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, whilst between the catastrophe of the Black Death and the end of the Middle Ages, the population did not exceed 85,000.6 Meanwhile, in the first half of the thirteenth century, Wrocław’s significance was limited to the northwestern portion of Central Europe. This seat of a bishopric, and political centre of one of the Polish duchies, was then in the early phases of its development – having gained the status of an automonous urban community, founded according to the law of Magdeburg around 1230.7 Until the 1240s, Wrocław functioned merely as a transit point between Prague and western Poland (the Great Poland region), Pomerania

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Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages 101 and the Baltic zone. Historians also discern, at this time, economic ties between Wrocław and the towns of eastern Germany.9 In the same period, Wrocław and Silesia were part of what is known as the Sudeto-Carpathian, or simply the Carpathian, economic zone, encompassing the Czech Kingdom, Hungary (including Slovakia and Transylvania) and southern Poland.10 That zone’s main asset was a variety of metal ores, the demand for which elicited interest in Central Europe among Western European merchants from precisely the thirteenth century onwards.11 At the outset of the fifteenth century – that is to say, at the height of its prosperity – the number of Wrocław’s inhabitants did not exceed 20,000.12 The earliest encounter between the merchants of Wrocław and of Venice may have occurred as early as 1245, in Kiev, which, despite the destruction caused by the Mongols in 1240, attracted merchants not only from Wrocław but also from other Polish and southern German towns (especially, I would argue, Regensburg), plus occasional visitors from the main Italian cities and from Acre.13 Although in all likelihood the encounter in the historical capital of the Rus’ had no consequences for Wrocław-Venice contacts, we may nevertheless consider it symbolic. Until the Mongol conquest, Kiev had functioned as the chief transit point of the commerce between Asia and Europe. Paradoxically, though it was ushered in by massive destruction and slaughter, the pax mongolica made possible the development of an intercontinental commercial exchange – but with only a minimal participation by the former capital of the Rus’, now nearly in ruins.14 The visit by the Wrocław merchants reflects their interest in merchandise from the Orient, and their search for commercial contacts across an expanded horizon. Similarly, the Venetians in Kiev, and the other Italians who arrived in the Rus’ capital per Tartaros – meaning, presumably, across the western regions of the Mongol empire – also sought new access to Asian products, and possibly to terrains for commercial expansion. The efforts by Wrocław merchants led to results – though less in the east of Europe than in the much more important Italian north. The beginnings of relatively regular contact between Wrocław and northern Italy may be dated to the end of the second third of the thirteenth century. This is because in 1266 at the latest the sources report the importation into Wrocław of a type of wine, described as de vino Gallico sive Rivali.15 Despite considerable disagreement among historians in interpreting the geographical references expressed by those words, the description refers to the regions of northern Italy which were under the influence of Venice, rather than to French territories.16 We do not know whether Wrocław merchants purchased wine directly in Italy, or whether they did so in Bavaria, along a trade route leading to Italy which they frequently traversed. Such visits are shown by the toll tariff, dated 1270 or 1271, from the locality called Chamb (today, Cham), situated in the German-Czech frontier zone, and traversed by the 8

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trade route leading to Regensburg.17 In Regensburg, which among all the towns of Germany enjoyed the closest contacts with Venice until the mid-fifteenth century,18 it was also possible to buy merchandise from regions of the South and the East. For this reason, instead of slogging their way across the Alps, Wrocław merchants were able to make purchases in Bavaria, though undoubtedly at a relatively high price. But it seems that Silesian merchants travelled even further south – to Munich (gen Muenichen), among other places.19 At the time a relatively unimportant town in European commerce,20 Munich could not have been their final destination. It therefore seems likely that such merchants from Wrocław were en route to northern Italy, in order to purchase Mediterranean and Oriental commodities. But were they travelling only for that purpose? By retrogression, we may suppose that Wrocław merchants came to Italy with East-Central European commodities. We may suspect this from the slightly later notes made by agents of the Frescobaldi bank in Florence, and discovered by F. Bastian. In 1299, on the orders of this powerful banking enterprise, a certain Wrocław merchant by the name of David brought a transport of fur to the boundary region between Tyrol and Italy.21 A year later, the same David, and a certain Diemon (possibly Damian), received reimbursement for expenditures they had incurred in Bozen (Bolzano) and Trent, in all likelihood on the instructions of the Frescobaldi.22 They must have scaled the Brenner Pass – the critical link between the Empire and nothern Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,23 from which the distances to Verona, to the vinyeards of Rivoli and to Venice were quite short. However, it was not Venice, but the Verona region, or Bolzano and Florence, which first attracted merchants from faraway Wrocław. Although a likely motive for travelling to the Mediterranean region was the desire for Levantine goods, even more important was the response to the demand for fur in northern Italy. This motivation – in conjunction with the skills of the Wrocław entrepreneurs in furnishing the requisite supply (skills that were most probably expressed in Russian pelts) – is the specific explanation for the rise of long-term ties between East Central Europe (among other regions) and the Italian north. Likewise, the Venetians required fur, with which they were supplied by Wrocław merchants around the same period. Thanks to H. Amman, we know that in the first decade of the fourteenth century, at the latest, Wrocław merchants were travelling southward by a different trade route, through eastern Austria.24 We know this because the toll tariff of Wiener Neustadt (compiled around 1310) contains a notice about merchants from Wrocław transporting fur.25 We must concur with Amman, who discerned here a reflection of commercial journeys by Wrocław merchants to Venice itself;26 Wiener Neustadt, a town of a distant rank on the economic map of Europe, could not have been the final destination of these long-distance journeys. The Wrocław

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Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages 103 merchants in all likelihood traversed Moravia and Vienna, and, after passing Wiener Neustadt, progressed by the route leading through the Semmering Pass, Judenburg and Villach, from where Venice was within easy reach.27 Contrary to the views held by the dean of Wrocław’s trade history, H. Wendt, contacts between Wrocław and Venice do not appear to have subsided during the first half of the fourteenth century, despite the absence of similarly eloquent sources.28 The incorporation of Polish Wrocław into the Kingdom of Bohemia, which took place de jure in 1327 and de facto in 1335,29 must have encouraged such contacts. Czech merchants had been present in Venice since at least 1300.30 In addition, judging from later evidence, demand for fur along the Adriatic remained strong. Confirming the economic ties between Venice’s colonial empire and Silesia’s chief city is the extensive Wrocław tariff of customs and tolls, compiled in 1327, which splendidly reflects the city’s commodity trade. Thus, among other commodities, a variety of furs continued to be brought to Wrocław. Their massive importation is attested by the large size of the basic unit on which such payment was assessed: one thousand pelts.31 In addition, numerous commodities were imported from beyond trans-Alpine Europe: exotic cloth-making material and clothing (clause 4: silk and silk outfits, brocade, gold-interlaced ribbons, taffeta), spices (clause 5: pepper, ginger, sugar, saffron, muscat and unde allirleige gekrude, i.e. ‘all other spices’, and, in clause 7, cummin), fruit (clause 8: figs, raisins), Italian wine (clause 19: still the reinval, and in addition the velsch).32 The regulation concerning hucksters issued in the same year, 1327, also notes rice and almonds.33 We cannot exclude the possibility that all these commodities had originally been purchased in the Venice market. Indeed, the literature on this subject has long maintained that most Oriental commodities reached the Odra specifically from Venice.34 In all likelihood, some proportion of the commodities just noted could have originated in Venice; however, the influx of Mediterranean and Oriental goods into Wrocław could also have originated from elsewhere – the Netherlands, where Wrocław merchants were present as early as the second half of the thirteenth century, or Genoa’s Black Sea colonies, through the Kingdom of Hungary, or through Lwów and Kraków.35 The suppliers of these Levantine commodities are described in the documents with the word gast, which may in this context be translated as ‘a [merchant] stranger’.36 In all likelihood, some proportion of the commodities originating in Venice were imported by entrepreneurs from outside Wrocław. Active here may have been merchants from southern Germany (Regensburg, Passau), and possibly from southern Poland (Kraków), and from Prussia under the Teutonic Order (Toruń), whose importance in this regard is well attested in the 1350s.37 Nevertheless, we should not rule out a role by the Wrocław merchants themselves in supplying their own city with commodities imported from

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Venice. This is because the word gast apparently refers not merely to a foreigner, but also to any merchant arriving in Wrocław from abroad – including a merchant on his return home. Apart from a single clause concerning small objects (the cromerie, clause 6), all the commodities – even the regional wine (the lant win, clause 19) – were imported by persons described with the word gast. Thus, if we interpret that word as simply a synonym for foreigner, we would be compelled to conclude that Wrocław merchants never travelled abroad in search of those commodities which were inaccessible in Silesia. Yet it appears that the volume of such commodities imported was, in the comparative contemporary context, relatively high – a fact we can infer from the basic unit on which the toll was assessed: a centner, that is, about fifty kilograms. Based on this evidence, it is difficult to assess the intensity of the contacts between Wrocław and Venice; quite possibly, such contacts were not especially frequent. On the other hand, we may also assume that they never ceased, since there were no specific reasons for their cessation. What is, however, absolutely beyond doubt is their increase during the second half, and especially the final quarter, of the fourteenth century. Of great benefit here was Wrocław’s subjection to the Kingdom of Bohemia, whose ruler (since 1355, emperor) conducted an active Italian policy. Thanks to an agreement with the doge of Venice, all of Charles IV’s subjects acquired, in 1358, the privilege of engaging in trade with the Republic.38 However, it appears that merchants specifically from Wrocław began to appear with an appreciable frequency along the route through Austria only in the fourth quarter of the century; in the 1360s, Austria’s rulers Duke Rudolph IV and Duke Albrecht III issued rights of free passage only to merchants from Prague.39 The whole issue of travel by Wrocław merchants arose only in the 1380s – a fact which may be viewed as proof of an intensification of trading expeditions to Venice. In 1381, the duke of Carinthia, Leopold, granted to such expeditions free passage though the territories subject to him, for a period of two years.40 However, travel by Wrocław merchants elicited resistance from the inhabitants of Vienna and other Austrian towns. The harassment directed against merchants travelling from Wrocław to Venice prompted a response from the king of Bohemia, Wenceslas IV,41 who, in 1387, threatened the Austrians with retaliation against their merchants en route to Bohemia and Poland.42 But the monarch’s intervention was useless; as early as the following year, the Prague town council asked the Wrocław authorities to join in the efforts against those inhabitants of the duchy of Austria who continued to impede transit toward Venice.43 Contrary to the optimistic view voiced by C. Grünhagen, this did not lead to the desired results.44 Only after another attempt, when the margrave of Moravia, Jodok, was asked to mediate, was a compromise reached between

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Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages 105 the rulers of Bohemia and Austria, as well as between the principal towns of those countries. Some time in the period 1391–4, the margrave induced the protagonists to enter a treaty, which was to last for six years, whereby the inhabitants of Prague and Wrocław obtained the right of free transit through eastern Austria, after the payment of customary tolls.45 In a separate clause, the treaty guaranteed merchants from Wrocław free transit through the region of Zeiring in Styria (near Judenburg) – but without commodities, and only with money and bills of exchange.46 Thus, the Austrian impediments did not prevent the expansion of contacts between the Venetian Republic and Wrocław, contacts which entered their most dynamic phase approximately between 1387 and the end of the 1440s.47 Yet, it is worth recalling the discovery made by A. Hoffmann, who established the presence in Silesia of a visitor from Venice as early as 1380.48 It seems quite likely that that particular visit (which was related to exacting a debt owed by a townsman of Strzegom) had its contemporary counterparts in Wrocław itself – a city which was, after all, much more important than Strzegom. The development of Wrocław’s interactions with Venice is further reflected by the emerging use, from the 1380s onward, of a third trade route to the south: through Linz and Salzburg.49 These contacts continued, without interruption by the trade war which was waged intermittently between 1412 and 1437 by Sigismund of Luxemburg (simultaneously the Roman king and the king of Hungary and Bohemia). The fact that the inhabitants of Wrocław were subject to Sigismund only from 1419 onward50 is not very significant in this context, because all the trade routes to Venice led through the Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. Thus, the emperor allowed outright one of Wrocław’s inhabitants, Richard Sak, to assault and plunder the Venetians’ trading expeditions,51 while another (Antonio Ricci, an immigrant from Florence, and possibly a relative of the Medicis) was forced to explain himself on account of his visit to Venice on commercial business during a prohibited period.52 Moreover, in certain years after the renewal of the prohibition on visits by Wrocław merchants to Venice (specifically 1420 and 1431),53 evidence of economic contacts by the city’s merchants with the Mediterranean city-state does indeed disappear. Nevertheless, the scepticism expressed by some historians regarding the full effectiveness of the blockade54 is supported by the history of Wrocław itself. One example is the commercial notes (preserved in eighteenth-century copies) which were made by Paul Beringer, who travelled regularly to Venice between 1410 and 1419 on instructions from his principal, Michael Banke.55 To be sure, the years between April 1413 and July 1418 were a time of truce,56 but the notes made in 1412 and 1419 attest to visits in Venice by this agent during the blockade.57 Also mistaken is the view of W. von Stromer, to the effect that, as a result of Sigismund of Luxemburg’s tariff war against Venice,

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the contacts of Wrocław merchants on the Adriatic were permanently appropriated by the merchants of Nuremberg, a city which was the principal ally of the emperor.58 To be sure, we have cases that might support this view, but only in the years 1421–3,59 and even then with reservations. In 1422, a Venetian arrived in Wrocław, in person, to demand repayment of a loan, using for this purpose a letter from the doge and other documents.60 In the subsequent years, we have examples of direct contact between the merchants from Wrocław on the one hand, and Venice and the Venetians on the other.61 Usually, it was the Wrocław merchants who travelled to the Adriatic, although we also know of instances when Italians arrived at the Odra (including just after 1433, the year of the end of the trade war), such as Simone Fastilmi, Gerònimo della Torre, Giovanni Bindi of Lucca, Laurencio Bindi and Phebo Capella.62 Direct contacts between Wrocław and Venice merchants also occurred in Lwów (Leopolis, Lemburga) during the third quarter of the fifteenth century.63 The ties between the two cities lasted until the end of the 1480s, if not later64 – and they appear to have continued after that decade, as attested by fragmentary evidence from the first quarter of the sixteenth century.65 An additional, indirect corroboration of the permanence of direct connections is Wrocław’s contacts with the Apostolic See, whose intensity would have been difficult to maintain without strong ties with the Republic.66 Direct economic contacts between Wrocław and Venice entailed both commodity trade and credit. As is well known, Venice was, next to Bruges, one of the two most important emporia of Western Europe, where just about any commodity could be purchased.67 Despite the difference in the trading potentials of Wrocław and Venice, sale of commodities occurred in both directions, over a period lasting at least until 1489.68 The level of supply on Venice’s side, and of the intermediaries acting on Venice’s behalf, far outweighed the level of supply from the other direction. In order to give a sense of the stream of commodities into Central Europe, H. Wendt has used as an example a long list of commodities that flowed northward through St. Veit in Carinthia.69 As in the other towns of the Empire (Passau, for example), in Wrocław Venetian goods comprised a separate category of merchandise (alle venedische war), and trade in those goods was controlled by the Wrocław town council.70 However, if we limit ourselves to Wrocław, and to those commodities which we know to have been imported by Wrocław merchants, the list becomes much shorter. The commodities imported into Silesia were above all spices and precious fabrics. In addition, in Venice Wrocław merchants purchased heavy wine,71 although we cannot easily say how often this was transported directly from the Republic, and how often from localities situated on the Republic’s trade route, such as Prague. Sporadically, travellers from Wrocław also procured in Venice: rabbit furs originating outside of Christendom (vir heydenische kanichin),72 jewels (pearls, among others),73

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Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages 107 and other, unspecified small objects – an Venedischen pfennwarten, presumably craft products.74 Among spices, the most important were pepper75 and saffron – the latter used, among other things, as a medicine and aphrodisiac.76 In addition, Wrocław merchants imported, directly or through agents, ginger,77 a similar spice called santonica (also used as a medicine), cloves,78 nutmeg, dyewood,79 and soap (venedische Seiffe).80 Other commodities are possible; we do have notices about goods which were purchased in Venice, but were not expressly identified.81 Little data survives concerning the quantities of spices imported, because the record is frequently limited to the sums paid, or to the quantities of sacks – a measure of volume which is unknown to us. For example, in the familiar (though not, as of yet, profoundly researched) eighteenth-century extracts from Paul Bellinger’s accounts spanning the years 1410–19,82 we can only rarely find information about the quantities of pepper purchased. On the other hand, we do know that Michael Banke’s agent was importing far more pepper than other spices, because he disbursed over half his expenditure in Venice (1,460 out of 2,600 ducats) on that commodity.83 In contrast, he devoted only about 260 ducats to the procurement of saffron, and only 73 ducats to ginger. In order to assess the approximate size of Beringer’s purchases, let us assume that, as of 1420, the price of pepper was 24 ducats for one centner.84 This suggests, at a first approximation, that this Wrocław agent purchased as much as three tons of ordinary pepper. The remaining purchases were far more modest: about 566 pounds (that is, approximately 170 kilograms) of ginger; almost 300 pounds (about 90 kilograms) of saffron – a portion of which was lost early on, in Friuli, during the return trip from Venice; 255 pounds (about 77 kilograms) of cloves; and 204 pounds (about 61.5 kilograms) of santonica.85 All this indicates that, in contrast to Western Europe, where the import of pepper was eclipsed by the import of other spices,86 demand in Wrocław continued to favour this commodity. Since 1456 at the latest, the inhabitants of Wrocław also procured pepper on their own account, and directly.87 They purchased it in person – needless to say, not only in Venice, but also in Buda (Ofen),88 and later in Antwerp.89 Huge supplies of pepper were also brought to Wrocław by foreigners, especially in the first quarter of the fifteenth century.90 The Wrocław merchants also imported from Venice wool,91 cotton,92 and luxury fabrics. The latter included silk and taffeta,93 gold-cloth, baldechin (balkini, a silk-based fabric inerwoven with cotton or linen), a silk-like fabric called bukeschin, and satin94 – the latter sometimes used as a pledge, that is, as collateral for repayment to a Venetian creditor.95 Evidence concerning the quantities of the imported textiles is much sparser.96 We do know that Beringer imported a large volume of wool (1,346 pounds) and ‘much’ grey bukeschin

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(vil groe bukeschin). As for the more valuable materials, he imported those in enumerated lengths: eight lengths of brocade, ten lengths of decorated woollen cloth (gespreng),97 27 lengths of baldechin, and four lengths of satin. This difference is not surprising in the light of the prices of these commodities. A hundred pounds of wool cost five ducats less eight groats, whereas one length of gold-cloth required an outlay of fifteen ducats, and one length of satin or of baldachin cost eight ducats. On the other hand, we lack information about the quantity of silk and taffeta with which the Florence merchant, Antonio Ricci, is reported to have supplied the chief wholesaler of Wrocław, Johann Banke. The data noted above do not constitute the full evidence concerning the import of spices, materials required for the production of cloth, or the fabrics traded in Wrocław. In all likelihood, those commodities were, in many cases, imported from Venice, but on the initiative of merchants from outside Silesia. Such imports actively involved, above all, entrepreneurs from the towns of Bavaria, Franconia, Switzerland and today’s Austria, entrepreneurs who, according to M. Scholz-Babisch, brought in, in the course of the 1440s, that same range of spices – plus, now, nutmeg and cinnamon, fruit (figs, raisins, almonds), sweets (candy), medicines (gum, kenkur root), sweet wines, multicoloured linen cloth, chamois, damask and a red dye-stuff called Brazilwood.98 In its trading relations with Venice, Wrocław was not merely a recipient. It was through Silesia, and by the mediation of Wrocław merchants, that a variety of commodities, of highly varied origin, reached Italy. These included furs, dye-stuffs and mineral ores. In one exceptional instance, in 1399, Wrocław merchants transported to Venice a cargo of precious stone, lapis lazuli.99 As I have already noted, the commodities earliest to be exported to Italy by Wrocław merchants, at the end of the thirteenth century, were products of the forest economy. Florence, and in all likelihood Venice, received in this way both small furs and long fur coats (verch, es sein chürsen oder palge). Demand for this product, supplied through Wrocław, remained strong in Venice well into the first half of the fifteenth century – a fact attested by the litigation between Johann Banke and Antonio Ricci, spanning the years 1428–32.100 Without getting into detail about this conflict between former partners – a conflict which has been well studied elsewhere101 – let me merely note that Ricci ordered from Banke 6,500 pelts of small fur (de vario 6 milia quinque cento) for export to Venice.102 Although this commodity quite possibly originated in the region of Novgorod, it seems equally likely that, at this time, another source of supply for Wrocław was Lithuania.103 The merchandise ordered for the Venice market by this Florentine entrepreneur also included the red dye-stuff called Polish cochineal dye (czerwiec). Ricci procured by contract approximately 264 kilograms of this commodity

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Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages 109 (ad Venetias . . . de cremesi . . . in toto lapides 22 minus 1 libra).104 It was imported to satisfy the needs of the Venetian textile industry, either from the territories of the Polish Kingdom or from Masovia, at this time separate from the Kingdom.105 This was hardly the only instance of transport of cochineal dye from Wrocław to Venice.106 The final category of commodities exported to Venice by Wrocław merchants were mineral ores. Early on in the scholarship, C. Grünhagen was certain that Hungarian copper was exported to the Adriatic coast by merchants from Wrocław.107 More important than this seems to have been the export of gold and silver, required by Venetian mints. The Venetian Republic also needed gold and silver for transactions in foreign markets; this is because Venice was the largest centre of commerce in precious metals in Western Europe.108 It also seems that traders from Wrocław may have played a part in the supply of silver and gold. As early as in the thirteenth century, Wrocław merchants transported those two ores to Bruges.109 Both ores were extracted in Silesia, though gold was more abundant;110 one of the mining centres, Zlate Hory (Zuckmantel in German), has been historiographically dubbed ‘a Silesian California’.111 But it appears that Wrocław merchants sometimes traded gold imported from the Kingdom of Hungary, where the largest reserves of gold ore were situated. This is where most of the gold imported into Venice during the late Middle Ages originated.112 An important role in the transfer of that mineral to Wrocław was played by Vienna – situated as it was on the trade route connecting the Hungarian Kingdom to southern Germany, and northern Italy to (among other regions) Silesia.113 Examples known to me of individual transports of gold to Venice by Wrocław merchants all entail modest quantities, on the order of two or three pieces of ore per transport – pieces whose weight is, moreover, unknown.114 I would therefore not wish to exaggerate the extent of the export, and the reexport, of this commodity. Matters seem a bit different regarding the export of silver, which German merchants brought to Venice in great quantities as early as the thirteenth century.115 Crucial to its export by Wrocław merchants must have been the privilege issued by Charles IV in 1373, which guaranteed them free passage with silver (as well as with gold and other commodities) out of Kutná Hora.116 Literally interpreted, this source does not rule out the possibility that Wrocław merchants were unable to travel through Kutná Hora with precious metals they had purchased in Silesia; more likely, however, at least in the case of silver, is purchase in Kutná Hora itself. This was probably the location of the purchase by the Wrocław merchant Johann Petka, from whom as much as 10,000 marks of ore – czehentausent mark silbers, that is to say, about two tons of silver, or a transport of that metal assessed at the value of 10,000 marks – were confiscated at the toll house in Linz.117 In conjunction, Petka’s place of origin, the presumed location of his purchase of silver, and the place

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where this merchant was detained for payment of toll, all indicate that he was planning to transport the ore to Venice. Although Petka subsequently prevailed in a lawsuit for legal compensation, in which he was awarded 4,000 marks, his silver never made it to Venice. This is because instead of the silver, he received immovable property and lifetime rent-revenues in Passau. It does not seem that Petka’s undertaking was an exception; Charles IV’s privilege must have stemmed, among other factors, from attempts by Wrocław’s civic authorities to obtain access to the mineral reserves of Kutná Hora. Whether the earliest credit links arose during the reign of Charles IV cannot be established with certainty, although it cannot be ruled out. To be sure, the earliest clearly documented loan from a Venetian to an inhabitant of Wrocław was incurred relatively late, only sometime before 1397 – a year when a certain Venetian travelled to Wrocław in order to demand repayment of a debt.118 However, A. Hoffmann’s discovery noted above, which clearly attests to a claim, lodged as early as 1380 by a Venetian for repayment of a loan against an inhabitant of the relatively unimportant town of Strzegom, allows us to assume the existence of earlier credit relations between the inhabitants of Wrocław and Venice. The extant sources indicate that those relations were far more one-sided than was the case with commodity exchange. Apart from one case (which occurred late, in 1466, and concerned only the modest sum of ten Hungarian florins),119 in this set of bilateral relations all the debtors were the inabitants of Wrocław. All the instances of their entrance into debt known to me occurred in the years leading up to 1461; in one of these instances, repayment was made as late as 1463.120 The clear majority of cases took place before 1440. Records compiled in the 1440s concern attempts by the Venetians to force repayment of debt. In the years 1395–1461, the inhabitants of Wrocław borrowed from the Venetians a total of 6,361 Hungarian florins, 1,183 ducats, 151 marks and 12 individual coins of Prague groats, plus three pieces of a coin with a name which cannot be explained today, the perner.121 Let us try to convert these sums into the two basic currencies of Central Europe, the golden Hungarian florin and the silver Prague groat (the latter quantified in a unit of account, the mark). Whereas the relative values of the Prague (or Czech) groat, and of the Hungarian florin, are currently well ascertained and known,122 the relative values of the golden Hungarian florin and the Venetian ducat require further clarification. In the light of the Wrocław sources, the exchange rate was one-to-one: in one case, an agent of the Venetian creditors was instructed to transfer 427 florins or ducats (ffirhundert Siebnundczwenczik ungerische gulden adir gute ducaten).123 Assuming the accuracy of this ratio, we can convert the sum total of Venetian credit extended to the inhabitants of Wrocław into approximately 7,855 florins, or 4,301 marks of Prague groats. Using the florin as our sole basis for conversion, we may infer that loans made by the Venetians exceeded, by a factor of

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Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages 111 three, the total credit extended to the inhabitants of Wrocław over a longer period (until 1491) by the merchants of Nuremberg, the most important town of the upper-German economic zone.124 These levels raise a question: the purpose of the credit incurred. According to H. Samsonowicz, Central Europe’s merchants intended the credit to finance a diversified consumption, including the procurement of luxury items in Venice.125 However, in the large towns of the region, including Wrocław, hoarding was more important than either investment for profit (in commerce or in land rent) or for consumption. The price data established for Venice by W. Stieda allows us to infer that, for the full sum obtained by the credit incurred there, Wrocław merchants would have been able to buy 22.5 tons of cotton at its higher price; or approximately ten tons of pepper; or more than 6.5 tons of ginger at its higher price.126 However, one cannot rule out the use of Venetian loans in the Wrocław market. In view of the prices of some immovables and commodities available in that market, the credit obtained in Venice comprised the equivalent of seven expensive houses in the market square of Wrocław; or more than twelve cheaper houses in that same location; or nine castles; or more than 218 bales of Brussels woollen cloth; or approximately seven tons of pepper; or more than 392 tons of lead; or 65 tons of copper from Hungary.127 The debt to the Venetians was owed by a total of 17 debtors. However, onehalf (more than about 52.75 per cent) of the overall debt (which, after conversions from the several coinages, totalled approximately 4148 florins), was incurred by the family of the Wrocław chief wholesaler and long-term councillor, Johann Banke.128 Banke himself owed to a group of nineteen Venetians the huge sum of over 3,528 Hungarian florins, which comprised about 45 per cent of all the debt obligations toward merchants from Venice.129 The remaining two Bankes from Johann’s kindred (who also held important positions) owed the Venetians 620 florins.130 Meanwhile, the entreprenurial group consisting of Michael Banke (unrelated to Johann and his two relatives, but no less prominent), his colleague on the town council Peter Stronechen and Paul Beringer, noted above, borrowed from the Venetians a total of about 1,081 florins, which was 14.75 per cent of the overall debt.131 Among the remaining debtors (who jointly incurred a debt of 2,626 florins, or about 33.5 percent of the total debt), especially notable are the obligations incurred by Andreas Peiserer, consisting of 640 florins (320 marks); by Hans Kunig, 328 florins (114 marks); and by a certain Jenitz, 150 marks (300 florins).132 It is worth noting that, despite the occasional occurrence of very modest loans (at a level below 22 florins),133 most acquisitions of credit from the Venetians exceeded 100 florins. The people who entered commercial contacts with the Venetians could not have belonged to the lower social strata. However, these remaining debtors very rarely included town councillors

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(Heinrich Gurteler, Beda-Biedau) or assessors (Peiserer).134 Others were members of patrician families who did not hold office in either the town or the duchy of Wrocław (Frantzke Dumlose, Stephan Domenicke).135 Nothing is known about the remaining debtors. However, their connections with Venice – which, in the single documented case of Johann Grosfener, entailed a trip to that city – suggest a group of people specialising exclusively in economic activity on a supra-local scale. On the other side of the transaction, who were the donors of the credit extended to the inhabitants of Wrocław, and what was their position in their own entrepreneurial world? How much did each of them lend to Wrocław entrepreneurs? In view of the source record, the latter question is often impossible to answer. For example, the exceptionally high debt incurred by Johann Banke is expressed as a lump sum, and not disaggregated among the 17 individual creditors. Nevertheless, it seems quite certain that the main creditors to Wrocław inhabitants were the Peruta family (Marco, Bartolomeò and Gerònimo), who were also a well-known partnership.136 In Venetian sources, Bartolomeò is identified as a nobleman, while in the Wrocław records all the Peruti are identified with the word Seidenere, which we may interpret to mean silk manufacturers.137 Thirteen inhabitants of Wrocław owed this group 1,229 Hungarian florins, 241 ducats, and 33 groats – that is to say, a total of over 1,471 Hungarian florins – a level comprising about nineteen per cent of the entire Wrocław debt. We may also classify as Venetian patricians the Amadi brothers, Francesco and Giovanni,138 to whom the inhabitants of Wrocław owed a total of about 840 florins (about eleven per cent of the overall debt). The remaining creditors are more familiar, if for no other reason than because of their ancestors or descendants. Thus Andrea Priulli and his brothers ran a well-known bank, headquartered in Rialto, which functioned until Priulli’s death in 1424,139 while Matteo and Zenobio Zane appear to have been relatives of the banker Antonio Zane.140 As for the others, we are confronted with a big question mark. Their surnames – Barbarigo, Loredano, Contarini – were well-known in the Venetian and international business world of the late Middle Ages.141 But we cannot be sure that the overlap between the surnames of those Venetians who furnished Wrocław inhabitants with credit and the surnames of the famed Venetian bankers is not a mere coincidence. Thus, we can only ask: Was the Marco Barbarigo who loaned 94 florins to Beda a blood relation of that famous Andrea Barbarigo who played an important role in the Venetian economy between the 1430s and 1449?142 Did the Giovanni Lauredan (Lardano, Lordan’) to whom Johann Grosfener owed 100 florins belong to those well-known Venetian bankers, the Loredano family?143 Was the Giovanni Contareno (or Kanthareno) who lent Michael Banke and his partnership 386 florins and 82 ducats a member of the well-known banker kindred, the

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Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages 113 Contarini? For the time being, such questions must remain unanswered, although we cannot, presumptively, simply rule out such identifications. Apart from private individuals, commercial partnerships and banks, the economic ties with Silesia and Wrocław also involved the governing authorities of the Adriatic republic and this Central European city. The Venetian doges included Silesia in their policy of economic protection for activities of their citizens. In addition to the 1358 privilege issued by Giovanni Dolfino, noted earlier, we have, extant in their full versions, letters by Doge Michele Steno (1410) and by Doge Francesco Foscari (1440, 1441).145 Testimonies by agents of the Venetian creditors indicate that the doges supported the creditors’ attempts to collect on the debts, and that they did so by means of written documents, far more often than we might think on the basis of currently extant letters. In addition to the subsequent letters written by Francesco Foscari,146 similar documents indicate the authorship of Tomasso Mocenigo147 and of Antonio Venier.148 The delay in repayment of the debts owed by Johannes Banke and his son Hans elicited a formal response from the Senate of the Republic.149 In one instance, the letter to the town council was undersigned by the Consoli dei Mercanti (socii consules mercatorum civitatis Venetiarum).150 Contacts with Venice affected the development of Wrocław’s commercial culture. Following H. Wendt, let us recall their positive impact on the forms of the organisation of commerce (specifically, the commission arrangement), and upon the use of the bill of exchange.151 The earliest example of this mode of cashless exchange occurs in the passage, cited above, of the 1391–4 Czech–Austrian trade treaty by which, among other things, Wrocław merchants were allowed passage with bills of exchange (mit irem wechsel) through Zeiring, and therefore presumably to Venice.152 While we do not know whether, in this document, this expression was being used in connection with merchants from Prague (who were at this time more closely involved with Venice than their Wrocław colleagues were, and who therefore were probably the group using the bill of exchange), or whether the expression was being used ‘just in case’, the earliest certain example of use of a bill of exchange by a Wrocław merchant is dated 26 March 1413. This bill concerned a financial agreement between Vincenz Melzer and Piro Zirelli of Venice, to which the third party was Niklas Diettrich from Legnica.153 This instance is not the only use of this instrument of cashless exchange in contacts between Wrocław and Venice.154 Venice’s impact on Wrocław’s commercial culture is also visible in the area of quality control over the traded commodities. Despite their own considerable experience with Levantine products, on at least two occasions the inhabitants of Wrocław solicited the authorities of the Republic to have Venetian officials (the estimatores, or the garbellatores piperis) assess the 144

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quality of saffron and pepper imported into Wrocław from the Republic’s capital.155 Despite the absence of direct evidence, we may also conjecture that the direct contacts between the Silesians and the Italians (not, we should add, merely the Venetians) facilitated the learning of the Italian language among the merchants of Central Europe. Was Wrocław a significant point on the overall map of the Venetian Republic’s economic contacts? For the Venetians, Wrocław mattered above all as a supplier of commodities related to the forest and to furriery (furs, long fur coats), as well as to the herbal economy (cochineal dye). At present, it is difficult to be certain whether Wrocław’s merchants played a significant role in furnishing metals for Venetian minting. On the other hand, Wrocław had some significance as an entrepôt between Venice and the northern part of Central Europe, a region which was a sphere of activity for (among others) entrepreneurs interested in commodities and credit from Venice. Thus, the townspeople of Wrocław formed partnerships with merchants from outside Silesia, in order to conduct business on the Adriatic. One example is the firm established jointly by the Wrocław inhabitant Wenzel Reichel; David Rosenfeld from Toruń (a town which belonged to the Teutonic Order), who was also, for a time, a citizen of Wrocław; Niklas Diettrich from Legnica; and Niklas Strosberg from Poznań.156 It is worth adding that, like their Wrocław peers, the partners in this firm benefited from the economic mediation provided by the inhabitants of Salzburg. Wrocław’s role in their activity is clearly indicated by the fact that when these partners’ Salzburg-based agent, Hans Frechen, began to be pressured by their Venetian creditors, the town council of Salzburg raised the problem of the delinquent debtors with the town council of Wrocław.157 Lower Silesia’s capital also served as a point of contact, and as a location for settling financial accounts, between Venice and the urban population of Central Europe. This function concerned, among other places, the urban centres of Silesia: Nysa, Świdnica, Brzeg,158 Osiek near Wrocław, Żagań, Legnica and Ziębice.159 The inhabitant of Legnica noted above was also a member of another – likewise international – partnership, consisting, among others, of Piro Bicharani (or Picoranos) from Venice, at this time a lessee of salt mines in southern Poland, and of Antonio Ricci from Florence – who, however, also had Wrocław citizenship at the time.160 It is worth noting that, in Wrocław, Bicharani settled accounts with the Nuremberg merchant Ulrich Kamerer, who was active above all in Kraków.161 It is quite certain that Silesia, and the regions situated to the north of the Sudeto-Carpathian mountain range, were not the principal sphere of Venice’s economic interests. Yet they had some significance to Venice – a fact especially pronounced in the case of the Kingdom of Poland. It is worth recalling that, while mutiple contacts between ‘the Queen of the Adriatic’ and these

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Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages 115 regions arose during the late Middle Ages, the pioneers of the contacts between the great Venetian centre of Europe’s economy and the Sudeto-Carpathian, Baltic and Russian zone, were the merchants of Wrocław. Furthermore, these merchants played a crucial role in the maintenance and expansion of those far-flung contacts throughout the late Midde Ages.

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10 Strekfusz A fish dish links Jagiellonian Kraków to distant waters1 Richard C. Hoffmann

On 26 August 1405, a Wednesday and thus a day of abstinence for the most observant of medieval Catholics, Władysław II Jagiełło, King of Poland and Lithuania, and his (second) queen Anne dined at the royal hunting lodge on Onicze manor with a large and impressive retinue. The king’s dinner table (prandium) offered fresh fish, four measures of crayfish and 240 pisces stracfusz nuncupatur. The queen was served half as much of the same selection. The king’s Lithuanian kinsmen, Dukes Švitrigaila, Bolko, Bernard and Sigismund, stayed with only the fresh fish and crayfish, but Duke Semisco and the lord marshal of Poland also enjoyed the stracfusz. So, too, did the royal falconers and ‘some Ruthenians and other Poles’ attending the monarch, while the vice-chancellor of Poland took what the household clerk called ‘dried fish’ (piscibus siccis) along with his crustaceans and fresh fish. With more of the latter for the royal couple’s supper (cena), the fish came to just over ten marks, or about 40 per cent of the court’s total expenditures for that day’s food. About one mark in four went for stracfusz.2 Much earlier in Władysław’s reign, on Friday, 14 May 1389, only three years after his baptism and marriage to the Polish heiress Hedwig, the royal couple had dined at Niepołomice on fresh fish and eel brought in live from Kraków. Distributed to the accompanying ‘Lithuanian, Ruthenian and other Polish courtiers’ (ad distribuciones Litwanorum, Ruthenorum et aliorum Polonorum curiensium) were more eels and sicci pisces strekfussy dicti, de Cracouia aducti.3 Financial accounts from almost half of the years between 1388 and 1420, kept by regional managers for the Polish royal household, survive (and have long been published). Throughout the period the royal household consumed fish whenever church rules made meat taboo (and not at all otherwise). Next to generic mention of ‘fish’ (pisces) and ‘salt fish’ (pisces salsi), the most frequent entry by the royal bookkeepers was for dried fish, otherwise known as strekfuss.4 What, then, was the Polish court eating?5 Was strekfusz (alias stracfuss,

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Strekfusz 117 strakus, etc.) but another name for northern Europe’s best-known dried fish product, stockfish (bacalao, bacalá), the air-dried Atlantic cod from medieval Norway, Orkney and Iceland?6 Was it an expensive local rarity like whale or porpoise meat on elite western tables, or a luxury import like pepper or figs? What were its origins? Had use of this food any broader historical significance? To approach such issues this paper first identifies the social and regional circles consuming and trading in strekfusz. This will lead to hints about how it was prepared. There follows a look at the evidence, especially archaeological evidence, for the medieval production and export of dried fish in interior northern and eastern Europe, which implies certain ecological contexts. This first systematic examination of strekfusz calls up linkages of the Jagiellonian Polish court and its capital city with local and European environments and with evolving economic networks. The food called strekfusz was not in Poland peculiar to the royal kitchens. In the city of Kraków itself, expense accounts from the same early Jagiellonian decades (1390–1410) record prestigious food gifts and banquets where the city council honoured visiting dignitaries, ambassadors and royal officials. At various times functionaries bought for such honores impressive specimens of salmon, sturgeon, pike, stokfisch [sic] and both ‘dried fishes’ and strekws [sic].7 Royal clerks had never named stockfish, but their municipal counterparts plainly distinguished stockfish and strekfusz from one another, and both from generic dried fish. City records further indicate that all these fishes and more were normally for sale in local markets, whether the one for fresh fishes in the suburban Garbary quarter or that for preserved fish close to the Wawel palace hill. A council ordinance of 1471 allowed a foreign merchant who had brought dried fishes to Kraków to sell them freely for three days of his choice (so as not to be forced to sell on ‘flesh days’), but thereafter, in a familiar protection of local retailers, only in wholesale quantities of 60.8 These provisions and more a later council incorporated into a new ordinance de siccis salsique piscibus vendendis of 1519, which unfortunately survives only in a later Polish-language translation. This distinguished the importers of salt herring or salmon from those merchants who arrived in town to sell ‘dried fishes such as strakusy’ and established the authority of municipal inspectors to control the quality of the merchandise.9 Alien traders were not to carry their unsold goods to markets beyond Kraków, so that local merchants could handle shipments of preserved fish across the Carpathians into Hungary.10 The remarkable concentration of written evidence about fish being eaten and traded around late-medieval Kraków thus reveals considerable use and dealing in a dried product called strekfusz, which was seemingly neither stockfish nor of normally local origin, by political elites, their servants and urban merchants in deepest inland Europe. It was reasonably well thought of, but by no means an exotically unique food for days of abstinence.

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In fact, contemporary medicine held all such preserved fish in disrepute, believing it a hazardous food for humans. The health advice (Regimen sanitatis) by Thomas of Wrocław, a mid-fourteenth-century English-born and French-trained clerical physician, strongly recommended fresh over brined or salted fish.11 His view parallelled those of other medico-dietary writers from the school of Arnald of Villanova and his follower Conrad of Eichstätt, whose manuscript treatises circulated widely in central and eastern Europe, that pisces vero saliti nullo modo sunt comedendi. All ultimately echoed such influential Arab physicians as the learned eleventh-century Baghdadis Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Ibn Butlan.12 Such articulate medical laymen as sixteenth-century Swedish archbishop Olaus Magnus likewise favoured the health and food value, as well as the taste, of air-dried fishes over salted ones, but ranked all preserved forms below fresh fish.13 Strekfusz thus belonged to a class of foods always considered less a luxurious pleasure than as meeting a culturally constrained need. Fish was defined as the acceptable substitute when religious rules forbade eating meat. With Kraków since the 1380s as a benchmark in the historical record of strekfusz, then, what may be found further afield? Stay for a time with the written record, for that is where contemporaries named and described this commodity. Perhaps ironically, the next circle of documentary information comes from the Poles’ antagonistic neighbours, the Teutonic Knights, and the state those warrior monks built and ruled in late medieval Prussia. The semi-monastic rule of the Teutonic Order forbade meat 250 days of the year, so its houses everywhere acquired and maintained stores of fish, and its territorial administrators in Prussia established and managed elaborate fisheries. Barely a generation after the Order arrived there, it declared a special interest in catches de rumbo, de esoce, de pisce, qui dicitur rape et de pisce [qui] dicitur w[losce], commonly read as sturgeon (Acipenser sturio), pike (Esox lucius), asp (Aspius aspius, German Rapfe, Polish boleń) and salmon (Salmo salar).14 Note that the pre-Linnean use of esox (rather than lucius or occasionally lupus) to refer to pike is peculiar to certain Latin texts from the Baltic region. Most medieval esoces are plainly salmon (as the Celtic root) or sturgeon.15 Early in the first decade of the 1400s, and thus contemporary with Władysław Jagiełło, the Knights’ headquarters in Marienburg twice shipped 240 fish called strekffus alias sternipes to the garrison at Goteswerder, and when the Grand Master entertained Lithuanian Duke Vytautas in 1404, the treasurer paid for 1,800 of them. In some years around this time the mother house received large supplies from the regional commandery at Memel, while in 1409 it was the eastern stronghold of Königsberg which provided ‘eel [Anguilla anguilla], pike, pike-perch [Stizostedion lucioperca], [and] strcfüs [sic]’.16 Inventories at local houses of the Order counted up dozens

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Strekfusz 119 and hundreds of salt and dried fish of various types, including stockfish (also called ‘Bergerfisch’, so split and dried Norwegian cod, Gadus morhua); rundfisch (dried whole Baltic cod) and strekfusz.17 Arthur Seligo has pointed out that these strekfusz, and also the ones he claimed to have found in records from contemporary Gdańsk, were always sold by count, normally as sexagenae or schock, that is to say, in 60s, so certainly dried rather than brined and barrelled.18 And in the same decade records kept by district managers of the Knights’ estates at Chomutov, Plzeň, Řepin and Dobrovice in Bohemia also inventoried stores of dried fish, sometimes explicitly noted as coming from Prussia, or specified as, for instance, 12 dried cod and three dried pike.19 Prussian sources also indicate the Order’s earlier interest in dried fish. The renewed municipal charter for Gdańsk in 1387 allowed fishermen and merchants freely to sell their fresh or dried fish on the city market, but only after first offering it to the local house of Knights.20 Back in 1328, when the Order’s house at Goldingen near Elbląg was unable to cover its own needs for fish, the Grand Master allowed brethren there to buy those fish qui communiter dicuntur sternipedes, idest strekvus, at 2.5 marks for una magna sexagena (id est unum sechzik), as compared to 1.5 marks for 100 fresh pike from the local fishermen.21 If only because actual types and varieties of fishes are most rarely specified in the relatively sparse documentary record from before about 1350 in East Central Europe, this is the earliest mention of strekfusz so far found.22 Later Prussian records both reaffirm local consumption of strekfusz and suggest some quantity of exports. During the Order’s attempted reforms following their defeat at Grunwald/Tannenberg, kitchen accounts from the commandery at Chełmno in 1436–7 itemise the purchase of 60 stockfish, 60 trugis hechtis and 104 strekfusz. Diplomatic correspondence confirms Prussian shipments to the Silesian metropolis of Wrocław.23 And at the very moment when the last Grand Master, Albrecht von Hohenzollern, was turning the beaten Order’s rump in eastern Prussia into a new secular state, the Königsberg humanist Simon Grünau actually described the region’s fisheries resources and economy. His Preussische Chronik of 1526 praised the innumerable lakes and coastal waters of the country, named 57 indigenous ‘fish’ varieties, and reported import of dried and salted beluga (Huso huso), flatfish, stockfish, dried pike (here called plateisen) and herring (Clupea harengus). He went on to describe the Prussians’ own trade in fish: Item man furt aus Preussen mancherlei fische yn fessir gesaltzen, getreuget von oele, von stüre, von laxen, von heringen, von hechtin, von rontfischen und von bressem und diese nennt man stregfüssen von der stelle do man sie erst hott in der luft getreuget, und die Polen, die Slesier, die Lausitzer, die Behemen, die Merher und die Meixser sy füren und haven davon ihren nutz.24

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Grünau thus confirms and contextualises what had up to this point been only an inference from the record sources. Dried fish was a widely traded commodity in late-medieval East Central Europe. Besides imports (including both stockfish and pike), Prussians themselves produced and exported dried eel, salmon (Salmo salar), herring, pike, Baltic cod, and bream (Abramis brama), generically called strekfusz. Grünau adds a suggestive etymological observation, deriving the term strekfusz from how the fish were ‘spread out’ (strecken is Middle High German, Middle Low German and Middle Netherlandish for ‘stretch [out]’ [to use the English cognate] in the air to dry). The relevant counterpart is ‘stockfish’, from the Middle Low German dialect stokvisch of Hanseatic merchants, with a root meaning ‘stick’ or ‘stock’ (‘post’, ‘tree trunk’, etc.), which refers ambiguously both to the wooden stakes or scaffold where the cod were hung to dry and to the board-like consistency of that product. More southerly or inland consumers thus knew each of these foods by the names merchant intermediaries, not necessarily the producers or the fishermen, used for it. While the high oil-content of eel, salmon and herring flesh requires salt for a dry product with a somewhat longer shelf life (westerners referred to sapoudre [‘powdered’] herring), fishes such as cod, pike and bream have less oily white flesh which, in the seasonal cold, dry conditions of northern Europe can be preserved for long periods without expensive salt, a rare commodity in the north.25 Beheaded and split to dry on racks in the sub-arctic spring, Norwegian and Icelandic cod provided a major medieval trade good, stockfish, with sites of production marked by archaeological fish remains with distinctive ‘signatures’ (disproportionately numerous head and shoulder bones, and certain bones cut in the preparation process) and other features (few anterior elements, many vertebrae, and additional distinctive cut marks) where the fish were finally consumed.26 Pike and bream are common natives of still-water ecosystems in northern and eastern Europe, including brackish Baltic bays and lagoons and the Gulf of Bothnia. Both species assemble there for spring spawning in shallows where large numbers can be taken for the sort of bulk-processing which major commercial use would require. Ethnographic evidence from Balto-Slavic and Finnic peoples around the eastern Baltic reports the drying of pike and bream on flat rocks in spring (‘spread out’!) and transport as bundles of dried fish.27 Smallscale oven-drying, which would fit with hot smoking, is also known. Indeed, certain pits found in early medieval contexts at several inland Slavic sites have been interpreted as fish-smoking facilities. Remains of pike, bream and other freshwater species occur in association with these structures.28 But are any distinctive taphonomic29 features of the dried fishes which became strekfusz recognisable, whether in places where they were consumed or in those where they were produced? Does the archaeological record hold evidence

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Strekfusz 121 which might differentiate local processing and local consumption of native fish from what had to be a preserved form of the same species that would be or had been moved around in interregional commerce? In other words, can material evidence, which of course bears no contemporary name, be plausibly associated with strekfusz (as it can with stockfish)? In this regard the medieval evidence from Sweden has been the most closely examined and is the most informative. People at early medieval trading-sites in central Sweden, Birka and Sigtuna, consumed pike and bream along with some cod. The cod specimens found at twelfth-century Sigtuna lacked head bones, and have been interpreted as imported stockfish. Not far away, at Uppsala, large numbers of big headless cod occurred only in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century contexts, which also held remains of smaller cod and pike, both disproportionately represented by head bones. Pike dentaries (jaw bones) have marks from a knife used to cut out the gills. Assuming this was preparatory to drying, Leif Jonsson has interpreted the smaller cod and the pike, whose numbers rise exponentially from the early fourteenth century, as dried imports to Uppsala from the Baltic and/or Gulf of Bothnia.30 Dentaries of pike recovered from contexts dated 1390–1434 at the Swedish castle of Borganäs, about a hundred kilometres inland from the Baltic, are cut in the same way, and also occur together with cod of probable Baltic, not Atlantic, origin. This processing feature is likewise present in the pike which made up 75 per cent of the fish remains found in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century material from a hospice in Stockholm, as was their association with bream and small Baltic cod.31 But what distinguishes remains of imported dried pike from heads removed to prepare a fresh local catch for the pot? Strengthening the credibility of a large-scale interregional trade in dried pike – what Prussians and Poles probably called strekfusz – in competition with Atlantic stockfish is the slightly later Swedish written evidence. When Swedish internal customs records begin in the mid-sixteenth century, salmon and dried pike make up between 80 and 90 per cent of shipments to Stockholm from Bothnia.32 The exiled Swedish archbishop, Olaus Magnus, in his Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (‘Description of the Northern Peoples’) published in Rome in 1555, painted an unforgettable picture of the production area around a rocky island called ‘Bjuröklubb’, far up the Gulf of Bothnia: Yet when you come in towards the shore, such an abundance of fish is to be seen at its base on every side that you are dumfounded at the sight and your appetitite can be wholly satisfied. Some of the fishes of this sort, sprinkled with brine from the sea, are commonly spread out over two or three acres of the flat, level ground at the foot of the mountain,

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Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages to be parched and dried by the wind; some, chiefly fish of the larger kind, are hoisted on poles to be dehydrated by the sun and air. They are all reserved for consumption at home or for the lucrative profit of tradesmen, and also for the needs and pleasure of people living overseas, chiefly in order that, by bartering these fish, the Northerners may obtain plenty of grain . . . From the foot, then, of this crowned mountain there rises such a stench of fish hung up to dry that far out at sea sailors as they approach are aware of it flying out to meet them.33

In a much later systematic discussion of northern fishes, Magnus stressed the importance of the pike fishery, telling how pike were dried for storage and exported overseas in bundles or ‘stacked like great piles of logs’.34 Perhaps the best archaeological parallel so far known, from south of the Baltic, to the Swedish traces of what eastern Europeans might call strekfusz comes from late-thirteenth- or fourteenth-century Schleswig, where an association of many large headless cod, smaller whole cod, and a pike with more anterior than vertebral elements recalls the finds described above from contemporary Uppsala.35 In the absence of the cut dentaries, however, ought this pike to be understood as a fresh or dried specimen and Schleswig as its point of production or of consumption? A return to the southeastern Baltic region uncovers tantalisingly close but eventually still indeterminate evidence of strekfusz remains. At what was around 1400 the Teutonic Order’s commandery of Nessau (now Mała Nieszawka), a forward post pushed across the Vistula from Toruń, 75 per cent of identified fish bones were cod, large and small, with cut marks that identify them with the supplies of Atlantic stockfish and of Baltic rundfisch which the Order’s officials provided for their garrison. Pike remains ranked third in frequency behind bones from unspecified carp-like fish.36 Had those pike remains any potentially diagnostic features? The published analysis is silent. While pike and bream had ranked high among the freshwater fishes of presumably local origin typically eaten by inhabitants of the many early medieval sites in northern Poland,37 during the later Middle Ages these varieties were important in only a small fraction of the much less numerous excavations. Worth attention are the Benedictine monastery at Lubin, still consuming entirely freshwater species in the late-thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, where pike bones were as numerous as perch (Perca fluviatilis) and bream ranked third; and the leading role of pike among freshwater fishes at Gdańsk, where cod and sturgeon were the most common bones found.38 In all these cases the pike are of moderate size, centred in the range of between 50 and 60 centimetres, approximately one to 1.5 kilograms. No reports indicate an unusual distribution of elements or butchering marks, so the remains are hard to

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Strekfusz 123 assess; the common inference is exploitation of local wild stocks. In the light of the Polish and Prussian written evidence and of the archaeological results from Sweden, however, it is important to consider the possibility of largevolume commercial imports of preserved specimens of fish which were also available locally, though in less economic numbers.39 Isotope analysis might also help discriminate between fish of local and far-northern provenance. Sadly – and none are more aware of this than the Polish archaeozoologists – no meaningful collections of fish remains have been made from medieval sites in southern Poland,40 the then politically dominant and wealthiest region which produced the principal written evidence of people trading and eating strekfusz. The hermeneutic circle thus remains incomplete, requiring a still speculative leap from the masses of dried pike and bream moving south from Bothnia and inland from the Baltic coast to the dried strekfusz on royal and other tables across late medieval East Central Europe. Yet even fragmentary answers laboriously teased from both verbal (written) and material (archaeological) sources inform several different perspectives on the economic, cultural and environmental histories of later medieval Poland and Europe. Poland’s royal court and Kraków’s city market participated in a relatively elaborate, longdistance, large-scale trade in dried fish, not just oceanic cod but freshwater species native to East Central and Northern Europe. The commodity called strekfusz most likely used pike and bream and moved from north to south. Present-day knowledge and appreciation of historical humans handling these products comes from a critical combination of written and archaeological data. Traditional historical sources name commodities, consumers, sellers and market places; they offer explanations and motives. Archaeological (and in this instance notably archaeozoological) sources establish actual consumption, the species eaten, food preparation and sometimes production. Neither source of evidence can tell us as much on its own, or even just by simple addition, as consciously integrated, possibly collaborative work can, by treating both together in an interdisciplinary science of the past. Historians aware of material evidence and its relevance to historical enquiry can help historical archaeologists achieve more problem-oriented research strategies. The apparent lack of serious modern environmental-archaeology research on medieval urban sites in southern Poland, notably Kraków, borders on the shameful, preventing, among other things, comparison with well-explored contemporary urban centres elsewhere in the country and its closest neighbours. Verbal and material sources together establish a particular dried-fish product, strekfusz, as a competitor to stockfish on the regional market of late medieval East Central Europe. Demand for this food was driven by Catholic Christendom’s rules of abstinence – fish could substitute for prohibited meat

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– into which a newly baptised monarch and his court now publicly fit. Friday and Lenten fish-eating displayed adherence to cultural norms and, as fish was never a cheap source of calories and never compulsory, simultaneously showed off the diner’s wealth and social rank. Eating strekfusz in late medieval Kraków and its environs fits at least the leading Polish circles and the country’s leading region into the large shifting patterns of Europeans’ relations with one another and with their natural surroundings. As human populations and their economic networks became more dense, consumption habits reached beyond the natural local ecosystems which had hitherto covered the needs and wants of local and regional communities. Wealthy, market-linked, commonly urban-based consumers exported their demand to less populated frontiers, terrestrial or aquatic, of perceived resource abundance. Simon Grünau and Olaus Magnus bragged about the rich fisheries of Prussia and Bothnia which could feed burgeoning demand to the south. There is, however, an at least retrospective irony in seeing urban and court circles in Poland eat fish from the far north, for they did so at almost the same time other Polish regions were becoming important frontier producers of export commodities for the more densely populated west: the Vistula basin shipped cereal grains and Masovia live cattle.41 Longdistance trade in natural products and the concomitant separation of consumers from producing ecosystems – there is no sign Kraków consumers had any idea what kind of fish strekfusz was – has become a familiar theme for modern environmental historians. Following the movements of strekfusz shows late-medieval Polish and neighbouring consumers operating on, indeed helping to drive, regional and wider markets, and thus participating in a process of medieval economic and environmental Europeanisation that was a visible precursor to present-day globalisation.

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11 Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe during the fourteenth century Stanisław Szczur

1 The forced relocation of the papal see to Avignon caused major changes in the central administration of the Church. The successors of Saint Peter, temporarily deprived of their influence in Italy, were forced to undertake a struggle to regain it. The beginning of that struggle coincided with great political changes sweeping across Europe in the early fourteenth century. In the new situation, the papacy needed, once again, to define its place within the European system. This was especially necessary in view of the decline of a universal imperial power, without which (as it was to turn out) papal universalism was impossible. The new challenges confronting the papacy were already well understood by the first pope in Avignon, the Gascon, Clement V. Dependent as he was at the outset of his pontificate on the king of France, and fearful of a return to Rome, he sought to free the papacy from French domination, by, among other things, securing for the Holy See adequate sources of revenue.1 This was especially pressing in view of the partial loss of papal control over possessions in Italy. Clement’s pontificate marks the beginning of a gradual process of transition in the structure of papal revenues. Among those revenues, individual obligations from the clergy became increasingly important, as the clergy was compelled to share those revenues with the Holy See. This process accelerated under Clement V’s successors. Pope John XXII reformed the flow of revenue so thoroughly that most of that revenue was obtained from individual obligations imposed upon the clergy. His successors merely perfected the financial system.2 The placement upon the clergy of the burden of financing the papacy enhanced the importance of the Holy See, and accelerated a real, practical centralisation of papal power. This is because the French popes residing on the Rhône devised an entire system of granting offices and ecclesiastical dignities, a system in which advancement within the ecclesiastical structure depended

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on the pope’s will. In practice, this meant depriving the local churches of their autonomy. Acquisition of the office of bishop or abbot, or of a lower-level benefice, was in most cases dependent on the volition of the pope,3 whose grant of a benefice in turn entailed an obligation by the recipient to share a portion of his revenue with the pope. In time, the popes were able to dispose of an ever-increasing number of benefices – which meant a growth in revenues, but also an increase in the number of persons subject to payment, who, before they received their benefices, were compelled to promise to fulfil their financial obligations to the pope. Because more and more benefices were at the pope’s disposal, the number of persons subject to payment increased over the years. Payments associated with acquisition of benefices were not the only burden placed upon the clergy. Equally important as sources of papal revenue were extraordinary payments. These consisted of various kinds of subsidies, occasional payments, and papal tithes. That latter obligation in particular elicited resistance from the clergy. The individual dues to the papacy were nothing out of the ordinary – the popes had also collected them in the earlier period. What distinguished the Avignon period was their mass character – and their extension to virtually the entire clergy, and in some European countries, to the laity. The occasional obligations were fully and effectively enforced by the local episcopates. Depending on their needs, the popes appointed particular bishops as their collectors, granting them appropriate powers to act on their behalf.4 But these papal agents were not always able to collect the sums due from the clergy who were subject to them. Another major problem was the transfer of the collected monies to the papal curia. This increase in the number of types of obligation, and especially in the number of clerics subject to the resulting obligations, was bound to lead to important changes in the central administration of the Church. In the new administrative and financial system, the papal camera – the top office of the Roman curia – inevitably increased in importance, assuming the double role of a ministry of finance and a treasury. The papal camerarius was charged with effective enforcement of the payments owed to the pope. Therefore, it became necessary to establish a reasonably effective treasury apparatus, subordinate to the papal camera, and able to collect obligations from thousands of people scattered throughout Europe.5 Given the socioeconomic realities of the fourteenth century, the creation of officials of this type was no easy matter. Early on, the popes entrusted these functions to members of the local clergy. During the pontificate of John XXII, local ecclesiastics were increasingly replaced by their colleagues from Avignon, and entrusted with special powers of agency to gather payments within precisely-defined territories. The 1340s (or, more exactly, the pontificate of Clement VI) witnessed the beginnings of papal ‘collectories’, which functioned as territorially-based departments of the papal camera.6 In

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Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe 127 its geographical extent, a collectory could encompass a single diocese, or an ecclesiastical province consisting of several dioceses, or even the territory of an entire state. There were no papal regulations concerning the size of individual collectories. This seems to have depended on the size of the population which was subject to payment: as a rule, the larger that population, the smaller the territory. Thus the territories comprising the French kingdom were serviced by more than a dozen collectories, whereas all of Scandinavia comprised a single collectory.7 Each collectory was presided over by a member of the papal camera, usually called the ‘collector’; the title pertained to a papal fiscal representative, recruited from among the clergy of a given collectory. In cases where he was a foreigner, and where he assumed this role as a papal emissary, he was described with the title nuncius et collector. However, in this case we should not identify the word nuntius with papal diplomacy.8 Diplomatic activity was not the collector’s primary function, though he may have performed that role on occasion. The exact position, and responsibilities, of the pope’s fiscal representative were always specified for each individual. In practice this meant the issuance by the papal chancery of the appropriate facultates, in the form of papal administrative documents. The precise roster of these responsibilities (which were always temporally limited to the period in office) depended on the current situation in the territory over which a particular papal emissary acquired this office. Above all, the extent of his fiscal powers and responsibilities was specified with great precision, and with a scrupulous accounting of all the payments he was entitled to collect. The nature and extent of those payments depended on the Holy See’s current fiscal policy toward the clergy in a given locality. On occasion, during the first half of the fourteenth century, the papal representative sent out into a locality had the right to collect only selected kinds of payment, and the collection of the remainder was left in the hands of the local bishop. In that event, the bishop also carried the title of collector.9 The collector also acquired several powers which allowed him to consolidate and expand his standing within the local ecclesiastical establishment into which he was sent. He received the right to impose ecclesiastical penalties prescribed by the law upon persons who evaded the payment obligations. In the name of the pope himself, he was able to initiate canon-law prosecution against the evaders, and to excommunicate them. By virtue of the power – reserved to the pope, and delegated to the collector by him – to grant favours, the collector was easily able to create a tight-knit group of close associates. He did so by granting specified powers and privileges to clerics whom he specially trusted, thereby setting the recipients apart from other clergy. And, as a rule, he received the right to appoint, auctoritate apostolica, a specified number of notaries.

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Before his emissary actually assumed the office of collector, the pope recommended him to the local episcopate by separate letters, in which he reminded the local ecclesiastical recipients of their obligation to cooperate with the emissary. The activities of the papal camera which preceded the actual placement of the emissary in the designated region were aimed at strengthening his authority among the local clergy. This is because the central administration of the Church was aware that the collectors were viewed as tax-gatherers, and that, as such, were not held in high esteem. The extent of their responsibilities depended largely upon the designated region where a given collector was to exercise his office, and upon the territorial extent of that region. Here we can observe a general pattern: the larger the territory of a collectory, the broader the powers and responsibilities entrusted to the papal representative. In case of collectories encompassing entire ecclesiastical provinces, or entire countries, he was usually the sole representative of the papal fiscal administration, and served as a general representative of the Holy See and its financial interests. In collectories situated at the peripheries of the Christian world, where papal legates seldom appeared, it was the collector who – at least in a widely-diffused societal perception – was the personal representative of the successor of Saint Peter. In relation to the central administration of the Church, the collector’s power was not very great. This is because he was under control of the officials of the papal camera, who could demand from him detailed financial reports, and who, at least potentially, controlled every decision he made. In the event of irregularities in the work of his collectory, he could be removed by the pope, and replaced with another churchman.

2 The changes in the functioning of the papacy that occurred in the early fourteenth century coincided with major transitions in the countries of Central Europe. In Bohemia, after the extinction of the indigenous dynasty, the crown of Saint Wenceslas passed on to the dynasty of Luxemburg. After the extinction of the indigenous dynasty in Hungary, that throne, thanks to the skillful policy of Boniface VIII, was acquired by the Angevins. In Poland, also with papal support, the indigenous dynasty managed to regain royal power;10 the throne in Kraków accrued to its Cuiavian branch. Despite the inevitable domestic complications, the succession of a dynasty did not always lead to territorial change; only in Poland was Władysław the Short unable to incorporate all of the historical Piast provinces into his kingdom. He failed to establish power over the Piasts of Silesia and Masovia, who chose Luxemburg overlordship,11 whilst eastern Pomerania, together with the territories at the mouth of the Vistula river, remained under the control of the Teutonic Order.

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Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe 129 What made Władysław’s situation even more complicated was the fact that he had given certain financial promises to John XXII while seeking the pope’s support for his plans to become the Polish king. He did this by reminding the pope that his kingdom was subject to the Holy See, and for this reason agreed to a modification of the principles of collecting Peter’s Pence in his country.12 In their communications at the beginning of their bilateral negotiations concerning the restoration of the monarchy, the two sides – presumably on purpose – did not specify the precise extent of the territory subject to this payment. That omission promptly led to misunderstandings. As early as 1318 – that is to say, during Władysław’s endeavours to obtain the crown – the pope demanded collection of Peter’s Pence throughout the entire Polish Kingdom, by which the Roman curia understood the historical boundaries of the ecclesiastical province of Gniezno.13 These boundaries also included regions remaining under the sovereign power of the dukes of Silesia and of the Teutonic Order. The appointment of the archbishop of Gniezno and the bishop of Wrocław as collectors of Peter’s Pence did not bode well for the future, because the bishop of Wrocław was unable to force his congregation to assume additional financial obligations to the papacy. Thus in Silesia the question of Peter’s Pence very promptly became a political problem. The situation in Pomerania, a region under the control of the Teutonic Order, was identical. The collectories in the countries of Central Europe experienced a path of development similar to their counterparts in the dioceses of France, Spain or Germany. There, too, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the functions of papal collector were assumed by indigenous ecclesiastics, selected by the pope to perform specified tasks. Most often, the papal collectors were entrusted with the obligation to collect the papal tithe, or (as was the case in Poland) both the papal tithe and Peter’s Pence. Fundamental change was brought about only by the universal introduction of the payment of annates from vacant benefices.14 Pope John XXII decided to appoint a single collector for Poland, Bohemia, Moravia and some German dioceses. This mission was entrusted to an Italian, Gabriel de Fabriano.15 Although they were limited to three years, his activities had a great impact upon the papal fiscal system, because his successors promptly began to displace the local bishops in the responsibilities of collection, and thus acquired sole responsibility for the gathering of all financial obligations owed to the pope. Because in Central Europe the task of the collectors was control over specified territories, contacts between them and the state authorities were almost inevitable. The popes well understood this fact, since, in separate letters, they recommended the collectors to the rulers. Such secret documents were received by Gabriel de Fabriano, and he was to pass them on to the Czech king, John of Luxemburg, and to the Polish duke (after 1320, king), Władysław the Short.16 As the pope presumably hoped, the protection

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extended by the state authorities to his collectors would facilitate the difficult task of collecting the financial obligations. Gabriel’s successors received similar documents, which took the form of letters of reference. Doubtless such letters had some impact on a collector’s position, because it was possible for a ruler to influence the attitudes of the local bishops and clergy. Perhaps this is why collectors in Poland or Hungary felt safer than did their colleagues in other collectories. Subsequent papal representatives also received documents by which the popes recommended them to rulers.17 The mere issuance of such documents need not have reflected actual contact between a collector and a ruler, since his relationship with the ruler might be limited only to the presentation of the documents. Yet in most cases the issuance of such letters entailed a grant to the papal emissary of more authority than was usual.

3 As a result of the political situation in Central Europe, papal fiscal emissaries began to assume roles exceeding their customary responsibilities. On papal instructions, they involved themselves as mediators in the settlement of inter-state conflicts. They were not always well prepared to perform such tasks. It is quite puzzling that the popes should use the services of their lower administrative personnel, and not involve their closest advisors in solving disputes. Undoubtedly, the successors of Saint Peter were influenced by the local nature of such conflicts; this is how the claim by the king of Poland, Władysław the Short, against the Teutonic Order was perceived in its early stages. At first, the claim did not attract much interest from Avignon. Only the conjuncture of Philip the Fair’s conflict with the Templars, the claims by the archbishop of Riga against the Teutonic Order, and the involvement of Władysław the Short’s emissaries in the papal curia, elevated this local territorial dispute into a problem of European significance. Having suffered damage from the Order, the archbishop of Riga sought justice from Pope Clement V. As early as June 1310, the pope mandated his representatives to inquire into the Teutonic Order’s transgressions against the Church of Riga. At the same time – by chance, as it were – he ordered an investigation into the crimes committed by the Knights during their seizure of Gdańsk Pomerania (that is to say, the eastern portion of that province, of which Gdańsk was the principal city). Two years later, an inquiry was carried out into the accusations made against the Order. The formal trial of the Order commenced before the papal delegate, Francis de Molinio.18 This trial was important because it set a precedent for a specific mode of proceeding in conflict resolution: the side which considered itself aggrieved sought to pursue its claims before a papal tribunal, by means of a court trial.

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Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe 131 This is how Władysław the Short sought to find resolution of his claim. On behalf of the Polish duke, complaint against the Order was brought in 1318 by one of Władysław’s closest collaborators, Bishop Gerward of Cuiavia.19 Pope John XXII appointed three judges to carry out the trial in the papal tribunal, choosing them from among the Polish clergy.20 This selection could easily be questioned by the defendants; not surprisingly, the Order alleged that the judges were biased, and that all three were subjects of one of the parties to the conflict. Despite the trial, which took place in 1320 and 1321, the pope did not endorse the verdict, which was favourable to the Polish side. The efforts made by the Polish representatives in Avignon to change the pope’s decision were unsuccessful,21 because John did not wish to take an unequivocal position concerning a local conflict. But the matter of the Order’s seizure of Gdańsk Pomerania was sufficiently notorious, and the efforts by the Polish side in Avignon sufficiently persistent, to propel the Holy See into further involvement with the conflict. However, the papacy continued to avoid reaching an unequivocal decision in favour of either side, and sought instead to resolve the dispute by acting as mediator. Papal mediation was acceptable to both sides, but we should not assume that it occurred specifically on the pope’s initiative; John XXII was simply acting on the parties’ request. In April 1332, the pope mandated Peter of Auvergne to bring about a permanent peace between Poland and the Order.22 In addition to this capacity, this papal mediator held (jointly with Andrew of Verola), the office of collector for the papal camera in Poland. In order to make the collector responsible for mediating between the parties in the conflict – that is, in order to entrust him with an extremely politicised function – the pope had to grant him additional powers. Together with a special letter appointing him as mediator, the papal chancery addressed to the parties separate documents, in which the papal chancery appealed for peace.23 This collector’s first political mission ended in a partial success; he managed to convince the parties to prolong a truce. However, in evaluating his activities we need to bear in mind that both sides to the conflict sought to avoid military engagement. Therefore, the truce was acceptable to all. It postponed a definitive resolution of the conflict. After the one-year cease-fire, the situation did not return to its starting point. After Władysław the Short’s death in 1333, royal power passed to his son, Casimir the Great. Without intervention by the mediators, Casimir extended the truce with the Teutonic Order for another year.24 This, of course, did not solve the problem, but it did set the stage for the parties to prepare more fully for its final resolution. Mediation was not the most important task of the papal collector Peter of Auvergne; that task was the collection of payments owed to the pope. Nevertheless, thanks to the pope’s decisions, Peter initiated a new type of activity by papal fiscal agents. Peter’s successor in the office of collector,

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Galhard of Carces, who arrived in Poland in 1334, was, in the Polish conditions, more a man of politics than of finance. Doubtless his task was made easier by the fact that he had previously occupied the post of papal treasurer in Benevento, and was well prepared to perform the collector’s duties. His mission in Poland was further facilitated by his acquaintance with Jarosław of Bogoria – archdeacon of Kraków, subsequently archbishop of Gniezno, and one of Casimir the Great’s closest advisors – which perhaps had begun during their studies in Bologna.25 The selection of Kraków as the seat of Galhard’s office made contact with the monarch inevitable. It is not insignificant that he wrote his financial reports in castro Cracoviensi. The papal delegation of authority enabled him not only to collect levies, but also to undertake purely political activities. As noted earlier, the collector’s mediation in the conflict between Poland and the Teutonic Knights only brought about a truce, which was subsequently prolonged several times. During the truce, both Casimir the Great and the Teutonic Order made attempts to influence the papacy. John XXII tried to act very carefully; he did not choose to send a legate to the countries involved in the conflict, but, once again, had recourse to the collector. Therefore it is not surprising that during the initial period of his mission as collector, Galhard devoted himself to diplomatic activity.26 Preparations for his mediating mission also directly involved the proctor of the Teutonic Order in the papal curia, who presented the preliminary conditions upon which the Knights were inclined to conclude a peace treaty with Poland.27 This involvement of the Knights clearly indicates that they were interested in maintaining peace. They were not willing to restart the conflict, yet at the same time they were reluctant to make any concessions.28 John XXII introduced his future agent by means of two separate, identically-worded letters – one sent to the king of Poland, Casimir the Great, the other to the Grand Master of the Order, Dietrich von Altenburg – in which he noted that he had conferred upon his representative all the essential powers of agency required by a papal emissary. Galhard was to act specifically on behalf of the pope himself. Informing the interested parties about the planned mediating activities was a part of normal, routine diplomatic practice. In the case of the anticipated mission by Galhard, separate letters were sent to Hedwig, wife of Władysław the Short, to the archbishop of Gniezno, and to the entire Polish episcopate.29 The mediator’s impartiality could be thrown into doubt. As a papal collector, he was associated with the Polish Church for reasons that went beyond the exercise of that office. At the very outset of his tenure in office, he entered into a conflict with the Teutonic Order over the collection of Peter’s Pence from the lands seized by the Knights. Despite the fact that Galhard represented above all the financial interests of the papacy, his mediation led to

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Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe 133 yet another prolongation of the truce.30 Thus an attempt could be made to solve the whole problem by means of diplomatic negotiations. These were carried out with the participation of (among others) the papal collector, who, in trying to fulfil this task, in fact exceeded the powers of agency granted to him. He tried to establish personal contacts with the bishop of Cuiavia, Matthew, who was formally a party to the conflict. Historians have long (and rightly) supposed that this collector had entered into talks with the bishop at the request of Casimir the Great.31 When during the negotiations to prolong the truce the Teutonic Order was willing to transfer the Brześć district into the hands of a neutral party, the papal mediator was encouraging Bishop Matthew to take the district under his own, temporary administration. The Knights were inclined to accept this solution. However, for several reasons, the bishop was unable to accept the proposed role of administrator of the contested territory.32 Galhard’s mediating activities did not bring about a permanent peace. However, they familiarised him with the nature of the conflict sufficiently to enable the emissary to participate actively in subsequent attempts at a solution. We cannot even rule out the possibility that it was Galhard who prompted the Polish side to lodge a formal complaint against the Teutonic Order in the curia. From 1335 onward, the Polish side proceeded against the Order along two tracks. The king of Poland and the archbishop of Gniezno lodged a complaint against the Order in Avignon. Simultaneously, the king agreed to submit the case to a court of arbitration, presided over by the kings of Hungary and Bohemia.33 The filing of a formal charge at the curia compelled the pope once again to take a position concerning the conflict. In accordance with the law in force, Benedict XII designated two cardinals to examine the merits of the most serious charges levelled against the Order by the Polish side. Further actions by the Holy See depended on the cardinals’ opinion.34 The cardinals, however, were in no hurry to issue that opinion. Using the papal collector, the Polish side attempted to change this state of affairs, and to compel the Holy See toward further activity. In 1335, Galhard informed Benedict XII that Casimir the Great was inclined to split with the pope the sum of 30,000 marks awarded to Poland in the trial against the Teutonic Order in 1321. The curia well knew that, despite efforts by the Polish side, John XXII had never confimed that verdict. Nevertheless, the collector’s message was treated very seriously, especially since it was confirmed by Casimir the Great’s envoys, by the archdeacon of Kraków Jarosław of Bogoria and by Andrew of Verola, the former papal collector in Poland. Under such circumstances, the pope instructed Galhard to inquire diligently into the possibility of collecting the proposed 15,000 marks for the papal camera.35 This whole course of action was undoubtedly a propaganda

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campaign of sorts, aimed at the Teutonic Order. Had the pope ordered the commencement of enforcement proceedings against the Order, that would have implied his acceptance of the verdict of Inowrocław, contrary to the decision made by his predecessor; this is because the damages awarded to the king of Poland had been an integral part of that verdict. One may assume that it was the papal collector who initiated the whole action, since he well understood that Avignon would take note of the financial argument. Regardless of his representatives’ efforts in Avignon, Casimir the Great was preparing for arbitration. In accordance with the arbitrators’ wish, the case was investigated and the verdict pronounced in Visegrád, in November 1335.36 The papal collector was also present at the special convention of Central European monarchs held on this occasion; however, we do not know whether he was there on the pope’s instruction, or on his own initiative. The second possibility is more likely.37 The presence of the collector may have indicated his interest in the conflict. The verdict, announced in the presence of King Casimir the Great and the representative of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, was adverse to Poland. Consistent with the principles of arbitration, the parties agreed to accept it. Casimir the Great also expressed his agreement, and issued a separate document on the matter.38 However, while the parties accepted the arbitrators’ verdict, they agreed among themselves that they would also present the verdict to the pope for acceptance. This step raised the possibility of revision of the adverse verdict pronounced by the kings of Bohemia and Hungary. It is not unlikely that it was Galhard of Carces himself who proposed this solution. Quite possibly, too, Pope Benedict XII abstained from confirming the arbitrators’ unfavourable verdict specifically because of Galhard’s information. However, the pope did not issue any official document on this subject; only in a letter addressed to Casimir the Great did he state that Poland had been wronged by the verdict. At the same time – as if he were anticipating Polish diplomatic activity – Benedict XII expressed the wish to mediate in the conflict with the Order.39 The fact that the pope did not approve of the arbitrators’ verdict was politically very significant, because it allowed Poland to return to the concept of settling the conflict before a papal tribunal. The entrance of John of Luxemburg into Poland’s conflict with the Order complicated somewhat the Polish propaganda activity in Avignon. Exploiting his position as arbitrator, the Czech king managed to bring about peace talks between the parties in 1337. He appointed himself as a mediator. The numerous conditions of the ultimate peace included guarantees which the king of Hungary, Charles Robert and his wife Elizabeth, sister of Casimir the Great, were supposed to offer for the treaty.40 The Polish side was expected to obtain the required Angevin documents. In 1337, the papal collector informed the

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Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe 135 pope that he was unable to appear before the court, because he had left cum domino rege Polonie in Ungariam pro confirmacione concordie inter ipsum et Cruciferos.41 We do not know whether the papal collector’s presence among the royal attendants had any influence on the outcome of the PolishHungarian talks about the peace treaty with the Teutonic Knights. According to later sources, the treaties of Inowrocław were not ratified because Casimir the Great was unable to obtain Hungarian guarantees for the planned treaty.42 It is quite possible that this solution was reached at the suggestion of Galhard of Carces, since proceedings before the papal tribunal were allowed only in the absence of ratification. But Benedict XII dragged his feet over the appointment of judges; the papal curia had already taken three years to examine the merits of the Polish complaint. The pope decided to commence the judicial proceedings only in 1338, when it was clear that the Inowrocław agreements would not be ratified. Galhard’s appointment as one of the judges was, it seems, a natural result of his earlier involvement with the conflict. The second person appointed as judge was Peter Gervasis, a former papal collector in Scandinavia.43 Yet again, the papal collectors were entrusted with functions exceeding their ordinary competence. We do not know with certainty why Benedict XII granted judicial duties specifically to collectors. Obviously, they knew the subject well, and the circumstances of the conflict. They had the proper education in law, a fact which could guarantee the correct conduct of judicial proceedings. On the other hand, the fact that fiscal officers of middling rank were given the function of judge might indicate that the pope did not consider this local territorial conflict especially significant. The Polish party must also have anticipated that, just as had been the case in the earlier trial, the Teutonic Knights might accuse the judges of partiality. The leaders of the Order had their bishops spread information about the close relationship between the collector and the Polish and Hungarian royal courts. A letter to the pope stated outright that the judges were singulares amici et quasi domestici regum Ungarie et Polonie . . . totaliter eidem ordini fratrum de domo Theutonica diffavorabiles et suscepti.44 Before the expected term of trial, Casimir the Great once again tried to use the papal collector in order to revive the Holy See’s interest in the same 15,000 marks about which the collector had informed the pope three years earlier. On 8 September 1338, in the cathedral on Wawel Hill, the king granted Pope Benedict XII (through the agency of the papal collector) all the rights to half of the compensation owed to him by the Order according to the verdict of 1321.45 The place where the document was officially handed over, the witnesses assembled on this occasion (the king’s closest advisers) and the presence of the collector, all suggest that the Kraków court was engaging in a well-designed propaganda campaign. Its orchestrators surely knew that the collector would pass the royal gift to the curia.

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The trial of the Teutonic Order before the papal tribunal took place in Warsaw in 1339. The judges passed down a verdict favourable to Poland. However, citing formal errors, Benedict XII refused to approve the verdict.46 The king’s many efforts did not sway the pope in favour of the Polish arguments. Likewise, the collectors, though favourably inclined to Casimir the Great, had no capacity to influence papal policy. After 1339, the conflict between Poland and the Knights escaped the control of the Holy See. Truth to tell, at this point neither side was interested in papal mediation. This is very apparent from the course of the subsequent events. Instead of using the procedure of appeal – typical in contemporary judicial procedure – Benedict XII attempted, without effect, to impose his own resolution of the conflict. In this way, he definitively annulled the verdict issued by the papal judges. He gradually began to remove collectors from political affairs, and to entrust diplomatic missions to bishops. The pope entrusted the fulfilment of this peace plan to three bishops: those of Meissen, Chełmno and Kraków. They were expected to carry out a peacemaking mediation on behalf of the pope, and to lead the negotiations to a permanent resolution of the conflict, on terms dictated by the pope.47 If the territories at issue continued to be contested, the bishops were obligated to reconsider the grievances by means of accelerated judicial proceedings.48 Thus, on papal command, they could become judges in the conflict. The mission of the papal representatives ended in a complete fiasco, which definitively excluded the Holy See from the peace negotiations. Ultimately, the role of mediator fell to the archbishop of Gniezno.

4 The financial obligation commonly called Peter’s Pence, owed to the Holy See by the population of certain countries of the Baltic Sea basin, acquired political significance in Poland. This resulted from Duke Władysław the Short’s quest for the royal crown, undertaken in 1318. In that year, as has been noted earlier, the duke agreed to a change in the method of assessing the obligation which was less favourable to the payers than had been the case earlier. This, at least, was the widespread social perception regarding the duke’s shift from a household-based to a head-tax-based assessment.49 However, it was not the change in the system that, in the context of the present subject, was most important; what was most important was the fact that the duke’s promises aligned perfectly with John XXII’s fiscal policy. Approximately from the time when Władysław the Short began his quest for the crown, Peter’s Pence began to be enforced in Poland quite effectively. However, no-one foresaw, or wished to foresee, the political complications related to that fact; these were bound to arise with the changes in the Polish boundaries during the

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Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe 137 early fourteenth century. To the papacy, the concept Polonia meant the territory of the ecclesiastical province of Gniezno, which covered all the lands historically under the rule of the Piast dynasty. This meant that the obligation to pay Peter’s Pence continued to apply to the inhabitants of the Silesian duchies, despite their choice of Czech allegiance; to the inhabitants of the diocese of Chełmno and of eastern Pomerania, both of which had become part of the state of the Teutonic Order; and even to the inhabitants of the diocese of Kamień, in western Pomerania. At the outset, Pope John XXII’s position concerning the territory subject to the obligation to pay Peter’s Pence had no political subtext. The view in Avignon was that long-standing obligations ought to be enforced, regardless of political changes in international boundary lines. This approach was bound to be attractive to the Polish side; it was a very favourable one from the propaganda point of view. It was in Poland that the assertion ubicumque datur denarius sancti Petri tunc fuit Polonia was specifically accepted.50 Thus it is not surprising that Poland sought to exploit Peter’s Pence to the utmost for propaganda purposes, with the help and cooperation of papal collectors. This inevitably led to conflict between the collectors and the inhabitants of the lands remaining outside the territory of the Kingdom of Poland. The conflict began in Pomerania, yet it was fiercest in the diocese of Wrocław. In 1317, Pope John XXII mandated the archbishop of Gniezno and the bishop of Włocławek to commence the collection of Peter’s Pence in the diocese of Chełmno on the same basis as in the other Polish dioceses.51 But the enforcement of this obligation met resistance from both the clergy and the leadership of the Teutonic Order, despite the fact that the papal exactors had the right to wield ecclesiastical penalties against the insubordinate. Difficulties with collection also emerged in that portion of Pomerania which did not belong to the diocese of Chełmno. In 1323, the Grand Master of the Order, Charles of Trier, travelled to Avignon and personally tried to convince the pope to accept the Order’s view on this subject.52 The Knights agreed to the collection of Peter’s Pence in Pomerania because that province lay within the boundaries of the diocese of Włocławek. On the other hand, they argued that the diocese of Chełmno had never paid Peter’s Pence. Initially the pope accepted this argument, but as early as 1325 he mandated his collectors, Andrew of Verola and Peter of Auvergne, to collect Peter’s Pence in all the lands infra dicti regni antiquos limites.53 It is possible that the change in the pope’s position was influenced by the collectors, and by the activities of the Polish side behind the scenes. At least the Order’s leadership was thoroughly convinced that Poland was running a propaganda campaign. The Grand Master maintained that Avignon was rife with rumour, disseminated by the Polish side, to the effect that, while

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Peter’s Pence had in fact always been collected in the Chełmno diocese, the collected revenues were never sent to the pope, but were instead spent on the needs of the Order.54 The Polish side was in a better position in the conflict concerning the collection of Peter’s Pence in Pomerania, since here it had the support of the papal collectors. It was they who, wielding the appropriate powers of agency on the pope’s behalf, were authorised to resolve all the contested issues on the spot. Therefore, bypassing Avignon, the Order’s representatives undertook negotiations with the collector in Kraków. However, the latter, despite compromise proposals by the Order, proved intransigent, demanding aderence to all the previously assumed financial obligations.55 The collector’s position suited the Polish side. Even though in a formal sense Władysław the Short was not engaged in this conflict, no one doubted that continuation of the conflict was in the interest of the Kraków royal court. The king’s advisors could always use the Peter’s Pence argument to prove that Pomerania had once been part of Poland. It appears that the leaders of the Teutonic Order fully understood the Polish point of view, and that that is why they were willing to accept a far-reaching compromise. They believed, however, that the dispute ought to be resolved without the involvement of papal collectors. This, in all likelihood, is why attempts were made to carry out talks directly with the pope. The proctor of the Order in permanent residence at Avignon took part in them, and the ultimate agreement on Peter’s Pence concluded in 1333 can be attributed chiefly to his involvement.56 In the dioceses of Kamień and Lubusz, the conflict over Peter’s Pence had a similar origin, but a slightly different course. In ordering the collection of the payment, John XXII relied (as he had with respect to Gdańsk Pomerania and the Chełmno district) on arguments by the Polish side. The papal collector was brought into the resolution of this conflict. While reiterating the pope’s arguments, which were based on historical grounds, he also drew attention to some other aspects of the conflict. This dispute about Peter’s Pence lasted for an unusually long time. Even the lawsuit brought by the papal collector against the bishop of Kamień in 1343 did not bring about a settlement. The bishop’s representatives maintained that the diocese had never been part of the Gniezno ecclesiastical organisation, and that therefore the demands for Peter’s Pence were groundless. This line of argument did not convince Galhard, who was well-disposed toward Poland. In view of the difficulties over the enforcement of the obligation, he sought to recast the conflict from another angle, and to relate it to the ongoing major dispute between the papacy and the Wittelsbach dynasty. In the reports addressed to Pope Benedict XII, Galhard observed that the problem with Peter’s Pence in this particular group of dioceses stemmed from the fact that they were under the influence of Lewis of Bavaria.57

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Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe 139 The conflict over Peter’s Pence in Silesia took the most dramatic course; moreover, it involved both the Church and the laity. In this conflict, we note the most intensive involvement of the papal collectors, and of the kings of Poland and Bohemia. The parties to the conflict employed all the arguments that could possibly be useful in convincing the pope to take an unequivocal position. In Silesia, the problem of Peter’s Pence was additionally complicated by the fact that, right from the outset, the conflict had become political; the participants were less concerned with finances than they were with principles. In 1317, Pope John XXII had ordered the collection of Peter’s Pence in all the dioceses of the metropolitan province of Gniezno. The papal collector Gabriel de Fabriano therefore mandated the bishop of Wrocław to collect the payment in his diocese.58 But the first attempt to enforce Peter’s Pence provoked universal resistance; the Silesian dukes even sent their own emissary to present their point of view to the pope.59 This action by the dukes did not discourage the bishop of Wrocław, who imposed ecclesiastical sanctions upon those who evaded the payment – a step which further escalated the conflict. The bishop’s sudden death caused even greater havoc. The Wrocław chapter (which, after the bishop’s death, assumed de facto rule in the diocese) turned to the archbishop of Gniezno for help. The letter sent by the Wrocław chapter to the archbishop indicates the beginnings of a more compromising attitude: some clergy and some dukes were willing to pay Peter’s Pence. Duke Henry of Głogów even issued a letter to the pope asserting his duchy’s readiness to pay Peter’s Pence as a sign of subjection to the Holy See. At the same time, he expressed the hope that the pope would defend the dukes of Silesia in the event the emperor should wish to gain control over them.60 Viewed from the political perspective, the duke’s move was quite skilful. By means of the same argument as the king employed in Kraków, Henry used Peter’s Pence as a basis for allying himself with the pope, who was in conflict with the emperor at the time. The possible support of Pope John XXII for the duke of Głogów might have worked to strengthen his position in Silesia. However, the conflict over Peter’s Pence drew in the Czech king, John of Luxemburg, who, as of this point, had assumed the dominant position in this province. The acceptance by the Silesian dukes of the Czech king’s overlordship between 1327 and 1329 crucially transformed the situation in all the Piast duchies. The papal collector fully understood this new political and institutional constellation, and in a letter to the Czech king expressed the hope that the changes in Silesia would not adversely impact papal revenues. Though the king accepted the collector’s arguments, in reality he treated Peter’s Pence as an indication of the fact that Silesia belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Gniezno. After 1327, the conflict entered a new phase. The Piast dukes of Silesia

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were aware of support from the Czech monarch, and they began to oppose the papal collectors – who in turn were attempting, from Kraków, to exact the payments owed to the pope. The uncompromising demands for the payment of Peter’s Pence further escalated the conflict. The people of Silesia consistently refused to pay, while, with an equal consistency, the collector imposed ecclesiastical penalties as prescribed by the law. The collector, Peter of Auvergne, was compelled to flee Silesia for fear of his life. His successor Galhard took an equally intransigent position. At the same time, he entangled himself in risky lawsuits against the Silesian clergy – lawsuits that were adjudicated, among others, by the same persons against whom he was making fiscal demands. Especially important in the whole Silesian conflict was the position of the Kraków court. Casimir the Great and his ecclesiastical advisers did not wish to enter directly the conflict over Peter’s Pence in the diocese of Wrocław. A long and protracted conflict was very useful for their political interests, because it kept alive the memory of the Silesian duchies’ former political subjection, and because, within Silesia itself, it maintained a certain level of tension. This, however, did not mean a real neutrality. With the collector on its side, the Kraków royal court sought to make political use of the conflict, using the collector for help in this endeavour. On his side, Galhard clearly understood that only Kraków could serve as a base of support for his activities. One might think that, in this entire conflict, Peter’s Pence was only a pretext – especially in view of the fact that, after all, the collector himself was not hiding his close relationship with Casimir the Great. Galhard informed the pope that he had agreed to extend the deadline for payment ad consilium et preces domini regis Poloniae illustri. According to Galhard, the main obstacle to the resolution of the conflict was the Czech king, and the German clergy of the Wrocław diocese. Such opinions simply must have had their origins in the royal court of Kraków. Casimir the Great’s court milieu undoubtedly affected the way the papal collector perceived the problem. It cannot be ruled out that the court had initiated certain activities undertaken by Galhard. This is suggested by the reports Galhard sent to the pope. In extensive missives, he tried to sensitise the Holy See to the problem of Silesia; he presented financial matters (always a subject of interest to the pope) essentially as a political issue. In 1337, the collector sent a lengthy report on his collecting activities to the Pope. In it he wrote about the difficulties he had encountered in the enforcement of the payments owed to the pope, especially in Silesia; and he called himself a fervent defender of papal rights in these lands. Moreover, he included a series of recommendations of a strictly political nature, and suggested to the pope very specific, concrete solutions. About the situation in Silesia, he wrote directly and bluntly:

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Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe 141 Item sciat sanctitas vestra quod in omnibus civitatis regni Polonie in quibus Theutonici dominantur omnia iura sedis apostolice et vestre camere quasi depereunt in totum, unde in civitate et diocesi Wratislaviensibus quamdiu fuerunt sub dominio domini regis Polonie et ibidem dominabatur et census beati Petri et decima decime et omnia iura camere penitus erant illesa; nunc vero quia rex Bohemie dominatur ibidem censum beati Petri restituere denegant indebite et iniuste, et in residua decime imposite per bone memorie Clementem papam concilio Viennensi clerus solvit pessime.61 But Galhard did not limit himself to pointing out nationality issues. Probably taking his cue from the Polish Church, he proposed to the pope specific, preventative steps. First of all, he suggested that the pope reserve the bishopric of Wrocław – a step which in the future would allow the pope to appoint a bishop who would guarantee suitable revenues to the papacy. In this connection, he unambiguously suggested that that new bishop ought to be a Pole. Reservation of the bishopric was necessary, Galhard maintained, because the Wrocław chapter, dominated by people loyal to John of Luxemburg, would never elect a Pole. It was probably also at Polish prompting that the collector alerted Benedict XII to the problem of the episcopal castle in Milicz, which the Czech king intended to purchase. Galhard observed that this castle was quasi clavis regni Polonie, and that its acquisition by the Czechs would lead to the loss of papal revenues from the entire territory, sicut aliis in locis per eum occupatis inter regnum Polonie. Moreover, the change of owner would pose a direct threat to Casimir the Great. In view of these dangers, the collector recommended that the pope prohibit the bishop of Wrocław from selling the castle. The collector’s second extensive report, dated June 1338 and compiled in Visegrád, Hungary, was similar in tone. Here, too, Galhard described the enormity of the dangers posed to the Holy See by Czech domination in Silesia, and did not even conceal his own ties to Casimir the Great and his innermost circle.62 It is impossible to establish with certainty to what extent Galhard’s reports contributed to the resolution of the conflicts around Peter’s Pence in Silesia. Further publicity of the conflict, and the presentation of Polish arguments through the good offices of the papal collector, may have adversely affected the Czech king’s public image. It was the Czech monarchs who were interested in the speediest possible resolution of the conflict; hence, they made isolated, conciliatory gestures toward the papal collector. It is therefore entirely unsurprising that they sought to invite Galhard to Prague, in order to clear up all the contested issues.63 Galhard did not accept those invitations, so as not to appear to favour the Luxemburg side.

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As has already been noted, the entire conflict over Peter’s Pence in Silesia – dramatic in its circumstances – had a political subtext, and could only be resolved by political decisions. Without a doubt, Casimir the Great’s gradual withdrawal from active politics in Silesia helped facilitate that resolution. Once the political priorities of the Kraków court changed, Galhard, whose activities had led to an acute conflict with the Silesian clergy, could no longer count on the backing of the king of Poland. Likewise, he did not find adequate support from Benedict XII. After his defeats in the lawsuits against the Silesian prelates, he merely managed to elicit from the pope an annulment of all the ecclesiastical penalties to which he had been subjected; and a grant of the right to impose, without the possibility of appeal, ecclesiastical penalties upon all who failed to pay Peter’s Pence. The pope agreed to his collector’s request in very early 1339.64 Around the same time, Galhard concluded a settlement concerning Peter’s Pence with Charles, the margrave of Moravia. Thus, in his financial accounts Galhard may have requested reimbursement of the money he had spent on the journey to Wrocław which he made cum abaxiatoribus marchionis. Only after obtaining the support of the Czech authorities was Galhard able effectively to impose ecclesiastical penalties upon those Silesian dukes who failed to pay Peter’s Pence. Prior to that, however, the collector had concluded an agreement on this matter with the Czech king. The circumstances behind this compromise are unknown. Interestingly, the date of its signing coincides with the date Casimir the Great issued documents, for the house of Luxemburg, promising to leave the current level of Czech control over Silesia entirely undisturbed.65 In practice, this meant Poland’s withdrawal from active politics in Silesia. It seems that this declaration finally led to the resolution of the conflict over Peter’s Pence in the Wrocław diocese. In 1340, the rulers of Bohemia travelled to Avignon, ad papam Benedictum duodecimum ad concordandum cum eo de denario Sancti Petri qui datur in diocesi Wratislaviensi.66 Despite the visit, they did not manage to resolve all the outstanding issues. Matters relating chiefly to the past-due payments remained unresolved, as the Holy See was not going to give up this type of income. In 1343 John of Luxemburg submitted to Pope Clement VI a supplication in which he asked the pope to grant him the entire past-due revenues from Peter’s Pence in the Wrocław diocese.67 The king’s request implied that he was accepting Peter’s Pence in Silesia, and that he was no longer viewing its collection as a political matter. As was the case in other bishoprics, Peter’s Pence was becoming a purely financial arrangement. This turn of events was made possible by the withdrawal of the Kraków court from active involvement in Silesian politics.

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5 When discussing the political involvement of the collectors, we must not overlook their financial contacts with the state authorities. Such contacts were bound to occur, if for no other reason than because the collector had at his disposal a supply of cash, while the rulers suffered from its deficiency. It is therefore not surprising that the monarchs often used this papal official as a desirable moneylender. This role of the collector was related to the broader issue of papal attitude toward the policies of the individual monarchs. In the fourteenth century, the popes quite often shared their incomes with rulers, and for many reasons. In practice, this meant that the Holy See shared a part of its revenues from a given country with its ruler, or that it imposed upon the clergy special taxes which were devoted specifically to the needs of the kingdom. In the latter case, the popes usually discontinued the practice of receiving, through papal collectors, the payments that were being relinquished, and instead allowed the ruler to collect them by means of the state’s own administrative apparatus. A ruler who received this kind of papal gift was not obligated to account for the outcome of the resulting collection; as a result, in most cases we do not know the amounts generated for the royal treasury, or the effectiveness with which the payments were enforced. The nature of the collectors’ influence upon the decisions of the popes is difficult to assess. It is not improbable that, since they remained in intimate contact with the state authorities, the collectors themselves suggested to rulers that the latter turn to the successor of Saint Peter for help; or, that the collectors expressed such suggestions directly to the pope. Sometimes this was necessary for an efficient collection of a payment; this was because the state power was in a position to force far-reaching concessions upon the pope. The kinds of activity which the kings of France carried out in this regard were soon imitated in Central Europe. The Czech king Václav II was able to seize the papal monies collected in the diocese of Olomouc – monies which the popes subsequently (and without effect) demanded from the Luxemburgs.68 Things were similar in Hungary. When, in 1331, papal collectors undertook to gather the Vienne tithe, Charles Robert protested, and his protest sufficed to prevent the papal emissaries from even embarking upon the collection. Only after John XXII granted one third of the gathered revenue to the king were the collectors allowed to function relatively effectively.69 The rulers of Hungary and Bohemia were in a position to make financial demands on the pope, and to make their own consent to the collection of extraordinary obligations in their countries conditional upon his acceptance of those demands. However, the rulers of the Kingdom of Poland were unable to make similar demands; for them, papal support, even if it was not effective, was nevertheless too valuable to risk in a conflict over finances.

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This does not mean that the king of Poland did not use papal monies. This occurred along lines similar to what happened in other countries, but with a different rationale: Casimir the Great skilfully managed to involve himself in the Avignon popes’ crusading policy.70 The king’s wars against pagan Lithuania for supremacy over Galich–Vladimir Rus’ gradually acquired the status of crusades, which in turn allowed the Polish side to seek financial support from the papacy. As early as 1343, Pope Clement VI handed over to the king all his income from the papal two-year tithe proclaimed in Poland.71 The king benefited from papal help for the second time in the 1350s, when the pope gave him the income from the four-year tithe imposed on the Polish clergy.72 Innocent VI and Urban V also pitched in with financial support for the king.73 We do not know whether in his endeavours to obtain financial aid from the papacy the king received support from the collectors of the papal camera. It is quite possible that the collectors provided the king with help and advice. In extraordinary circumstances, they themselves provided financial support for the king. Likewise in exceptional situations, a monarch could ask the papal collector for a simple loan; in turn, the collector could use for this purpose money he had managed to gather into his collectory. For all practical purposes, detailed papal regulations concerning transfers of money from the collectory to the papal camera completely prevented the collector from freely managing the revenues he had gathered. One kind of activity affected by this prohibition was lending; for that act, the collector needed the consent of the pope, or at least of the camerarius. In Poland, the collectors, acting in the interests of the state authority, quite often freely managed the accumulated sums. In 1340, Galhard of Carces lent Casimir the Great 3,000 golden florins toward the expenses of the Russian campaign; the guarantors of the loan were the townspeople of Kraków and the higher clergy.74 The king paid back his debt only three years later, under threat of excommunication, directed against the guarantors. In 1352, without unnecessary guarantees or the knowledge of the papal camera, Galhard’s successor Arnald of Caussinh lent the king the much larger sum of more than 13,000 golden florins. The pope learned about the transaction only from the petition by the king to the pope, to be excused from repaying that entire sum. Only at this point did Innocent VI order the collector to exact the debt from the king immediately, and to send the resulting revenue to the camera.75 The execution of the debt must have proceeded with great difficulty, since as late as in 1357 the king was still a debtor to the camera. Extensions of the deadline for repayment did not bring about the expected results. As late as the pontificate of Urban V, the camera was demanding over 6,000 florins; we do not know whether this was an old debt, or whether the collector had furnished the king with a new loan.76 Be that as it may, Casimir

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Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe 145 the Great died as a debtor to the papal camera. After his death, the pope tried to reclaim the amounts owed from his successor, Louis the Great. In this matter, he turned, among others, to Louis’s mother and the dead king’s sister, Elizabeth Łokietkówna.77 Arnald’s financial documents, secured after his death, include a record of two obligations incurred by Casimir the Great, jointly equalling over 4000 florins.78 We do not know when these obligations were incurred, though we may presume it was in the final years of the king’s life. If the presumption is accurate, this would mean that, against the wishes of the Holy See, the papal collector continued to give financial support to the Polish king.

6 The pontificates of John XXII (1316–34) and Benedict XII (1334–42) together constitute the period of the greatest political activity by collectors in Poland. Their involvement in settling local disputes, and their mediating activities, elevated their position in the Polish Church far beyond its equivalent in other papal collectories. It is difficult to define clearly whether in their policies the collectors were simply complying with the guidelines of the Holy See. It seems that such a hypothesis would be difficult to prove. The source material demonstrates unambiguously that it was the state authority which sought to make use of the presence of the Holy See’s representatives for its own ends, and to accomplish its own political aims with their participation. This is very clearly visible in the Piast monarchy in the 1330s. The collectors were the sole representatives of the pope in the Piast state. Despite their relatively low position in the institutional framework of the Roman curia, they had very real possibilities of creating a desirable image of a given country in Avignon. As representatives of the pope, they may have been considered more objective observers than were the emissaries sent to the papal court by the rulers. The Kraków court skilfully managed to engage the papal representatives in the pursuit of its own political agenda. Considering the political isolation in which the Kingdom of Poland found itself by the end of Władysław the Short’s reign and at the beginning Casimir the Great’s, the papal representative could prove a very valuable ally in the international arena, the more valuable as in some cases he was Poland’s only ally. The collectors also benefited from good cooperation with the state authorities, and from representing those authorities’ interests. First of all, they could count on the monarch’s support for their basic role, namely organising the collection of payments owed to the pope. The importance of such support, or even of a mere impartiality, cannot be overestimated; during the period of interest here, we have no record of any incidents in the collection of papal payments. Thanks to the good cooperation with the state authorities, the papal

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collector felt relatively safe in the Kingdom of Poland, in contrast to other collectories. The ruler’s favour could also faciliate a collector’s ecclesiastical career. To cite an early example, Władysław the Short sought to reward a favour by a papal representative with attempts to furnish the representative with benefices. So did Casimir the Great. It was during his reign that the collector was viewed as a resident of the royal household – a fact that says much about this particular relationship. On the other hand, the collectors active in the Kingdom of Poland and in Hungary did not play major roles in high-level papal politics. One can even venture that they were treated instrumentally, by the rulers as well as by the pope. Quite simply, they were financial officials, at a rank too low for them to have an effective impact on the policies of the successors of Saint Peter.

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12 University masters at the royal court of Hedwig of Anjou and Władysław Jagiełło Krzysztof Ożóg

During the rule of Hedwig of Anjou and Władysław Jagiełło in the years 1384–1434, the royal court in Kraków played an important role in the functioning of the emerging Jagiellon monarchy. After a long interregnum, with the arrival of Hedwig in Poland and her coronation in October 1384 the court became organised anew. Hedwig’s marriage to Władysław Jagiełło and his coronation as King of Poland on 4 March 1386 led to a reorganisation of the royal court, and the establishment of a separate court attending to the queen. After Hedwig of Anjou’s death, Władysław’s subsequent three wives had similar small courts. Medievalists have long been interested in various issues related to the court circles of Kraków at the end of the fourteenth and in the first half of the fifteenth century, but no comprehensive monograph on this issue has appeared.1 Until now, university scholars involved in court service have received relatively little attention. Above all, this group consisted of preachers, confessors, writers, physicians, astrologers and the teachers of the king’s sons, as well as of persons who carried out a variety of intellectual and spiritual instructions issued by the monarch, unrelated to the aforementioned court functions.2 In the present article, we shall not consider intellectuals engaged by the king in the royal council and chancery, or their colleagues who took part in Polish diplomacy. As a matter of fact, until 1400 there had been no regular academic circle in the Kingdom of Poland. Only the foundation in that year, which had been arranged by Hedwig of Anjou and Władysław Jagiełło, and implemented after the queen’s death, provided the basis for the functioning of a university in Kraków. By the last decade of the fourteenth century, there was a substantial group of intellectuals in Kraków – graduates of universities in Prague, Paris, Montpellier, Bologna and Padua – centred around the Church. Some of them belonged to Hedwig and Jagiełło’s court. They had a significant influence on the decisions made by the royal couple: first, regarding

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the attempt, undertaken in the years 1390–3, to renew the studium generale formerly founded by Casimir the Great; and second, concerning the efforts (in addition to the reestablishment of the university in its entirety) to establish a faculty of theology, which was indeed accomplished, on 11 January 1397.3 Beginning in 1400, Władysław Jagiełło and his subsequent wives, Anne of Cilli, Elizabeth of Pilica and Sophia of Holszany, were able to use at court the services of masters of the University of Kraków.

Confessors, preachers and chaplains Historical sources provide modest information about the learned clergymen present at the court; that is to say, about Queen Hedwig of Anjou’s confessors, preachers and chaplains. They performed various services in addition to the ministry. They were a rather varied group, including monks as well as the diocesan clergy.4 The group of Hedwig’s confessors consisted of three learned men: the Dominican John Sartoris, the Cistercian John Štěkna and most probably also Stanisław of Skarbimierz. John Sartoris, who had been a Dominican lector at the monastery of Świdnica in 1373, probably received his education in philosophy and theology in one of the Dominican general colleges. There are no records concerning his university studies or career. He disseminated the works and thought of Thomas Aquinas by editing the Itinerarium s. Thomae and the Tabulae for the needs of Dominican students and preachers.5 He certainly joined Hedwig and Jagiełło’s court before 1388, in which year, thanks to their support, he became bishop of Seret after the relocation of Andrew Jastrzębiec to Vilnius. However, he spent most of his time in Kraków, as suffragan of Bishop John Radlica, and later of Peter Wysz.6 In a document issued in the Benedictine monastery on Mount Holy Cross (Święty Krzyż) for the Dominican convent in Seret (without an indication of the year), Sartoris used the title of ‘papal penitentiary’, and that of ‘confessor’ to Hedwig and Jagiełło.7 He probably performed the office of confessor at the Kraków court until his death in 1394.8 From 1397, the post of Hedwig’s chaplain was held by a Czech Cistercian monk, John Štěkna, at the time a teacher of theology and an outstanding preacher. Most historians assume that he was Hedwig of Anjou’s confessor, because the queen’s foundation document for the Lithuanian College in Prague, issued on 10 November 1397, describes him as curiae nostrae cappellanus familiaris, devotus, dilectus.9 Although he is not directly identified as confessor, the hypothesis is highly plausible. He first studied in Prague, where he received the title of master of arts in 1376 and a biblical baccalaureate before 1391, and, after his relocation to Kraków, completed theological studies and received his doctorate in 1402. In Prague, he became renowned as a preacher in the Bethlehem Chapel during the years 1393–6.10

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University masters at the royal court 149 John Štěkna also preached at the Kraków court, where he enjoyed the reputation of a splendid preacher. He wrote a series of sermons, including the Carcer animae and the Sermones de sanctis super Evangelia et Epistolas.11 Some of his sermons aroused controversy among Polish noblemen, who sent him a letter (which is undated) calling on him to retract the opinion that mulier adulterii commisso crimine ipsa minus peccaret, quam vir similiter deliquens et per consequens minoribus digna suppliciis censeretur, which he had expressed during a Sunday sermon in the presence of the noblemen’s wives, sisters, daughters and relatives.12 The Czech theologian must have complied with the noblemen’s demand, since he remained among Hedwig of Anjou’s associates, probably until the queen’s death. Based on the clear connections between Stanisław of Skarbimierz and Hedwig of Anjou, Jerzy Wolny has offered a highly plausible hypothesis: that in the final years of the queen’s life Stanisław was her confessor.13 That this hypothesis is very probably correct is shown by Stanisław’s references to Hedwig in a series of works: the Soliloquium de transitu Hedvigis Reginae Poloniae, the Soliloquium de consolatione mortis, the Sermo in exequiis dominae Hedvigis reginae Poloniae, and the Sermo ad regem et proceres eius de obitu Hedvigis Reginae et vitae eius.14 What deserves special emphasis is Hedwig’s cooperation with Stanisław of Skarbimierz on the subject of a jubilee indulgence in 1390. The queen used her influence to receive a jubilee indulgence from Pope Boniface IX, which was granted in Kraków, probably beginning on the eve of the Descent of the Holy Spirit (1 June) and ending on 30 September 1392.15 For this special occasion Stanisław of Skarbimierz prepared three sermons on indulgences, a treatise titled De indulgenciis and Sermones super Gloria (a cycle of 20 sermons on the mass hymn), and probably also a collection of 19 sermons devoted to Jesus Christ, Sermones de incarnatione Christi.16 As can be concluded, at the royal court Stanisław performed the function of a preacher. Together with Władysław Jagiełło and Hedwig, and with Bishops John Radlica and Peter Wysz, he made efforts to relaunch King Casimir’s foundation, and later on to arrange for the second foundation of the university.17 The office of preacher at Wawel Castle in the years 1394–1410 was performed by the Premonastratensian monk, John Sylwan (or John-Jerome) of Prague, who arrived in Poland after completing theological studies at the Prague university; he had become a magister artium in 1392.18 In the prologue to the collection of sermons, Quadragena Salutis, he wrote that he had stayed at the Kraków royal court as a predicator serenissimi Wladislai regis Polonie.19 In addition, John of Segovia reported, in his written account of John Sylwan’s delegation by the Council of Basel as an envoy to King Władysław in 1433, that Sylwan had once been the confessor of the Polish monarch.20 Hedwig of Anjou and Anne of Cilly may have heard him preach,

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and he probably was also their confessor. John-Jerome obtained a doctorate in theology at the University of Kraków before 1404, and was a professor of the university for several years, perhaps until 1408.21 While preaching in Kraków, he prepared two sermon collections, the Linea salutis aeternae (1405), and the Exemplar salutis aeternae (1409).22 He was a man of great faith, admired by his contemporaries. He was mentioned by John Długosz in his account of Władysław Jagiełło’s 1409 foundation of the Premonstratensian monastery of the Holy Spirit in Nowy Sącz; the king launched this foundation at the request of John-Jerome, qui pro illo tempore rare sanctitatis vir habebatur et qui verbo sue doctrine et vite arctitudine multas virtutes in Polonie Regno plantaverat.23 John-Jerome’s unusual piety as the monastery’s first abbot is also noted in Jagiełło’s founding document.24 John-Jerome undertook missionary activities in Lithuania twice, for the first time probably in the years 1394–8, and again in 1411. However, he fell out with Grand Duke Witold, and left not only Lithuania but Poland as well, setting off in 1413 to Italy, where he joined the Camaldolese Order and became prior of the monastery in Camaldoli.25 He passed on his account of his missionary activities in Lithuania to Enea Silvio Piccolomini in 1432 or 1433, and the latter included it in his work De Europa.26 Quite possibly, John continued to maintain contact with the royal court of Kraków by mail. He became involved in the reform of the Church, especially of the monastic life, and addressed these subjects in his works. He participated in the Council of Pavia–Siena, and thereafter of Basel, where he was considered an expert in the issues related to Bohemia.27 In 1433 he was sent as the council’s envoy to Władysław Jagiełło, in order to convince the king to send his group of representatives to the council, and to cooperate with the council in a resolution of the Hussite issue, which was under discussion at Basel. The king’s meeting with his former confessor and preacher proved fruitful, since Jagiełło decided to change his policy towards the council.28 During this visit, JohnJerome stopped by the Benedictine abbey on Mount Holy Cross (Święty Krzyż), and issued instructions aimed at the healing of the spiritual life of this monastery.29 In the 1390s yet another Czech preacher, Nicholas of Miličín, probably stayed at the court of Hedwig of Anjou. According to Jerzy Wolny, he can be identified with the person recorded in 1390 as ‘Nicholas, son of Milicz’ in the accounts of the city of Kraków, and as Nicholas the Czech, a preacher heading towards Prague, in the records for 1397.30 He appeared once more for a short time in Kraków in 1408, and later returned to Prague. Apart from this, there are no sources that might establish his relations with Kraków and the royal court. Nicholas studied at the University of Prague under the supervision of John Huss, and carried out his academic and preaching activities in

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University masters at the royal court 151 the same city, including, after his return from Kraków (that is, in the years 1401–18), preaching in the Bethlehem Chapel.31 It is thus quite difficult to define the role played by this preacher in the king’s circle at the beginning of his career. Undoubtedly, other learned Czech clergymen were present at the Kraków royal court at the close of the fourteenth century. John Štěkna, mentioned above, John Sylwan (Jerome) of Prague, and in all likelihood Nicholas of Miličín, had an important influence on the life of the royal couple. In his speech to Czech envoys during the Kraków dispute on Wawel Hill in March 1431, Jagiełło declared that he personally owed a great deal to learned Czechs, since they had taught him the foundations of the faith at the Kraków royal court after his acceptance of Christianity.32 After the queen’s death, Władysław Jagiełło continued to appoint confessors and preachers from among learned clergymen, most often from the Dominican Order. In 1413, in Samogitia, Magister Andrew Wężyk from Giebułtów, a predicator regius, delivered his evangelising sermons in King Jagiełło’s presence.33 He joined the Order of Friars Preachers after 1407, having completed his studies at Charles University (baccalaureus artium, 1397), and at the University of Kraków, where he obtained the degree of magister artium in 1402 and lectured for several years. He edited Aristotle’s Physics in the form of Buridan’s commentaries. He must have studied theology as well, since in 1414 he was teaching theology in the Holy Trinity monastery in Kraków.34 No collection of his sermons is known. At court, he probably held the post of royal confessor, although no direct sources from the first half of the fifteenth century explicity furnish such information.35 Before 1417, John Biskupiec, a Dominican friar from Kraków, became Jagiełło’s confessor. He was affiliated to the University of Kraków for a short period, having joined it in 1407 in order to complete his theological studies.36 The period over which he served at the court as the king’s confessor is unknown. He was a master of theology and had been the regens of the Dominican studium generale in Kraków since 1410, provincial in the years 1411–17, and finally bishop of Chełm from 1417 until his death in 1452. Biskupiec could often be found in Jagiełło’s presence, enjoying the king’s exceptionally favourable opinion – expressed, among others, in the founding document for the Chełm diocese.37 Biskupiec was trusted by the king until the last days of his life, and supported the monarch’s policy towards Bohemia. He belonged to a group of influential Church dignitaries, and was a member of the ruling elite. In the age of the Council of Basel, around 1442, he wrote the Tractatus contra sacra concilia, where he defended the pope’s theocratic authority, and at the same opposed the idea of conciliarism.38 Silvester (Lasota) of Zdziechów from the Rawicz family, after studies at the faculties of liberal arts and canon law (baccalaureate in 1409), obtained

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a doctorate of canon law some time before 1429.39 The period during which he was affiliated to the University of Kraków is not known. He joined the royal court in 1427, when, for the first time, he performed the services of a confessor regis.40 In the following year he was noted, in a document issued by Jagiełło, as a magister capelle regie, and he used this title in the subsequent years.41 Silvester’s service at court continued after Jagiełło’s death, since he became the teacher and confessor of Władysław III Jagiellończyk (magister et confessor noster devotus). He served the young king not only in Poland but also in Hungary, which can be learned from the king’s document of 11 November 1440, issued in Buda.42 According to this document, Silvester had taught the late King Jagiełło faith and morality. Until his death, which took place some time between 12 November 1441 and 10 January 1442, Silvester stayed with Władysław Jagiellończyk in Hungary.43 Silvester enjoyed the great trust and respect of Jagiełło and of his first-born son, yet the latter’s attempt to place him in the archbishopric of Lwów in 1436 failed. Faced with opposition from Polish noblemen, and at the request of the king, Silvester had to renounce this office, despite having been canonically elected to it.44 The absence of detailed studies on the court capella of the first Jagiellons prevents us from discussing in more detail the services of several intellectuals who appear in the sources under the titles capellanus regis or magister capellae regis. The documents refer to Silvester (Lasota) by the latter title, and, much earlier, to a doctor of canon law (and a graduate of the university in Padua), John Śledź of Lubień. John Śledź was identified as the master of the king’s capella in 1411, having become Jagiełło’s chaplain as early as 1391.45 In an undated letter, John stated that, from his youth until his old age, he had served the king; Jerzy Wolny identifies his post of superior of the court capella with preaching.46 In the years 1422–7, the king’s chaplain was Nicholas of Błonie, at the time a magister artium graduated from the University of Kraków, and a student of canon law, in which he obtained a doctorate around 1427. It is possible that at the same time he delivered sermons at the court, because later on, after his departure from Kraków, he prepared the Sermones de tempore et de sanctis sive Viridarium, written in an approachable and comprehensible style.47 Already during Jagiełło’s lifetime, another learned man, John Elgot, doctor of canon law and a professor of the University of Kraków, was a member of the court of Queen Sophia of Holszany. Reliable information concerning this fact is provided by John Długosz under the year 1431, in his account of the death of Princess Hedwig and of the public acquittal of Sophia, who had been charged with poisoning the princess.48 We do not know for how long afterwards he remained the queen’s confessor, since no source information is available on this matter.49 In the subsequent period, Władysław Jagiełło’s surviving widow was surrounded with learned chaplains, to whom

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University masters at the royal court 153 she entrusted ambitious tasks – including the translation of the Bible from Czech into Polish, a task peformed by several translators, among them the queen’s chaplain, Andrew of Jaszowice.50 In the course of Jagiełło’s reign, the royal court also played host to a group of preachers affiliated to the University of Kraków. During his university studies in Kraków, Matthias Hering – a canon regular and abbot of the Augustinian house in Wrocław between 1416 and 1429, the year of his death – delivered sermons for the king and his circle.51 In his funeral oration, Nicholas Tempelfeld mentioned that Matthias fuit serenissimi domini nostri regis capellanus intimus et orator devotus.52 It is possible that the title of capellanus intimus also refers to Hering’s services as confessor before the year 1416. At the turn of the second decade of the fifteenth century, the function of the royal preacher (regie maiestatis predicator) was performed by a doctor of canon law, Martin of Holeszow from Bohemia.53 He received his education in liberal arts at Charles University (baccalaureate in 1398), and, as an opponent of the Hussites, emigrated to Kraków, probably in the 1420s, where he continued his studies at the faculty of canon law and joined the royal court. He obtained the title of doctor of canon law under the academic supervision of John Elgot, and delivered lectures on canons.54 In the 1420s, sermons at Jagiełło’s court were delivered by Dziersław of Borzymów (predicator curie nostre), who was also, around 1420, employed in the Polish chancery.55 He pursued his university studies in Kraków, where he began his education at the arts faculty in 1408, to become a bachelor two years later; and where he subsequently studied canon law. He obtained the baccalaureate of canon law sometime before 1420, and a doctorate ten years later. He enjoyed the trust of the masters, since he was elected rector of the University several times, in 1431, 1434–5, and 1438.56 Dziersław’s sermons have probably not survived into our times. During King Władysław’s burial ceremonies in the cathedral, on 18 June 1434, a sermon in Polish was delivered by the doctor of canon law, Paul of Zator, a university professor. We do not know whether he was a court preacher during the king’s lifetime; however, he did preach in the Wawel cathedral for 40 years, beginning in 1423. According to John Długosz, at the funeral, Master Paul listed the monarch’s pious and excellent deeds, moving his audience to tears.57 At present, his funeral sermon remains undiscovered.58

Physicians and astrologers at the royal court Medieval royal courts generated incessant demand for experienced physicians, who sometimes offered a combination of medical knowledge and astrology. The faculty of medicine at the University of Kraków operated since 1400, and its first professors included the master of medicine

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Thomas, son of Andrew de Amelia, as well as two bachelors, Henry Alman and Andrew Pyrnycer.59 We know little about physicians practising at the Wawel Castle at the end of the fourteenth century. In manuscript 805 from the Jagiellonian Library we find two prognostics, written by an anonymous astrologer in 1398–9 for the child of Hedwig of Anjou and Władysław Jagiełło.60 Paleographic analysis of the book of prognostics carried out by Maria Kowalczyk, and the comparison of this book with the manuscript copied in 1406 by John de Saccis of Pavia, a doctor of medicine, suggest that John de Saccis was the author of the horoscopes. In all probability, John was also the author of prognostics for Elizabeth Bonifacia.61 Until now, this Italian scholar was believed to have arrived in Kraków only around 1412; however, it now seems that he was already present in Poland before 1398, when he served Hedwig and Jagiełło as their court physician.62 The sources provide no information about any other court physicians serving Hedwig in the final days of her life. In 1409 James of Kraków, magister artium and bachelor of medicine, became King Jagiełło’s physician. He had obtained his education at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Paris. He served at the Kraków court until his death (which occurred some time before 31 January 1435), while simultaneously working in the town.63 From 1415 onward, another physician, Magister Johannes medicus, had a practice in Kraków. He joined the royal court, and several years later, in a 1429 judicial record, he is identified as cirologus domini regis.64 Apart from John, we may list a few other outstanding physicians recruited from the University of Kraków and employed at the court. One was the doctor of medicine Nicholas Oszkowski of Dobra, mentioned among the witnesses, to a document issued by Władysław Jagiełło in 1433, as medicus noster.65 He had studied philosophy and medicine in Kraków, received his baccalaureate in 1416, the title of master of liberal arts three years later, and, finally, a doctorate in medicine under the academic supervision of John de Saccis, between 1424 and 1427, at which point he was enlisted as a professor of the University of Kraków.66 Proof of his philosophical interests can be found in manuscripts 1734 and 2082, and of his astronomical pursuits in manuscript 546, of the Jagiellonian Library.67 However, we have no precise information concerning his medical practice at court. Toward the end of Jagiełło’s life, two doctors of medicine, Herman of Przeworsk and Bernard Hesse, served at the court as physicians. The former became a doctor of medicine around 1430, at the University of Kraków, and was undoubtedly a royal physician. This is evident from an (undated) act of Herman’s ennoblement, preserved in a document of Kraków provenance, produced some time between the 1430s and the 1440s.68 The document, issued for Herman of Przeworsk by King Władysław (most likely Jagiełło rather than Jagiellończyk), described the recipient as:

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University masters at the royal court 155 venerabilis et egregius magister Hermanus doctor medicine curie nostre medicus fidelis noster dilectus atque commensalis noster ex altitudine diviciarum sapiencie et sciencie Dei uberrime existit insignitus.69 Herman’s merits in the eyes of Władysław Jagiełło’s court in the final days of the king’s life must have been considerable. The office of the second physician was held by Bernard Hesse, Benedict’s brother. Bernard studied medicine under the supervision of John de Saccis, and, upon becoming a doctor in 1433, served the king as a phizicus domini regis.70 The presence at the royal court of two Czechs – the physician Paul Kravař, who was also a Parisian master of arts and a bachelor of medicine graduated from Montpellier, and the astrologer Henry, master of arts – deserves individual treatment. After his studies in France, Master Paul lectured at the University of Prague for a short period following 1416, and became affiliated with the Hussite movement. Around 1421, he arrived in Kraków, where he served as court physician for ten years. Next, he left for Prussia, and, in a letter of 1432, complained to the king that he had not been paid for the last four years of service at the court, having been owed 16 marks for each year worked. He also pointed out the courtiers’ unfavourable attitude towards himself.71 He was certainly involved in some suspicious magical practices, since, when offering Jagiełło his services in establishing peace between the Teutonic Order, Świdrygiełło (Svitrigailas) and the Kingdom of Poland, he referred to secret revelations from a certain spirit.72 The king declined this dubious proposal, and Master Paul returned to Bohemia. In 1433 he set off to Scotland, where he sought to establish contact with the Lollard movement. During these attempts, Kravař was captured and burnt at the stake for propagating the Hussite doctrine.73 We do not know whether during his stay at the Kraków court he revealed his religious views, or attempted to propagate them in Jagiełło’s circle. Master Henry the Czech, in astronomica arte tam natura quam doctrina singulari preditus, appeared at the royal court around 1424 – he was present at the birth of all the three sons of Władysław Jagiełło and Sophia of Holszany in the years 1424–7 and wrote prognostics for the children.74 During this time he certainly enjoyed the confidence of the royal couple. He maintained contacts with the Czech Hussites, who regularly sent him their writings through messengers. Soon he was accused, twice, of heresy and of magical astrological practices. On the first occasion, in 1428, he was acquitted of all charges, yet, after the interception of a Hussite letter addressed to him, he again faced an inquisitional trial, and was sentenced not to death, but to life imprisonment – a sentence reflecting Queen Sophia’s influence.75 He was freed after ten years, most likely thanks to the queen’s intercession, but never returned to the court.76

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Although these two Czechs furnished the royal court with medical and astrological services, they could not openly admit to their Hussite views in Kraków, because such beliefs were officially repressed by the king, the state apparatus and the Church authorities. The influence of Paul Kravař and Henry the Czech on the royal family and its circles in the religious sphere was hardly all-pervasive.

Court teachers and writers In the late Middle Ages the ruling houses in European countries tended to care a great deal about the intellectual, moral and military education of successors to the throne. A similar approach can be seen in Poland. In 1421 King Władysław took the eight-year-old Frederick Hohenzollern to the court to teach him Polish customs, after arrangements had been made with Margrave Frederick I of Brandenburg concerning his son’s marriage to Princess Hedwig.77 At this time, the young Frederick was envisioned, in widely-supported political plans, as successor to the Polish throne. The king entrusted the task of educating the margrave’s son to a professor of the University of Kraków, Elias of Wąwolnica, and to a doctor of theology and knight, Peter Chełmski. Elias’s role was certainly to attend to the intellectual and moral education of the future successor to Jagiełło.78 We lack exact source information about the curriculum and the books used in Frederick’s instruction. After the birth of Queen Sophia’s sons, Władysław and Casimir, King Władysław Jagiełło did not neglect their education. When the monarch was taken prisoner by his brother Świdrygiełło (Svitrigailas), the noblemen gathered at the Warta convention appointed Master Vincent Kot (a former professor at the University of Kraków) and the knight Peter Ryterski as preceptors of the princes.79 Moreover, we know that the teacher of Władysław’s firstborn son was Silvester (Lasota) of Zdziechów, the doctor of canon law mentioned earlier. We lack additional precise source information about the way the princes were taught, or the duration of their education. The royal court made use of the services of learned men of letters in the chancery and in diplomacy. After Hedwig of Anjou’s death, an epitaph was written to the queen’s memory. John Długosz quoted it in the Annales, under the year 1399,80 though the chronicler did not mention the poem’s author. Although the epitaph, consisting of 30 elegiac distichs, leaves much to be desired, it was written by someone from the queen’s close circle.81 It contains many important details concerning Hedwig’s background, the exact date (and the hour) of her death, and, finally, her characteristics and achievements (with the interesting remark Lectores format, quos certis redditibus ornat), all of which reads consistently with contemporary opinions about Hedwig. The author emphasised the queen’s humility, prudence and faith, and her

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University masters at the royal court 157 concern for her subjects, for the Church and for learned men. Mieczysław Gębarowicz hypothesises that the epitaph was written by Peter Wysz, since his literary talents were noted by Masters Bartholomew of Jasło and Stanisław of Skarbimierz in their speeches written for the bishop’s assumption of office.82 Wysz’s authorship is quite probable, and the hypothesis has been accepted in the literature – although we do not know his other works.83 The group of royal writers included the Nicholas of Błonie mentioned earlier; he wrote two songs of praise on the occasion of the birth of Prince Władysław (31 October 1424), and later on that of prince Casimir (the first son by this name was born on 16 May 1426).84 The song devoted to Władysław, beginning with the words Nitor inclite claredinis, survives in only one manuscript, with an incomplete musical notation.85 It is an adaptation, or a paraphrase, of a Christmas song with the same incipit, Nitor inclite claredinis. In the first stanza of the paraphrased praise in the prince’s honour, Henryk Kowalewicz has discovered an acrostic reading NICOLAUS, which suggests the authorship of Nicholas of Błonie.86 The author used simple tricks, inserting Queen Sophia in place of the Virgin Mary, Prince Władysław in place of Jesus, and substituting cuncta gens Polonica for the original cuncta orthodoxica. Metaphors referring to the newly-born Jesus Christ were transferred to the prince, who, just like the Saviour, is the light of the whole nation. Władysław Jagiełło was described as regificus, largificus and invictissimus. The melody of the song was influenced by Italian and French music.87 A similar style is characteristic of a cantata written by the same poet in praise of Prince Casimir, beginning with the words Hystoriographi aciem. It is preserved in the same manuscript, together with the notation of a melody for three voices composed by Nicholas of Radom, whose authorship is confirmed by a note below the song.88 The cantata is very original. Prince Casimir is compared to the progeny of the Vandals (Vandalorum propages), his father to a hero (yros genitor) and his mother to Sabah of the South (laresce fecunda Zophia; Saba Austri tu prozelica, voluntate deica).89 Princess Hedwig, deceased on 8 December 1431, was commemorated in a composition by Adam Świnka, Virginum o iubar, o inclita gloria regni.90 Świnka was the best and the most famous poet at Jagiełło’s court. He also wrote several sequences in honour of Saint Barbara, Saint Stanisław and Saint Adalbert, and a breviary hymn about Saint Stanisław. He was praised by John Długosz in the epitaph for Zawisza the Black.91 Moreover, Adam Świnka wrote poems about Casimir, Władysław Jagiełło’s third son, and about his daughter Hedwig.92 Świnka’s works are finely written. They contain numerous reminiscences and borrowings from ancient authors, proving the poet’s humanistic aspirations and intellectual background. He studied at the faculty of arts of the University of Kraków from 1411, yet he did not

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obtain a degree.93 There is no reliable information concerning his alleged studies in Italy.94 In the epitaph for Princess Hedwig, he emphasised the widespread grief at her death, most of all her father’s sorrow, and presented all the necessary elements of a biography – including the princess’s place of burial in her mother’s tomb.95 In his account of Jagiełło’s death, Długosz mentions that an epitaph commemorating the late king was written by Master Gregory of Sanok, and he quotes its content under the year 1434. The epitaph commences with the words Hanc tibi nimbiferam quondam, pie sceptriger, odam, and has survived into our times in three versions.96 In 1434, Gregory of Sanok was merely a bachelor of arts of the University of Kraków, not obtaining the title of master until 1439.97 The epitaph was not written with much artistic skill, and reveals no traces of humanistic influence. The author himself was aware of the imperfection of its form, since he added, in the closing stanza, Hos tenui coluit Petrides vomere sulcos, cui Sanok patriam fata dedere suam. The piece contains the most important elements of the king’s biography, beginning with his birth as the son of Olgierd, and ending with his death. It deals chiefly with Jagiełło’s accomplishments on behalf of the Church in Lithuania and Poland, with the founding of the university, and with victory in the battle of Grunwald.98 Stanisław Ciołek, initially a royal clerk and secretary, and in the years 1423–8 deputy chancellor of the treasury of the Kingdom of Poland, was yet another court writer during Jagiełło’s reign.99 He studied at Charles University in Prague, where he obtained the degree of magister artium in 1402.100 He wrote Cracovia civitas, a courtly hymn, in the years 1426–7.101 The first four stanzas of the poem extol Kraków, the following five speak of the royal family, while the final stanza is a devout request to God for grace and joy for the homeland. The author devoted as many as three stanzas to Sophia of Holszany, lavishing praise on her beauty and chastity, as well as on her court.102 Doubtless he wished to gain favour with the queen and win her support for his persistent efforts to obtain the bishopric of Poznań. Despite some imperfections in its poetic form, the hymn remains one of the best pieces of literary work from Władysław Jagiełło’s time.103 The melody for the hymn was probably composed by Nicholas of Radom, on the basis of examples from Italy and Burgundy, but there is much support for the hypothesis that the composer is unknown.104 In addition to one Marian song, and two sequences in honour of Saint Stanisław and the Holy Virgin, Stanisław Ciołek became famous as the author of a political pasquil, a satire on Władysław Jagiełło’s marriage to Elizabeth Granowska, for which he was dismissed from the royal court, probably in 1419. However, Ciołek was back in the monarch’s favour soon after Elizabeth’s death. The satire, beginning with words, Fertur quodam leonem iugo coniugii, was written in the form of an animal fable.105 It portrays a lion

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University masters at the royal court 159 who has lost his wife and does not wish to remarry. The animals subject to his authority, fearing that after the lion’s death they will remain without a successor to the throne, manage to convince their ruler to send a group of envoys to the eagle, with a proposal of marriage for the eagle’s daughter. The envoys take an official letter from the council of the animals to the king of the birds. The mission is successful – the eagle offers his daughter’s hand – but upon their return the envoys discover that in the meantime the lion has wed a pig, who had deceived him into marriage. The king loses his good name among his neighbours, and falls victim to a trick, which causes sorrow among his subjects. The satire was quite transparent for its contemporaries, as the symbolic characters of the lion and the pig stood for Jagiełło and Elizabeth Granowska.106 Yet, for today’s historian, some parts of the fable still remain a mystery, such as the identity of the eagle and of his daughter. Stanisław Ciołek’s works demonstrate that royal men of letters were entangled in a variety of political intrigues at the court, and that they often wrote in the service of the opposition, acting against the monarch’s wishes. The royal court on Wawel Hill also commissioned other services from learned men who were not confessors, preachers, chaplains or royal physicians. For instance, Hedwig of Anjou accumulated an impressive library, which included the works of the Church Fathers, Saint Bernard and Saint Ambrose, the Revelations of Saint Bridget and works of other mystics, and many other works in Polish translation.107 She commissioned the copying of different works, and one of the copyists was Bartholomew of Jasło. By order of the queen, in 1394 he copied in Sandomierz some books of the Old Testament.108 Many more copyists worked for the needs of the court – including, among others, a special group of scribes called the cathedrales, who, among their other functions, carried out royal commissions.109 In the late 1390s, a Dominican friar from Prague, professor of theology Henry Bitterfeld of Brzeg, inspired by one of Hedwig of Anjou’s closest aides, Bishop Peter Wysz, wrote a treatise for the queen titled De contemplatione et vita activa.110 The treatise consists of two main sections, of which the first is devoted to deliberations on contemplation and the second deals with the issue of the active life, and has the character of a royal mirror.111 In his preface to the treatise, directed personally to the queen, the theologian presents a complete form of Christian life, as a harmonious unity of the conduct of the two evangelical characters, Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, symbolising, respectively, the contemplative and the active life.112 According to Mieczysław Gębarowicz, Peter Wysz wanted Bitterfeld’s treatise to direct Hedwig’s spiritual life along those lines, so that she would not abandon her public obligations in favour of contemplation and mystic experiences, but lead both an active and a spiritual life.113 The queen’s death undoubtedly stopped the learned monk’s work on this treatise.

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On the queen’s order, a psalter titled the Psałterz floriański, containing psalms in Latin, German and Polish, was prepared. The court needed the psalter to recite the canonical hours together.114 Opinions on its origin differ among historians. Most favour the hypothesis that the psalter was elaborated by the canons regular of Saint Augustine in Kłodzko in 1398–9, and completed in Kraków after 1405, although it is also likely that it was written entirely by those canons regular after their arrival in Kraków.115 The hypothesis formulated by Ewa Śnieżyńska-Stolot that the main author of the Psałterz was Bartholomew of Jasło has not won scholarly acclaim.116 The Psałterz floriański, unfinished during Hedwig’s lifetime, was finally completed for Anne of Cilly, Jagiełło’s second wife.117 In the years 1384–1434, the court of Hedwig of Anjou and Władysław Jagiełło was international in character. Polish, Czech and Italian learned men performed various services for the royal couple. There were 31 of them in total, half that group professors of the University of Kraków, founded in 1400 by King Władysław. The presence of scholars at the court could be explained by a specific spiritual and intellectual demand from Hedwig, as well as from the Lithuanian monarch, who was newly converted to Christianity. They both surrounded themselves with wise and pious confessors, preachers and chaplains. Hedwig’s holiness developed among people of deep faith, in the spirit of the great knowledge and wisdom of those who attended to the kingdom and to the Church. In the final decade of their joint rule, Hedwig and Jagiełło’s court attracted scholars on a scale previously unseen in Poland’s history. After Hedwig’s death, Władysław Jagiełło cultivated the character of the court in Kraków, continuing to call for the services of intellectuals.

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13 Between conciliar thought and mystical theology The development of ideas for church reform by James of Paradyż (1380/1–1464/5)1 Thomas Wünsch James of Paradyż (or of Jüterbog), is not exactly an unknown in the Polish or German history of ideas. Nevertheless, his intellectual biography presents an unsolved riddle, namely, how it could come about that he, as a conciliarist and until 1441 theology professor at the University of Kraków, could become the mystic, moralist and radical monastic reformer who would die in 1464 at the Carthusian monastery of Erfurt?2 James was one of the first Cistercians in either Poland or Germany to receive the doctor of theology degree.3 He engaged himself with the reform of this (his first) order,4 and also held the office of visitator for Poland. He was among the leading figures of conciliarism in Poland5 – and, after the eventual breakup of the conciliar movement, reengaged around 1441 or 1442 with his former area of activity as a Carthusian in Erfurt – above all with mystical theology (in close proximity to the devotio moderna),6 with monastic spirituality and with the reform of both the clergy and the laity.7 His literary productivity remained high, even into the final phase of his life; the catalogue of his writings includes (depending on the exact method of quantitative assessment) between 948 and 1499 works. Here is a good set of qualifications from which a ‘subsequent development’ of a conciliarist could ensue. This subsequent development entails the following thesis. Conciliarism, at least in James’s case, was not a monolith – a static and exclusive system – but rather itself part of a comprehensive structure arising from efforts toward reform of the Church. James’s conciliarism can be viewed as that part of Church reform which is directed toward the Church’s constitution; while his mysticism, moralism and (Carthusian) emphasis upon monastic rigour might be that part of the Church reform which is directed toward the state of the individual believer.10 Viewed from this perspective, James’s apparent shift from a conciliarist to a mystic does not in fact constitute a break in his intellectual biography, but only a kind of reallocation of emphasis within the same paradigm. But this paradigm should be described as equating reform with innovation. First, it is only when ‘reform’ is understood not merely as a rhetorical

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weapon, a cessation of concrete abuses, such as simony or financial excess on the part of the papacy – nor, on the other hand, ‘merely’ as a constitutional change of the Church in the period of the reform councils – that, according to the view just noted, the meaning of this concept emerges at its full extent. Reform is nothing other than change in the circumstances as they are, a change which can occur at all the possible levels of institutional or individual life. The concept of reform reflects not only the support of latemedieval intellectuals, from William Durantis to Nicholas of Cusa (and, by the way, James of Paradyż), but also a method: the concept oscillates between repair and revolution as the twin vectors of change, moving now backward, now forward, between the one and the other. The problem raised by this way of posing the matter is the evidence available from the sources. In James’s writings during the time spent in Erfurt, one finds references to Church reform which betray, on the one hand, an interest in reform in general, and on the other, the preservation of the idea of council.11 There is, indeed, a substantial inclination toward the conciliarism of the Kraków years, borne out above all by the content of his Determinatio Basiliensis of around 1440.12 Here, one clearly observes an emphasis on the side of moral theology,13 a support, in principle, for the papal monarchy,14 and a change in the direction of the reform movement toward the constitutional dimension: with reform now, once again, flowing from the (papal) top downward, and no longer from ‘below’, as had been the case since William Durantis.15 The compliance with conciliar decrees, the calling of the councils, and the avoidance of arbitrary papal leadership were all at the top of the reform agenda, and were sought in a manner that was, so to speak, constitutionally neutral. Canonically licit behaviour by the clergy – including the pope – guaranteed, in the eyes of the Carthusian James, the reform (that is to say, the ‘healing’)16 of the Church. With respect to political theory, this meant that instead of taking a position superior to the pope, the council functioned only as a source of correction. In taking this position, James was clearly distancing himself from his conciliar theories of about ten years before. The political and constitutional rebuke of the pope, effected by means of the superiority of the council, now developed into a kind of ‘new interiority’, which concentrated primarily upon the rebuke of the faithful. These texts – which show us the ties between James of Paradyż the conciliarist, and James of Paradyż the mystic (or moralist) – were produced between 1448 and 1455, at which time James had already belonged to the Carthusian Order for several years. On the basis of several new texts, it now seems possible to follow this development at its turning point.17 These texts, which have until recently been either completely or partly unedited, provide for us an interface between James the conciliarist and James the mystic or moralist – between James the

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Between conciliar thought and mystical theology 163 Kraków professor and James the Carthusian. Let me place under discussion three18 sermons, which James delivered in 1441 and 1442 before the synods of Łęczyca and Piotrków, and in 1441 during a university convocation in Kraków.19 The interpretation and classification of these texts, unknown until recently, concern a pivotal question: are there connections between the Kraków and the Erfurt phases of James’s work? It is remarkable that, at one moment, James exchanged the life model of a Cistercian, a theologian and a Kraków professor for the ‘corporate identity’ of a Carthusian (a well-known identity, expressed in the motto numquam reformata, quia numquam deformata),20 because the conciliar reform movement to which James had substantially contributed would not come to an end for some time. Thus the failure of conciliarism, its politically-driven demise, and the papal restoration after the end of the Council of Basel in 1449 (or, rather, the political turning point of the year 1447) could not have produced a motive for the change in James’s basic convictions. That change seems to have been an organic development, not some completely new orientation caused by deep disillusionment. The basis for this development needs to be investigated in what follows. * * * Manuscript 173 of the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Kraków transmits, without identifying its author, a synodal sermon with the incipit Fraternitatem diligite (citing 1 Peter 2:17). Both the place and the date are given: 1441, in octava Stanislai (14 May), in Lancicia in sinodo (in Łęczyca, at the synod).21 The context of this sermon’s transmission is significant; since all three of the sermons to be considered come from this composite manuscript, a short synopsis of Codex 173 is included here. We have here a manuscript produced around 1450, containing speeches, sermons, letters and short pieces of various kinds, which originates for the most part from the Kraków milieu. The eminent Kraków canonist John Elgot (ca. 1398–1452) is represented with a series of speeches, above all for graduation ceremonies at Kraków University’s canon-law division. In addition there are a number of synodal sermons by theologians, canon lawyers and the future bishop of Kraków, Thomas of Strzempin (1398–1460). Scattered here and there are a few sermons by Matthew of Kraków and James of Paradyż. Finally, at the end of the codex are situated short collections of humanist letters and speeches, as well as documents related to the Council of Basel. The owner of the manuscript must have been Thomas of Strzempin.22 The older literature (Janocki and Wiśniewski)23 had identified Matthew of Kraków (who, above all others, should have been present there) as the author of the sermon delivered at the Synod of Łęczyca (1441). Later on, in his monumental work about James of Paradyż and the University

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of Kraków at the time of the Council of Basel, Jan Fijałek consistently identifies James as a possible author.24 Although Fijałek is not absolutely conclusive on this point, the attribution to James of Paradyż seems permissible: the background of church politics, the direction of the argumentation and the choice of cited authorities are very similar to two other sermons which were undoubtedly written by James. Moreover, James demonstrably took part in the Synod of Łęczyca as the representative of his abbot, Dominic of Mogiła. The matter of concern at this provincial synod was to clarify the obedience of the ecclesiastical province of Gniezno. In 1439, the Council of Basel was divided concerning the choice of the conciliar pope, Felix V; in May and in September of 1440, delegations were sent from Basel to Kraków, in order to procure Polish obedience to the conciliar pope. The Polish king, Władysław III Warneńczyk, remained neutral (after a brief phase of support for Felix V, in 1439–40), while the powerful bishop of Kraków, Zbigniew Oleśnicki was the true political power behind the council. The University of Kraków finally laid out its definitive treatise concerning the council report of 1440–1, unambiguously on the side of obedience to the council and to conciliarism. Just how necessary an agreement was (and this remained evident despite Łęczyca!) is shown by the January 1442 appearance of John Elgot in Basel, where he maintained that the jurisdiction of the council was indeed recognised by the diocese of Kraków.25 The Synod of Łęczyca was a top-calibre assemblage; beside Archbishop Vincent Kot, all the Polish bishops took part in the synod in person, with only the bishops of Wrocław and Lubusz sending deputies, as usual. In addition, there appeared representatives from cathedral and collegiate chapters, as well as from the Orders. So on to the text. The sermo synodalis of 1441, which we will assume to have been authored by James of Paradyż, may be broken up into relatively clearly-divided parts. A significant feature of sermon in its entirety is the fact that about half the text consists of quotations. The interpretational task is, therefore, on the one hand, to identify the sources of these quotations, and, on the other, to evaluate the ‘intervening texts’, that is to say, the author’s own contribution to theology and Church politics. The first, shorter section of the sermon, which serves an introductory role (fols. 90rb–1ra), opens (in direct connection to the motto of the biblical verse Fraternitatem diligite) with an observation (fols. 90rb–va) about the importance of man’s quest for unity with God, a unity which has been lost as a result of the Fall. Only contemplatio can stop the inevitable corruptio of man, and reverse the direction of development which has led man from a godly dileccio to the culpa. James here draws support from two authorities: on the one hand, a quotation from Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob, stating that the incarnation of Christ proceeds through grace (per gratiam reformaret) in connection with the restoration of man; on the other, a quotation from Augustine’s De

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Between conciliar thought and mystical theology 165 civitate Dei, which illustrates how man, originally situated between beasts and angels, inexorably passes into the midst of the former (morti adictus bestialiter viveret), unless Christ’s appearance intervenes. The examples assembled here are conclusive, and do in fact illustrate the background of James’s thought – though it must be remembered that the remedy of contemplation discerned by James is appropriated neither from Gregory I nor from Augustine, but stands as the speaker’s own contribution. The second part of that same, first section (fols. 90va–vb) weaves this idea of unitas further – indeed, in the direction of the papacy. The inalienable fraternitas of the faithful is also to be preserved within an institutional framework. This framework arises from the fact that Christians are united in a corporate sense, as membra Christi. In this function is formed the Church, to which, again principally as his sponsa, Christ himself is espoused until the end of time. This traditional axiom, drawn from the theory of the corporation, deserves special notice, because at a time of schism and conciliarism it carried an especially explosive force. The conciliarists were able to situate the pope (who, according to a view entrenched since Gregory VII, was situated above the Church) within the Church, yet over the Church’s corporate structure – while, with the help of a specific theory of representation, placing the council above the pope, since the theory of the corporation presented him as one believer – though, to be sure, one very elevated believer – among many. Yet, James of Paradyż does not go that far just here. Indeed, he postulates – as do the conciliarists – the unity of the faithful under one, single caput ministeriale, which, things being as they are, can only be the pope. But now, instead of constructing an opposition between this ‘administrative head’ (a concept employed by the conciliarists in an entirely downgraded sense)26 and the council, he turns immediately to the well-known Psalms passage normally used in support of the papal monarchy, Unguentum quod descendit in barbam Aaron (Ps. 132:2). The conciliarists also had recourse to this verse (as, for example, did John Elgot of Kraków),27 yet it should be noted they did so after the superiority of the council was first established, and the subordination of the papacy to the council formulated. Without this connecting thread, the plea for unitas sub Petro, delivered here by James (which he supported with a quotation from a letter by Cyprian) would have to be understood as contrary to the conciliar ideology. In a third step, James comes back to the social aspect of the multilateral relationships among the faithful (fol. 90vb). The view that the unity of the Church originates, and is maintained, per fraternam dileccionem evidently refers to a utopia, the structure of which clearly dates from the time before the Great Schism. It is not by chance that Bernard of Clairvaux also helps here, with a word from one of his sermons on the Song of Solomon.

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The sermon continues on the same level through its second section (fols. 91ra–4rb). This section serves as reinforcement for the line of thought that fides and caritas must be intertwined in order to guarantee the unity of the Church. Again, the point of departure here is a corporate model of the Church, whereby the universal Church is understood as the membra of the corpus Christi – a subject which is treated exhaustively, now predominantly in a sequence of quotations from the Church Fathers. In the first place, we have quotations from the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. There follows Augustine, occasionally interspersed with Cyprian, Cassiodorus and Gregory the Great. Here we see a strong preference for a monastic theology, which, in fact (as practised beforehand by the conciliarists and the Hussites), could also be used very instrumentally for other purposes, but here was, for the most part, left by James of Paradyż in its original context. It must be said that a tendency emerges just here: the argumentation takes on a moralising cast. This is related to another message, this one a negative: as of the year 1441, whoever propels the discussion about Church unity onto the track of a moral lesson, should, on that question, expect from the council absolutely nothing. This impression is strengthened by the further course of the sermon. After the aforementioned series of quotations, James turns to his listeners, and gives an instruction of sorts for a course of action (fols. 92va–3vb). In addition to the metaphor of the body, the idea of the head of the Church is now once again taken up. In connection with a passage from Bernard and a quotation from the Epistle to the Ephesians, James very suddenly formulates a basic principle of the ecclesiological debate of the first half of the fifteenth century: Unum caput Ecclesie Cristus, unus vicarius principalis capitis Ihesu Cristi. From this, he takes up again an old slogan of the papal monarchy, which had existed since Innocent III: there is only one head of the Church, Christ, and there is only one representative of Christ, the pope. Thus, the pope is not a vicarius Petri (as put in Gratian’s Decretum), but a vicarius Christi. By means of the metaphor of the good shepherd – a metaphor requiring all the faithful to gather under the leadership of the vicarius – a papalist orientation, extending from Innocent III to Torquemada, has been put into place. That the author of this synodal sermon was well aware of the problematics of this interpretation is shown by the following warning, expressed shortly beforehand: to follow the one qui non est caput ministeriale sub principali capite Cristo. This could certainly have referred to the schism that had recently broken out in Basel. In considering the necessary actions which might serve the unity and the brotherhood within the Church, the moral sphere once again became absolutely central: whoever wishes to bring about unity, should first attain, by means of unity, a (moral) integrity, in its entirety, within his own self. Moreover, it is self-evident at this point that the consilia of Bernard of

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Between conciliar thought and mystical theology 167 Clairvaux, or of Gregory the Great, were brought into play here. As a second step, communication can then follow with the remaining members of the Church – the Glossa ordinaria, Bernard and Augustine serving as guides here. In view of these obstacles, it is no wonder that, again, only issues of morality – that is, mistrust of, or disagreement with, one’s neighbour – stood in the way of a genuine unity (fols. 93vb–4va). The emphatic encouragement in the epilogue (fol. 94ra–rb), Confortamini et estote viri fortes! rigorously develops this idea further, and shows one more time from where James had arrived at this point: from the perspective of a moralistic treatment of a political question. On the whole, the sermon delivered at the Synod of Łęczyca in 1441 may be characterised as a stringing together of authorities, an exercise on the basis of which the author cannot be said to have possessed an especially original theological mind, reflected either in the overall conception, or in the text interwoven with the citations. Yet, on the other hand, contemporary accounts of the council’s events are vague, and the theoretical formulations (the debate about the corporation, for example) meagre. But it is just this combination that makes the sermon interesting. The latter preserves, as a residue of the discussions also carried out in Kraków, a rather particular type of argumentation, yet it also reconfigures that argumentation into a different kind of coherence. Perhaps the most noticeable example of this is the pope’s function as the caput ministeriale. In the conciliarist context, a much-recycled notion limiting the papal plenitudo potestatis is the ministerial, or serving, position of the pope – a notion which, just here, is deployed differently. Now, the principal agent for this ‘inferiority’ is not the council, but exclusively Christ. This emphasis neatly avoids the great theoretical debate between the adherents of conciliar and papalist thought; instead, the speaker proceeds at the moral level, and endeavours to address the faithful as individual persons, in terms of their concrete life situations. James of Paradyż is neither a conciliarist nor a papalist; if we may attach a label to him, he is best described as a moralist. This must not mean, in the least, any kind of opposition or antagonism; yet we do have here a particular direction, which, in the end, might lead to a mysticism of the kind represented by the devotio moderna, to which James was attentive during his Erfurt period. This connection is further reflected in a second document,28 the sermon delivered at a university convocation in Saint Anne’s Church on 23 September, attributed by Fijałek to James of Paradyż (whereas Hain considers Thomas of Strzempin to have been the author).29 The motto of the sermon, Spiritu ambulate, is taken from the exhortation in the Letter to the Galatians (Gal. 5:16): Spiritu ambulate et desideria carnis non perficietis. The sermon is conspicuously divided into three parts, of which the first, in a reference to Gregory the Great (Moralia in Iob), contains a warning against an unbridled

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giving of oneself to a carnal, fleshly life. The context is clearly stamped by monasticism, and does not show any new ideas beyond the long-familiar schema of the vita carnalis versus the vita spiritualis. The second part draws its substance principally from quotations produced by the authorities: the Church Fathers – Ambrose and Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux; additionally, from time to time, a series of biblical passages come to the fore. The message remains introductory in its wording – that is to say, with the support of theological authorities, the individual faithful shall turn away from that carnal behaviour, and subject their flesh to the spirit. Instead of that behaviour, one should rouse oneself to a life steered by the spirit, a life which may be recognised by seven characteristics: 1) lumen, 2) confidencia, 3) amor patrie (with which, in a characteristic kind of specification, are associated the love of God and one’s neighbour), 4) rectitudo vie, 5) sobrietas modestie, 6) vigor persone and 7) decor iusticie (by which is meant the general idea of righteousness). References for these norms are drawn from both the Old and the New Testament. Following a lengthy philippic against a lifestyle led according to the flesh (ambulare secundum carnem), the speaker turns to the racio ambulandi, a topic that merits considerable attention. This is because the basic position and aim of this spirit-filled life, as preached here, are above all the (spiritual) renewal and humility of man. Since these imperatives may also belong to the classical canon of monastic spirituality, the goal of renewal possesses a certain polyvalence. The listening audience of that time, sensitised as it was by debates concerning Church reform, could under these circumstances derive both positive and negative implications from what was said. On the positive side would have been the references themselves: as with the biblical passages from Ezechiel (Facite vobis cor novum et spiritum novum, Ez. 18:31), the Letter to the Romans (In novitate spiritus ambulemus, Rom. 6:4 – with, however, vitae substituted for spiritus, as originally in the Vulgate), and from the Letter to the Ephesians (Renovamus spiritu mentis vestre, Eph. 4:23 – but, again, substituting renovamus for the Vulgate’s renovamini). The area in which this renewal takes place is relegated entirely to the spiritual and moral inner life of the faithful. A possible negative implication, on the other hand, is that this renewal has nothing to do with the external life, let alone with the structure and constitution of the Church, or, least of all, with politics. One can ask what, in view of the contemporary situation, the author wished to communicate to his listeners with a sermon of this kind. To give a brief framework: the conciliarist position of Kraków University, as redacted in written form by Thomas of Strzempin, and as based upon the independent reports by James of Paradyż, John Elgot, Lawrence of Racibórz, and (probably indirectly) Benedict Hesse, had just at that point been dispatched to the Council of Basel. Thus, the engagement with conciliar thought by those who

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Between conciliar thought and mystical theology 169 heard James at that university convocation had just attained its zenith – even if John Elgot was later able to deliver some not insignificant speeches, and if, toward the end of the 1440s, a circular letter sent from the Kraków academy to other European universities prompted, one more time, a brief moment of adherence to conciliarist conviction. How anachronistic, then, to entreat a public which had just expressed a sensational declaration in favour of the council (and this during a phase when politically everything was still an open question), with a sermon which was – from the perspective of its subject matter – essentially a monastic appeal for inner renewal. How little one must have felt bound to the biblical framework was demonstrated by the entire long sequence of conciliarists and their opponents. This, at any rate, could not have furnished the basis for the slant of this sermon. Thus it now remains to take note of the faithfulness to the biblical context, and of the moral interpretation – in conjunction with the assumption that a speaker who was entrusted with the contemporary discussions was, perhaps consciously, intending to give a sign of some kind. If this were the case, then we have here a deliberate shift of the reform debate from the external, institutional level to that of the inner and the personal. * * * The sermon attributed by both Fijałek and Hain to James of Paradyż,30 with the incipit Subiecti estote (this is the third text), significantly illuminates the thematic reconfiguration noted earlier.31 The subject of this sermon, delivered before the Synod of Piotrków on 22 April 1442,32 is focused more than that of any other sermon on the reform and constitutional debates of the time. With an exhortation from the first Letter of Peter, Subiecti estote omni humanae creaturae propter Dominum (1 Peter 2:3), the question of hierarchy is addressed. For all the ecclesiological reform movements of the late Middle Ages, from Hussitism through conciliarism to episcopalianism (as formulated, for example, by John of Segovia), questions of hierarchy are crucial, especially those concerned with a different conception of the position of the pope within the Church. This sermon, too, deals, in principle, with the constitutional level of the hierarchy of the Church, not with the systematictheological level of the hierarchy of ordination. James’s sermon turns into a game played with the constitutional problematic operating within the ecclesiastical space, a space whose elements are at least mentioned with respect to each other. However, the solution differs fundamentally from the conceptions just noted. In the first section of the sermon, James stays in the realm of philosophical discussion about subordination, and specific types of subordination. He sees the fundamental reason why orders of rank are necessary, as

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a general proposition, in man’s subordination to his Creator – a relationship which reproduces itself in the subordination to man of all other living creatures. In this phrase, James builds upon a biblical foundation, and even more fully upon Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae. Thus, in the course of the sermon, more fundamental reflections on the concept of subieccio, and other theological authorities, come into play. Where he discusses the subordination to God, James has recourse above all to Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, as well as to Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clairvaux and, finally, Bonaventura. These citations comprise about three-fourths of the entire sermon (fols. 148vb–51rb), and emphasise not only the necessity for subordination (for example, iusticie exigencia, fol. 150va), but also explain its nature (for example, debet esse perfecta, fol. 151rb) and its usefulness (utilitas, fol. 150ra). Finally, the speaker turns to a specific form of subordination, namely the subieccio to the Church and to earthly rule (fols. 151rb–2rb). Since both themes are of considerable significance for the debate regarding conciliarism and church reform, a closer look is warranted here. This part rises considerably beyond the material noted above, since it opens with an entirely new observation. The concern here is no longer the fundamental philosophical basis and the conceptual differentiation of subordination, but its temporal dimension. In the background, there stands the contemporary practical requirement of obedience, which James also clearly describes: We are not bound to adhere to obedience and subordination [only] for a brief period, but for as long as life lasts; and this especially in our case, for which we have been assembled [in the place] where obedience [obediencia] toward the Church, outside of which no one is saved, is demanded from us. (Ad subieccionis igitur obedienciam astricti tenemur non per breve tempus, sed interim, quod vita durat, maxime autem in casu nostro, pro quo congregati existimus, ubi a nobis exigitur obediencia erga videlicet ecclesiam, extra quam nullus salvatur.) Here is a perceptible leap into the problematic of the schism which has just newly broken out – a problematic which was, for the moment, so pressing that a temporary factional membership was absolutely impossible (non per breve tempus). James clarifies obedience as an existential matter (quod vita durat), which finds its expression in the fundamental conceptualisation of the Church itself: of the Church as a totality (extra quam nullus salvatur), not merely as a faction. To it alone the believer must subject himself or herself – an act in which, then, all the forms and dimensions enumerated by James in the first part of his sermon are naturally carried out. Because this represents a sweeping spiritual decision, the discussion also proceeds

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Between conciliar thought and mystical theology 171 further along a theological track. Along that track, the principal stops are the priests, who, as successors to the apostles, wield power over demons. At this point, the performance of the faithful stands at the centre of attention: what James requires is, first, a subieccio devota, and second (as part of the former) a perseverancia constans. In this context, it is immediately noticeable that the pope plays no role at all. The view that, in accordance with this theory of succession, it is the priests and not the popes who are clearly identified with the pontifices as the successores of the apostles, is elucidated below (see fol. 151vb). The first point of this section further develops the aspect of the responsibility of the Church in its entirety for the subordination of the faithful. When James states that subordination is owed to the Church universal, just as the Church itself is subordinate to Christ (further summoning for this the metaphor of the ecclesia as sponsa Christi), he is issuing a clear ecclesiological message. The valorisation of the Church in its entirety (universalis ecclesia), and of its immediate relation to Christ, is among the basic foundations of all the reform movements that distanced themselves from a papalist concept. First, in response to the events and theories associated with the Council of Basel, the papalists were forced to take seriously the Church in its entirety (in the sense of a virtual union of all the faithful), and to bring the Church, thus understood, into harmony with the pope’s absolute claim to superiority. The ecclesiastical doctrine of Torquemada – to name one of the most important papalists of the period of the later councils and papal restoration – was designed to bring about this reversal. James’s explanations are, in any case, centred on the Church universal as a self-sufficient construction; in addition, the infallibility which he attributes to the Church, as well as the readiness to defend the Church usque ad sanguinem, demonstrate that here the Church is imagined mystically as the bride of Christ. The direction of thought here appears to have conciliarist leanings, yet immediately turns toward a position friendly to the pope – and furthermore it does so without mention of the council. The spectre of headlessness, against which the conciliarists also had to defend themselves, gives occasion for James to take a position which finally leads to an affirmation of the traditional papal monarchy. The passage from Deuteronomy (Deut. 17:8–13), used frequently in conciliarist and papalist discourse, was understood as a prefiguration of the papacy (not, however, grammatically expressed in the plural, as a prefiguration of the council).33 Thus, both the faithful and the priests are to be subordinate to the Church universal and to the pope (universali ecclesie et summo pontifici vero super Petri cathedram presidenti). This is especially the case in view of contemporary developments: here, James has the Basel schism right before his eyes. But James treats the fact that there are two heads, each claiming a legitimate position of pope, merely with

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the diplomatically-phrased advice that one must make a choice by oneself, especially a choice of the rightful shepherd. Here the discussion breaks away from subordination to the Church and to the pope, and turns to a new subject. This is the problem of submission to worldly power. This could mean that the author was aware of the fact that the legitimacy of the papacy in the period of the Basel schism could not be resolved either theologically or by means of political theory, but that a political tug-of-war would in the end produce a knock-out. In any case, the discussion begins with a reference to Titus (3:1), where Paul prescribes subjection to the princes and the powerful of the world; and then it continues – beginning with Hugh of St.-Victor, Ambrose and Augustine – into well-known waters, which have as their source oportet Deo magis obedire quam hominibus (Acts 5:29). In an unexpected closing phrase, James begins to speak again about the current exigency posed by the double papal election, and, finally, does commit himself – but neither to the one, nor to the other. Equally, two times, he goes back to the source, which addresses not only the present question of obedience, but above all the problem of submission in its entirety; that is to say, at one time, he invokes the text plus debemus scripturis sacris obsequi quam cuicumque potestati, and then, shortly thereafter: ‘To obey worldly powers is in every case a danger. It is better to believe the Sacred Scriptures in that which is necessary for the salvation of the soul.’ (Obsequi igitur potestati mundane in huiuscemodi re periculum est. Pocius equidem credendum est scripturis sacris in quibus, quodquod ad salutem necessarium est.) One could, at this point, scold James of Paradyż for being a fundamentalist, or so it appears from his dealing with the situation. Still, this affords him the opportunity to go back to the initial concern of the sermon. James obviously does not move toward taking a stand in the conflict between the council (that is to say, the council’s pope) and the pope in Rome. On this issue he is not willing to commit himself. But he does give two general senses of direction, which may prepare the way for an overall solution, and which may also, as a consequence, encompass the political sphere. With a few strokes, he sketches out the composition of the Church universal – a construct which is not identical with the pope. But it is also not to be identified with the ecumenical council, as the conciliarists had done with the help of the theory of representation. Secondly, James confirms the old view that salvation is not related to the worldly instruments of power. Thus, what is at the centre of attention is not the current, correct (political) decision, but eternal salvation. But this is to be attained only when – as the final sentence puts it – submission is undertaken secundum veritatem, and not on some other basis. Thus, this sermon of April 1442 could certainly be considered an affront to other positions, such as those clearly taken by James’s colleagues of the

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Between conciliar thought and mystical theology 173 time – for example, by John Elgot, who, in January of the same year, assured Pope Felix V in a private audience of the allegiance of the Kraków diocese.34 Also, at least as viewed from the outside, the intellectual milieu of Kraków University could be considered to have conciliarist sympathies, as shown by the eloquent praise for the university’s clear stand on the issue of obedience from Stephen de Catis of Navarre (‘so great was the power of the word in your speech that many in the audience broke out into tears’, he communicated in a letter to Nicholas Lasocki on 26 January 1442).35 Just how necessary was factional participation, and agitation on behalf of one’s own viewpoint, can be observed by the single-minded insistence on neutrality maintained by the German princes (after the Acceptation of Mainz, 1439) and by the Polish kings. The end of this situation, in both polities, ensued simultaneously. With respect to the Empire, a declaration of obedience could come about following an adroit piece of curial politicking after 1447, shortly before the death of Eugene IV (the conclusion of the Concordat of Vienna, 1448). In the case of Poland, Casimir the Jagiellon’s succession to the throne in 1447 brought about a change from the neutrality of his predecessor to a position of strict obedience to Rome; and the preference for Basel during the interregnum reached its end under the de facto reign of Oleśnicki. In 1442, the die had not yet been cast; but at least the competing council, held (under obedience to Rome) in Florence, could chalk up a very considerable success, when, on 4 February 1442, the union of the monophysite-oriented Jacobites (the Copts) was proclaimed in the bull Cantate Domino.36 Apparently, James was at this time less interested in the political, constitutional and legal side of the problematic related to obedience; this was a matter of conciliarism. Also, while a good portion of the ideas and metaphors appearing in this synodal sermon undeniably share, in general terms, a point of departure with conciliarism, the aim and the conclusion of the argumentation are entirely different. Situated at the centre of his consideration are not institutions but the conduct of the faithful (also considered as individuals) in the current conflict. It is therefore also not surprising that attention to the reform of institutions shifts towards attention to the reform of individuals. * * * These considerations may be summarised as follows. At first glance, the periods of James of Paradyż’s creative activity appear to be quite separate. His Kraków period was nominalistic, directed predominantly toward reform of the Church in its entirety, and conciliarist. His Erfurt period was mystical, directed toward a monastic – that is to say, a clerical – reform, and moralistic. What is of interest here is that, in this, James does not stand alone. Both Henry of Langenstein (ca. 1340–97) and Jean Gerson

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(1363–1429) underwent a comparable, though somewhat earlier, change of direction. Although, next to Conrad of Gelnhausen, the theologian Henry of Langenstein was the most important conciliar theorist in the initial phase of the Great Schism of 1378,37 he later moved into mystical theology, in which phase his Speculum animae, and other works, were translated into German, undoubtedly by some Carthusian.38 Jean Gerson, the great ecclesiological authority before and during the Council of Constance,39 left behind a multitude of mystical writings, some of which also found their way into the Carthusian conceptual milieu.40 The writings of both theologians were disseminated in Poland. Reference to these analogies does not, as such, explain anything; it merely shows that, in his development, James had predecessors. The key to the understanding of James of Paradyż’s intellectual biography should rest in a moralistic concept of reform – or, more precisely, in a shift of the meaning of reform away from the institutional and toward the personal sphere. It is not necessary here to assess the degree to which conciliarism as a whole can be understood as reform, but merely to remind ourselves that at the time of the Council of Basel, reform of the Church in capite et in membris was absolutely equivalent to the construction of a Church constitution in the conciliarist sense. The implementation of reform lay solely in the hands of the Council, which could at the same rest upon superiority over the pope. In that respect, Andrew of Escobar, Nicholas of Tudeschi and James of Paradyż (and, in a somewhat restricted manner, Nicholas of Cusa) were of one mind.41 From this kind of faith in an institution (that is to say, in a council), James removed himself – without, of course, giving up the concept of reform as such, or of its innovative aspect. The writings of the Erfurt period show him to be a mystic and moralist, who cared passionately for reform (in the sense of a renewal) of individual believers and of the clergy as a group. At this point, it would be appropriate to analyse James’s entire spiritual oeuvre of his Erfurt years – something that cannot be undertaken here. I shall limit myself to a few suggestive remarks.42 In the treatise De triplici genere hominum (1453),43 the author’s emphasis constantly revolves, openly or covertly, around the moral basis of the Church; the concern for an emendatio morum, for the vita virtuosa, and for a correctio vitiorum, stands in the service of a ‘healthy’ Church.44 In addition, a preoccupation with the deeds and emotions of individual persons is situated right at the centre of James’s programmatic work De theologia mystica (ca. 1450),45 which sets forth his anthropological idea that man’s union with God follows, above all, from the foundation of a moral purification. The liberation of the ratio from the passiones – an idea for which James puts forward a case in his treatise De malis huius saeculi (1447),46 in order thereby to achieve a rightful iudicium and sententia – emphasises the intellectual aspect of his ethical thought.47

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Between conciliar thought and mystical theology 175 Just how far James’s moral theology extends can be seen in works such as De bona voluntate (1444–7),48 or De cogitationibus et earum qualitate (ca. 1442–50).49 These writings demonstrate how much the will and the thought of man are interlocked with the moral. It is hardly coincidental that consulted in these Erfurt writings are, again and again, the same authorities which were important in the three sermons we have considered: Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux and, in addition, Thomas Aquinas. Therefore, conciliarism and the mystical (that is to say, moral) theology appear merely as different variants of a single idea of ecclesiastical renewal. The rhetorical evidence presented above, from the period around 1441–2, shows us a transitional phase. On the one hand, that evidence reflects a closeness to the problematic of ecclesiastical reform in capite et in membris; and (side by side with references currently topical in the period of the Council of Basel and of the schism) echoes, in its language, the basic elements of the conciliarist discussion. But, on the other hand, the constitutional and political level of discourse is abandoned, and the discourse turns to ethical thought. The problem of reception of the Basel texts – which was decisive for Nicholas of Cusa and others, and which could have led to a ‘change of front’ – apparently played no role for James of Paradyż. The Polish conciliarism in the Kraków University milieu stood under the dominant umbrella of Kraków’s bishop, Oleśnicki,50 and so a confrontation with this question seems to have been avoided. Quite possibly, the location of the Kraków conciliarists in a peripheral region of Poland proved to be an advantage, with real pressure being applied only in the interior of the country, that is to say, on the part of the Polish king. A conciliarist such as James of Paradyż, who had distanced himself from conciliarism, presented an argument that was, in any case, not grounded in a theory of that reception of Basel texts, but in ethics. The three sermons presented above are situated precisely in that period of transition which propelled James from a Cistercian and professor to a Carthusian and mystic. We have here records of a spiritual development, which, while they allow us to recognise the earlier conciliarist commitment of the author, at the same time give an indication of his change into a mystical theologian. From a reformer of institutions, James had become a reformer of the individual person.

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14 ‘Good king Polish Ladislas . . .’ History and memory of the short reign of Władysław Warneńczyk in Hungary János M. Bak Among the Jagiellons on the throne of Hungary, the four-year reign of Władysław Warneńczyk was the shortest. Nevertheless, it contained a few moments of historical significance in terms of political ideas, and left a little piece of unique memory for centuries thereafter. Let me briefly rehearse the story. After the early death of King Albert of Habsburg (1437–9) in camp, on his way back from an Ottoman campaign, a significant faction of the Hungarian magnates and nobles decided to invite the young Władysław to take the throne. Even though the widowed Queen Elizabeth of Luxemburg managed to have the Holy Crown stolen and her baby child, Ladislas, crowned king (15 May 1440),1 the pro-Władysław faction that had brought the young Pole to Hungary decided to disregard the Habsburg claim. Władysław’s coronation on 17 July 1440 was the first memorable event in the episode; lacking the traditional regalia, special arrangements had to be made for the inauguration. Meanwhile open civil war was waged between the two factions, which ended with the victory of Władysław’s supporters under the leadership of János Hunyadi and Nicholas of Újlak/Ilok. The subsequent years were marked by attempts at pacifying the country and haggling over the policy vis-à-vis the Ottomans, ending finally in the decision to mount a crusade. That led to the battle at Varna and the death of the king and his companions.2 I do not intend to discuss the only major, albeit tragic, event of this short reign, the crusade of Varna and its prehistory. The king’s death had, of course, significant consequences: Ladislas of Habsburg (called Posthumus) was finally accepted as king, Hunyadi was made governor in his name, and the reigns of both Władysław I and Elizabeth became a subject of a legal damnatio memoriae.3 Even if the later Habsburg rule of Hungary was not a consequence of this episode,4 it still marked the dynasty’s increased interest in Hungary and Bohemia. What I should like here to call to attention are two documents from the inauguration of Władysław Warneńczyk: the charter of the estates concerning

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‘Good king Polish Ladislas . . .’ 177 their right to crown the king of Hungary, and the text of old decrees, contained in a booklet (libellus) that was presented to and approved by the newly crowned king. To these, I shall add an epilogue about the figure of Władysław in folklore, a rather rare case of ‘popular memory’ from the Middle Ages.

Semper regum coronatio a regnicolarum voluntate dependet When the nobility, assembled at the coronation diet, had to face the fact that the highly venerated crown of the kingdom – ever since the late thirteenth century referred to as the Holy Crown, and connected to the founder of the kingdom, Saint Stephen – was missing, they had to make a decision about the coronation of their elected king. The charter issued on this occasion5 contains a number of significant passages on ‘political theory’ (if this is not too fancy a name for the rudimentary ideas expressed in it). After summarising the events that led to the interregnum, the need is emphasised for a suitable and able ruler (ydoneus et habilis rector), one who could defend a realm surrounded by enemies, especially infidels. This is followed by the report on the invitation of Władysław (originally supported by the dowager queen, who was even induced to promise to marry him), the theft of the crown, and the coronation of the child. The charter emphasises that that coronation lacked the traditional insignia (paramenta sacra, as well as the sword, sceptre, orb and legatine cross of Saint Stephen)6 and that it was done ‘more to the harm than to the advantage of the kingdom’. Therefore, the nobility of the realm, assembled in numbers not seen before, considered (and they now repeat) that the country cannot remain bereft of a defender of its borders – which are under continuous attack – and that ‘the crowning of a king always depends on the will of the people of the realm, and its efficacy and force [virtus] lies in the approval of the same’. There are at least two significant statements in these passages: the argument about the necessity of a new ruler; and, even more important, the claim of the regnicolae to decide about the coronation. Władysław was the first ruler of the country to have no relationship whatsoever with the previous dynasty. That his father’s first wife had been Hedwig/Jadwiga of Anjou is not mentioned anywhere, as it would not have been of relevance to blood relationships in any event. Both the Anjou and the Luxemburg kings and queens were related more or less closely (albeit in the female line or through their spouses) to the founding Árpádian royal house. True, the estates claimed their right to elect the ruler already in the early fourteenth century, but the element of heredity was never absent. This time the basic claim of the new ruler to the throne was his suitability, the secular version of the ecclesiastical criterion of idoneitas. The external danger, that of Ottoman advance, was more emphasised than ever before. This was the

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age when the notion of Hungary as the antemurale Christianitatis was coming ever more to the fore, and when the southern border had acquired a central significance in all matters of the kingdom. It was logical that the argument against a child-king hinged on the military, or (as I have ventured to call it elsewhere) the ‘passive-crusading’, aspect.7 Of course, the ‘suitability’ of a ruler strongly underlined the idea of elective monarchy. More significant is the sentence about the right of the regnicolae8 to legitimise the coronation, that is to say, the rule of the king. The idea was not new, of course, but it had not been spelled out in so many words before. The claim to the right ‘to crown’ the king was formulated with respect to the constitutive ritual, but in essence it meant the right to select the person of the ruler. The nobility had already insisted on this electoral right in 1308, when the assembly accepted the Angevin pretender, Charles; Sigismund of Luxemburg was formally elected by a faction of magnates; and Albert of Habsburg (and his wife Elizabeth of Luxemburg) were also ‘elected’ at the 1437 diet. In essence, this principle remained valid until the sixteenth century; both Matthias Corvinus (1458–90) and Władysław II (1490–1516) were ‘elected’ by the diet, as were the two kings who came to the throne after the Battle of Mohács, Ferdinand of Habsburg (who, on his part, claimed the throne by inheritance treaty, but both the Hungarian and the Croatian estates insisted on their right to elect him) and John Szapolyai. In fact, the estates formally resigned their right of election only after the liberation of the country from Ottoman occupation in the seventeenth century. Hungary might have become a truly elective monarchy, just as Poland did, had the Ottoman conquest and the country’s division not stopped the development of an independent kingdom. Did this claim include the right of the diet (that is, the nobility, for the towns and the clergy other than the prelates were rarely included) to decide about the affairs of the realm? In other words, was the ‘bipolarity’ of the classical Ständestaat postulated in 1440? Not unequivocally so. True, the diet had already claimed rights to decide about a number of issues in 1437 and 1439, but the fragmentary decrees that have survived from Władysław’s time do not contain anything about the most important aspect of corporate political claim – to approve taxation; that was to come up later. Still, the claim of the estates to be the only legitimate source of royal power was a significant statement. But, as a bottom line: what was the actual significance of this document and the ideas contained in it for the actual political development of the country? We, the so-called historians of political thought, are all too happy to read an interesting, sophisticated or otherwise significant statement in a text. But whose words are we reading? Surely, those of one of the learned (maybe even truly erudite) lawyers at the court, or in the entourage of one of the great men. How much of that was ‘received’ by the politically active groups of society

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‘Good king Polish Ladislas . . .’ 179 (that is to say, the prelates, barons and well-to-do nobles)? To be sure, there is no evidence that after 1400 a noble diet would ever have referred to the crucial passages of this decision by their forebears. That the charter itself has survived in only one copy in Poland makes its ‘practical’ political use in Hungary rather problematic. This question is, however, too general even to attempt its discussion here.

. . . alia Corona Aurea After the statement about the right of the regnicolae, the aforementioned charter continues: [T]herefore it was decided unanimously . . . that King Władysław should be crowned with another golden crown of ancient craftsmanship, to be taken from the head reliquary of the most blessed Stephen, apostolic king and patron of the realm. Then there follow long clauses mandating that henceforth the previous crown (the Holy Crown) be invalid, and that – unless it were possible to regain it – all force and veneration of the crown be transferred to the present diadem, coronation with which shall give the new king full royal power and authority, and so on and so forth. The lack of the hallowed crown is thus being solved by proclaiming another diadem, legitimised by the ‘will of the gentlemen of the realm’, in contrast to the historical and saintly tradition of its stolen counterpart. But only half-heartedly so: the ‘new’ crown is the one that had adorned the head reliquary of that holy founder, ‘whose’ crown the queen took with her to Austria. In a way, the crown chosen by the nobles was also ‘a crown of Saint Stephen’, albeit not the traditional one. Such an emergency solution was not the first such event in the history of Hungarian coronations. Already in 1308, when the (by then already privileged) Holy Crown was in the hands of the voivode of Transylvania, the papal legate, Cardinal Gentile, had a new crown made for Charles of Anjou, blessed and legitimised it by the authority of the supreme pontiff, and had the Angevin crowned with it. He did not resort to the semi-magical solution of taking a crown of ancient artisanship from a head reliquary (which, incidentally, may have already existed at that time!),9 but based the efficacy of the replacement on canon-law justification.10 In 1440, the estates legitimised the new crown by their own decision – but (as it were, to be on the safe side) took one that had a kind of sanctity, and which was received from its previous location on the skull of the saint. (The closest parallel to this would be the Crown of Saint Wenceslas, sponsored by Emperor Charles IV and placed on the reliquary of the founding saint of the Czech

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monarchy, and designed to be used by all his successors.)11 That a new ‘tradition’ originated from an emergency situation would not have been unique in the history of medieval rituals. To name only one example, the effigy of the English, and later the French, kings after their deaths was first introduced in the fourteenth century – probably because the funeral of Edward III was delayed for months – but became an integral and elaborate part of the French ceremonies for centuries.12 However, just as the Gentile crown was not accepted in Hungary as valid (a fact that the learned cardinal found rather odd and implicitly inappropriate),13 Władysław’s coronation proved to be a ‘failure’ as well. Little did it help that his crown was also sanctified by association with Saint Stephen – the Holy Crown ‘won out’, in the short and the long run alike. Ladislas Posthumus’s crowning was soon tacitly accepted as legitimate – in spite of the elaborate anathema pronounced against it by the 1440 diet – and the ‘Crown of Saint Stephen’ made it all the way to the coat of arms of the Hungarian Republic, and to its millennial transfer to the Parliament building in AD 2000.14

exhibuerunt . . . quendam libellum The other ‘historical’ (or ‘constitutional’, if you will) contribution of the accession of Władysław Warneńczyk was the coronation decree, issued by him on 20 July 1440.15 Such decreta had become traditional at least since the inauguration of Sigismund, and were to become a fixture for centuries. They usually contained a confirmation of the nobility’s basic right (more or less based on Andrew II’s Golden Bull of 1222, and its confirmation and expansion by Louis of Anjou), augmented by points based on the actual political and military constellation.16 The decree of 1440 contained, however, a special feature. The king’s charter records that after his coronation, he was presented with a libellus seu registrum containing the Golden Bull, constitutiones per prelatos et barones ac nobiles regni Hungarie tempore coronationis Andree regis dicti de Venetiis facte, and Louis’s 1351 decree, which he accepted, approved and caused to be inserted into the coronation promises and actual measures. The innovation was, thus, the fact that, in contrast to his predecessors and successors, Władysław confirmed not only the traditional liberties, but also a document styled the ‘constitutions’ (statutes) of the last Árpádian king, Andrew III (‘the Venetian’, 1290–1301), which, in fact, was not issued at Andrew’s coronation,17 but eight years later.18 However, as adumbrated already in the early nineteenth century,19 this decree was tacitly augmented by three sections of a clearly different style and format, containing measures about the administration of justice and the status of peasants.20 For the historian, the first bonus is that through this transcription, Andrew’s decree of 1298, and the text added to it, survived and finally landed in the National

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‘Good king Polish Ladislas . . .’ 181 Archives. But at the same time, the additions to the 1298 decree have posed a puzzle for scholars, as they needed to be properly dated and their (actually, the whole booklet’s) function and purpose established. These questions have exercised the minds of historians for at least a hundred years. To make a long story short, Pál Engel, having surveyed the relevant literature and adding his well-known scepticism and down-to-earth attitude to ‘historical facts’, compared the references to judges of the royal courts, to the development of the county administration and to the technical details of ‘common inquest’ with the practices known from the Angevin and Luxemburg era. As a result, he established that the additional sections (the so-called Compilatio) could not have been composed earlier than the late fourteenth century. He proposed to regard it a decision of the royal council, dated it to ‘ca. 1400’, and suggested that the additional sections were added to the late Árpádian decretum precisely for Władysław’s coronation.21 His doubts and arguments are convincing.22 A few more doubts remain, however. The inclusion of the 1298 decree may be explained by referring to its passages strengthening the role of lesser nobility, very much on the agenda of the mid-fifteenth century.23 However, the Compilatio does not add anything to this political purpose, and in many respects contains less about judicial procedures (or the freedom of tenant peasants to change their lords) than what had been codified during the century preceding the 1440 coronation.24 Engel’s idea about the purpose – namely, that the author of the booklet ‘wished to present a decision of the royal council as old law’ – is not so convincing either; in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Hungary decisions of the prelati et barones were not (yet) clearly distinguished from statutes passed in formal diets. But, perhaps, making a relatively late decision appear as ‘old law’ made some sense . . . Still, what is remarkable about the libellus – which, alas, has not come down to us in the original, but only in its quite faulty and damaged transcription within the royal charter – is its existence. Where and how would precisely these texts, the earliest of which was over 140 years old by 1440, have survived? Who wrote up the libellus for this very occasion? Engel risked saying (parenthetically) that it may have been John Vitéz of Zredna, the learned cleric and great supporter of the Hunyadi family.25 But cui prodest? There is, for example, no evidence that the estates, when demanding that the king always be accompanied by a set number of councillors (a demand which achieved some success in the early sixteenth century), would have referred to 1298; even though copies of Władysław’s charter may have been around (as the surviving copy suggests), I know of no reference to it in regard to the issues contained in it or in the ‘Compilation’. True, the young Pole’s early death, and the subsequent annulment of his charters, could not have been foreseen in 1440.

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Be that as it may, the former existence of this booklet points to some additional aspects. The booklet may have been entirely a formulary (or a part of one) – the style of which is rather conspicuous in the Compilatio, beginning with Notandum est – that could have contained selected old laws.26 Thus the libellus might have been a rare example of ‘pragmatic literacy’, with roots in the fourteenth century. Formularies were, as György Bónis has demonstrated, very important books in medieval Hungary. Those ‘practical lawyers’ who acquired their skills in the lower and higher courts, and began to play a significant role in the administration of justice just about the time of Władysław’s reign, relied mostly on formularies for their legal knowledge. There are a few older than the libellus,27 but none of them contains laws and – unfortunately – none contains the text of the Compilatio. Thus the episodic rule of the hapless Warneńczyk bequeathed to posterity a window, albeit a problematic one, on fourteenth-century Hungarian law and legal practice.

Epilogue: Lengyel László jó királyunk The great corpus of Hungarian folk music, edited by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, contains a song collected in southern Hungary, sung by children playing a teasing game, well known as ‘bridge play’ in many variants all around Central Europe. Two groups oppose each other, they exchange challenging words and then one has to run through a ‘bridge’ (two children holding their hands above the head of the runners) of the opposing side. The ‘pillars of the bridge’ try to catch them and cut their line. The song goes like this: Ki népei vagytok Legyel László jó királyunk Az is ellenségünk! Micsoda ellenség? Hidam lábát eltöretted, meg se csináltattad Fenyőfábú migcsinálom, mig is aranyozom.

Whose people are you? Our good king is Polish Ladislas! He, too, is our enemy! What kind of enemy? You broke the feet of my bridge and never repaired it I repair it with pine lumber, and will also gild it.28

Kodály took this fragment and elaborated it into a famous choral work,29 in which he added an identification of the opposing sides – not unwarranted, in view of the history of the Habsburg-dominated centuries – calling the one ‘Magyar people’ and the other ‘German people’. He closed it with an elegiac last line by ‘the Germans’: Hol vennétek sáraranyat, koldus magyar népe? (‘Where would you get yellow gold, you beggar Magyar people?’) A question quite appropriate in the light of Hungary’s balance of trade and of payments over the preceding few centuries.

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‘Good king Polish Ladislas . . .’ 183 The ‘bridge-play’ itself, and the typical exchanges between the two sides, may very well go back to medieval times, when bridge-tolls were demanded by those passing. Or even further, as some suggest, to the mythical memory of (human) sacrifice at the building of bridges (comparable to the stories about the walled-in woman at the building of a castle).30 However, as far as I have been able to establish (without being familiar with the ethnographic material),31 this is the only known folksong with such an unequivocal reference to a medieval king.32 How and when Władysław Warneńczyk became associated with this kind of ritual confrontation, cannot, of course, be established.33 But, at least among the children of Mohács, he has not been forgotten.

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15 University studies and trivialised pursuits The place of music in medieval university education Nancy van Deusen Education, in many respects, constitutes cultural determination, so basic are its underlying assumptions, leading as they do to priorities learned, in most cases, at such a very early age. For this reason, these educational agendas are most difficult to examine, especially in an educational culture that is remote, by virtue of either place or time: what was assumed, what stated, what learned, for what reason and in what order?1 One is dealing most often with a silent consensus, based on perhaps centuries of acceptance concerning skills that were largely intuitively considered to be useful for a given society in a certain time and place. It is interesting, therefore, to note what histories of medieval universities record in place of assumed emphases for which little or no ‘evidence’ in terms of documentation may exist. Statutes, prohibitions, curricula, or descriptions of events such as crises or conflicts often constitute pivotal issues within the history of a given university, providing structure for narrative.2 William Courtenay in a recent study on the fourteenth-century university in Paris has observed that: For more than a century, the history of the university of Paris and of medieval universities in general has been reconstructed largely from statutory evidence and from the written products of their schools and convents. This type of documentation initially led historians to focus their attention on questions of origin, constitutional structure, curriculum, and secondarily on intellectual activities and the conjectured daily life of students.3 Music as a discipline is an outstanding example of priorities which elude curricular accounts which in turn correspond to modern expectations. This has resulted in a situation where, consistently in lists of curricular studies and descriptions of the disciplines within histories of music, music is nowhere to be found, and when mentioned at all, the discipline occurs in a context of performance, reflecting contemporary priorities that have made

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University studies and trivialised pursuits 185 the marching band the most salient musical presence on North American university campuses.4 Augustine, in De Ordine (‘the order that exists among disciplines’), however, stated that nothing could be understood except through the analogical, exemplary capacity of music. Roger Bacon, writing in the late thirteenth century within the University of Paris milieu, agreed, summarising a millennium of regard for music as a bridge, or, following Robert Grosseteste, a ‘ministry’ discipline, which, by employing the unseen substances of sound, time and motion, could exemplify unseen, hence abstract, realities, leading then to an understanding of such invisible realities as the nature of thought, cognition, memories and, finally, the nature of God. This point of view remained in place for many centuries thereafter. Where then can music be found, and under what conditions? Further, does music’s place within the system of medieval disciplines also provide a test situation with which to investigate otherwise perhaps invisible but actual priorities constituting unseen motivating forces more generally within a system of studies followed at medieval universities? Priorities that seem most evident tend to be our own, rather those of the medieval world. This study will attempt to locate both the discipline of music within the educational context of medieval intellectual life, and its importance as the discipline of exemplification – an importance that continued and was assumed for many centuries. A case could in fact be made that the dismantling of music as a university discipline has occurred only in the last, twentieth, century. If music was seen as a ‘ministry’ discipline, with the ability to make abstractions plain, what abstractions must one have in mind? It would seem that one of the first issues must be that of material substance, which could be visible as well as invisible.5 Both the forest that was patently visible, and full of potential and possibilities for development, and, for example, the Book of Psalms could be viewed as visible-invisible repositories, replete with substance for appropriation. In the Middle Ages, the Book of Psalms served as a great repository, a vast and mighty source of possibilities, movements, figures, both of sign and of thought, contrary positions and reactions resolved into concord, and also of emotional substance. One began, in terms of disciplinary systematisation, with material itself, the material of the Psalms, that was available to all. In a sense this material, as well as that of all the biblical scriptures, together constituted – like a forest – a dense, even opaque thicket that had to be organised, described and differentiated.6 One needed tools actually to work with this material substance, as well as to communicate what one had done; in other words, to bring together relevant materia-substancia, most often conceptual, hence invisible (res), with adequate means of communication (vox). One needed to find tools to work with conceptual material, for thinking, for analysing; and tools, as well, for expressing oneself, for describing what one had found.

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This then is the great medieval educational project: to identify and cultivate the use of these tools, for describing material and its nature, for the differentiation of material into particular, characteristic, formats (figurae), that is, individuation, for the process of providing relationship or connection, and finally for the description of motion and the nature of motion as a component of nature – an educational project that unites intellectual culture as a structural unity from Augustine to Cassiodorus through Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon and Aquinas, as well as Marsilio Ficino. What tools do we have in mind, and how can these tools be applied? We find, first of all, the notion of particular things, particular figures with particular qualities, exhibiting particular gestures. For all of the writers mentioned here, figura as the translation of the Greek schema, denoting a constructed characteristic shape, is essential as a tool for describing individuality. For Augustine, a figura is separate and distinct from the material, such as sound, for which it stands. Further, by the figura of number, movement could be understood. Augustine relates this concept of figura to the material and movement of time, with the obvious, but nevertheless stated, implication that figurae are significant and significatory. Augustine’s comprehensive views on this subject, given particularly in De musica, and reinforced in De ordine – leading then to his treatises on the material qualities and propensities of the soul – had a great deal of influence, especially on Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon, as we will see. Augustine’s primary thesis is that music is a discipline that possesses both force and reason – actually contradictory qualities that must be made consonant. Music also combines principle and experience, discipline and attraction; in short, music teaches by the fact that we are attracted to it, perceiving it as delicious.7 Music can be seen to be a science (scientia) because it exemplifies – in its many and diverse tones occurring within time-lapses, made to come together in a manner of utmost suaveness – principles of particular, separate but interrelated numbers, within the movement of time. These are principles, as Augustine states, these are inner laws, so basic that they can then be applied to the unseen, unheard nature of the soul and of God (treated in Book 4).8 Chalcidius, in his Latin translation of Plato’s Timaeus, has an extensive commentary that by its very nature tends toward an additive rather than a dialectical process of building up modular self-contained insights, emphasises individuation and differentiation within the generality of all materia, both unseen and seen, addressed by his translation of the Greek hyle as silva.9 From a Greek term meaning ‘everything’, and at the same time nothing that one could really put one’s finger on namely, hyle, the Latin translation brings us into the ‘forest’, which could very well be imagined, both for its actual, concrete, material substance, and for its potential for differentiation in terms of branches and twigs.10 That twig, stem or branch, virga, stirps or figura, as

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University studies and trivialised pursuits 187 a translation of the Greek schema, is indicative of various and diverse differences (differentiae), figurae together as expressive of motions (modi) as well as intervals, for example of time. Figurae are also specific to, and indicative of, disciplines such as arithmetic and geometry, being employed to indicate single, discrete numbers, numeri, or geometrical diagrams. Numerus, as well as characterismos and diagramma, are also schemata, and hence figurae. In short, according to Chalcidius, figurae are constructed for specific purposes, are fabricated; they are characteristic, hence remain in the memory. Figurae are indicative, distinctive, and they one by one access and stand for – which is more than representation – substance. One figura accomplishes all of this, but many varied and diverse figurae, such as all of the letters of the alphabet, not only individuate, but show relationships, such as syntax. Figurae, expressing scores of individual examples, are indispensable for Cassiodorus within the context of his Psalm Commentaries. Further, importantly for our discussion, Cassiodorus brings into an equivalent relationship schema, figura, littera and instrumentum as translations of the same Greek concept/term, using them interchangeably.11 We read again of the characterismos (indicated by SCH in the recent Corpus Christianorum edition), of the parabola, of paradigma, of figurae dictionis, of erotema, and many others. For thirteenth-century Robert Grosseteste, figurae indicate by their shape and recognisable structure, mental, spiritual and physical substance; and the equivalence he makes among all three is both striking and important.12 Roger Bacon emphasises figurae such as punctum and linea as indicating an instant of time, therefore accessing time’s substance within his discussion of the materiality of time.13 To summarise a primary consideration of these writers: the concept of figura unites and systematises medieval disciplines, either as the single figura, or as varied and diverse figurae, all by their diversity illustrating what figurae were and what they could accomplish. Progressing, then, within this discussion of figura, one moved on from particular figurae to figurae in modis, that is, figurae given continuity, relationship and motion. From the study of particular litterae or numeri to connected figurae, the study of logic gave one tools to describe relationships between lines of reasoning, and focused upon connection within written and spoken communication. One again used figurae14 to explain and delineate what it was that one had in mind, both as figures of speech and as figures of thought, such as comparisons, analogies and above all metaphors. Logic’s parallel study dealt with connection as it occurs in, and can be exemplified by, geometry, a study that also dealt with very practical matters such as the measuring and surveying of plots of land, and whether one’s neighbour had built a fence on his own property or not. Connection, both as abstraction and as a practical reality, was plain to see in terms of connected lines within geometric figurae, and the practical reality of pieces of land, in which a

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miscalculation or the absence of correct connections could end up in a court of law. So communication was united with material and measurement in dealing with a project in common, namely relationship; on the one hand, the communicational discipline of logic, and on the other, as material and measurement within geometry. One learned both logic and geometry, by means of figures, both singly and in terms of varied and diverse figures. Finally, the understanding of motion depended upon figurae in describing and teaching the motion of thought and word within the discipline of rhetoric, and the physical movement of heavenly bodies delineated by the figurae used in astronomy and physics. Rhetoric, as Quintilian in his 12 books of rhetoric pointed out, depended upon the use of figurae to make points – figurae such as metaphor and analogy, but also example, ridicule and irony. Rhetoric’s parallel discipline also dealt with movement, but in terms of material and measurement within the science of moving physical bodies, employing the constructed, characteristic figurae of Orion, Cassiopeia and the Plough. This is a system of studying basic principles of reality, such as particulars, connections and movement, in pairs, thus bringing the communication necessary for teaching and learning together with the physical realities and certainties of number, connected lines and physical motion. What we have described was current as a system of education that combined mental tools – dealing with written letters, numbers, diagrams and drawings, all of which could be united within the Latin word, figura – and life itself, as it could be observed. Augustine describes this system in De ordine, as also did Chalcidius in his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, and this system of parallel disciplines was, in turn, a foundation and background for thinking, teaching and learning during the Middle Ages. In fact, what we have described would, I believe, have been completely recognisable well into the twentieth century. In other words, if the system seems unrecognisable, the lack of familiarity is recent, gradually taking place within the last 60 or so years. Those who discuss these connections read like a Who’s Who of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. A short list would include Quintilian, Augustine, Chalcidius, Cassiodorus, Remigius of Auxerre, Alain de Lille, Philip the Chancellor, Robert Grosseteste, Robert Kilwardby and Roger Bacon. These writers had a common persuasion, namely, that music formed a bridge between communication, on the one hand, and material and measurement on the other; between communicational disciplines and those that dealt with the real ‘stuff’, substancia. But life itself, and ‘soulish substance’ was a very real ‘stuff’.15 There is more to be said. Music, by using the unseen substances of time, sound and motion, exemplified life – a vital, vivifying potency – as an unseen yet motivational force. For this reason music was studied in medieval education, and continued to be regarded as the ‘analogy discipline’ throughout

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University studies and trivialised pursuits 189 the educational system, from childhood primary school to eventual university training as the latter emerged during the early years of the thirteenth century. Music made comprehensible, according to Augustine, realities that otherwise could be understood only with great difficulty, if at all. ‘Nothing can be understood, except through music’, wrote Augustine, and it seemed that throughout the Middle Ages many devoted themselves at least in part to coming to terms with, and implementing, what Augustine had meant by this statement. During the middle years of the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon certainly quoted Augustine on the importance and function of music in making abstractions plain.16 Music itself, by its very substance – unseen, yet perceptible – made difficult things plain. Using unseen but nevertheless real material, it demonstrated the abstraction of invisible reality. By its single or varied and diverse tones, music presented to the senses the abstraction of particularity. As each tone occurred in time, connected to the tone that followed, music presented the abstraction of connection, as well as of effective, reciprocal relationship. As one tone died away and another took its place, music made dynamism evident, as well as the intrinsic nature of material containing property, potential and movement as expression. Hence music was unassailable in its analogical potency throughout the Middle Ages. Today, however, there is an empty space where at that time music strongly resided. A shadow discipline, music is granted lip-service in twentiethcentury histories of the medieval university. If mentioned at all, music is either trivialised or rendered totally uninteresting to a contemporary reading audience. There is an impassable gulf between writers’ perception of what music might be useful for today – chiefly as performance, a medium of entertainment – and the apparent importance of music as a medieval discipline. Music, which is certainly not the priority of either the editors or authors in, for example, the large-scale, recently published, multi-volume History of the University, appears to be an embarrassment. This is a situation that not only silences music as an analogical component in a complete system – a genuine community of disciplines – but reveals, as well, an emptiness within the comprehension of what was studied, for what reasons, and how this took place. Music is most commonly listed amongst the ‘mathematical sciences’ of the quadrivium without further explanation. Further, when music is mentioned as a faculty in the early modern university, no mention is made as to what was actually studied. Music appears to be regarded today rather as a finishing-school subject, as in this example from K.A. Schmidt’s turn-of-the-twentieth-century history of education: From the seventeenth century onwards, the more fashionable universities which catered to the Grand Tour students employed language, dance,

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In the following passage, the author’s priorities are clear: There was recreation time from 10 o’clock until half-past, and from 11–12, in which there was private teaching in music, drawing or one of the modern languages. Lunch was at 12 o’clock. The food was good, excellent even, on some festive occasions. This passage occurs following a statement that a chair in music had recently been given by a donor to the university in question.17 It would seem that if a chair in music was important enough to gain a donor at this university, the material taught within this discipline would have merited more serious attention than recess before lunch. To continue with more explicit examples of the trivialisation of music as a discipline in twentieth-century histories of education: Just as students were subject to moral and ethical norms, so the statutes and disciplinary regulations within the universities governed the students’ free time. There were diatribes against brawls, nightly debauches, and gang behavior, excessive consumption of alcohol, games of hazard, dice, chance, cards, and billiards, etc. Masked processions with music [NB: obviously the reason for the inclusion of this passage under music in the index], torchlight processions, visits to indecent plays, and dances, all these and much more were strictly forbidden.18 A further example of how, in a twentieth-century perception of the medieval and early modern university, the place of music within university disciplines has been misunderstood, is a description of the endowment of the economist Sir Thomas Gresham, who established the Royal Exchange, in 1565, and endowed Gresham College, which opened in London in 1597. The chairs of the college, all donated by Gresham, included those in astronomy, geometry, medicine, law, theology, rhetoric and music, all of which, with the blatant exception of music, are described in detail by the writer of the article. Music, although one of the seven endowed chairs within this late sixteenth-century college, constitutes an ‘empty space’, a discipline too trivial to discuss.19 From these quotations, taken largely from the recently-appearing successive volumes of A History of the University in Europe, published by Cambridge University Press, one notices an amazing shift that has gradually and silently taken place. Rather than merely providing a pleasant diversion

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University studies and trivialised pursuits 191 after a hard day at work, reassurance for weary travellers in a huge and hectic airport, a soothing, relaxing ambience for eating and drinking with friends in a restaurant, or a presence in an empty house for those who live alone, music in the Middle Ages and well into what we know as the early modern period made difficult things plain, and opened people’s eyes to an understanding of the universe. Music pried open the hard shell – the integumentum – that concealed truth. No other field of learning shared this distinction, and no one challenged this capacity of music to make plain the principles of particularity, individuality, relationship and motivation. But day in and day out music was actually sung, and also played. Each time this happened, in churches, courts, schools, by the very nature of music and language as using sound substance, a coalition was set up between the figurae of letters in the texts that were at the same time sung, together with the figurae of music notation. This coalition was especially meaningful to those who sang, since one learned by experience. So, each day, every day, the principle of particularity in terms of tone, as well as the individual sound represented by, for example, the letter e, as well as the connection simultaneously, between the sounds that followed, together with tones, made both particularity and connection plain. Furthermore, as one moved from one sound and tone to the next, one experienced motion. These students sang particularity, relationship and motion, experiencing these basic principles even as children in medieval primary schools. This education combined knowledge with experience, showing how, ultimately, what one knew needed to be communicated and put into action. A system of learning could be fully understood because it was applied in conscious ways to life. Music, according to Augustine, made this possible, since it made comprehensible the relationship of principle to experience, abstraction to sense perception, intellection to life itself.

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16 Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? Piotr Górecki and Nancy van Deusen

Celebration redefined In the opening chapter, we observed that books of essays written to honour our colleagues do not, in their essence, celebrate. Or, to put this differently, such books do celebrate, but they do so by performing another, even more important function. They are really about historiography – the current state of a field. A single lifetime of distinguished work is in itself a historiographical event. Some of our colleagues have produced an oeuvre which reflects and reframes, and sometimes creates, one major subject area. Paul Knoll has played, and is today continuing to play, precisely that range of roles, with respect to one such subject area: the cultural history of East Central Europe. Assessing that range of roles could have been accomplished in several ways. We, the two editors, could have produced a single historiographical monograph, centred upon Paul Knoll and East Central Europe – an expanded variant of what is now the opening chapter written by one of us. Alternatively, we might have parcelled out the same task among all or some of our colleagues, and elicited articles whose principal, common subject is the significance of Paul Knoll’s contribution to everyone’s respective area of specialisation. Or we could have commissioned from our group of authors articles about some specified, predetermined sequence of subjects, in a scheme deliberately designed to reflect and highlight Paul Knoll’s contribution. We did something different. We asked some of our currently most distinguished colleagues, active in a range of academic institutions and cultures, to present us – and, through us, Paul – with articles on specific subjects of their own choice, but broadly framed by three large themes which, at least in our view, encapsulate the main strands of Paul Knoll’s oeuvre, while also relating to the specialisations of the colleagues solicited. Those themes are: court, city and culture.1 In our request, we explicitly did not treat these three themes as a kind of specific prescription, that is to say, as a list of subjects. Instead, we wished to create a kind of shared intellectual space, or – to mix

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 193 the metaphor in Richard Hoffmann’s direction, a common catchment-area – which, based on the work produced by all concerned, we know to exist between Paul and our authors. Then, with the articles in hand, we planned to identify, and reflect upon, the thematic affinities visible within that space, or area. The process here was akin to eliciting testimony – about a common range of themes, and about one scholar – from a group of colleagues who are actively engaged with those themes, and with him. In the resulting essays, the testimonial dimension is sometimes explicit. Jacek Banaszkiewicz, Grzegorz Myśliwski, Krzysztof Ożóg, Thomas Wünsch and Nancy van Deusen refer to Paul Knoll by name, by means of specific citations of his works, or by expressions of intellectual debt.2 Usually, however, the testimony is implicit, and takes the form of an elaboration of our core subject – the cultural history of East Central Europe – with special attention to court, city and culture. The result works as a collective, multilateral engagement: with Paul Knoll’s oeuvre on the one hand, and between our contributors on the other. To switch metaphors once again, the multilateral engagement occurs through resonance,3 that is, a recurrence of specific historical problems, subjects, methods, approaches and expository techniques – elicited by a shared focus upon one historiographical event, the body of work by a single colleague.

This book: chronology and themes The editors have placed the articles in sequence according to two criteria: chronology and subject matter. Generally speaking, contributions concerning the early historical period, or specific subjects that assume historical importance during that period, appear relatively early in the book, while articles focused on matters which are, in the same sense, ‘late’, follow later. Thus, Henryk Samsonowicz immediately follows Piotr Górecki’s introductory chapter – and in that sense opens the book – in part because he anchors his explanation of urbanisation, throughout East Central Europe, in the later western Roman Empire. Florin Curta reassesses the meaning and the reality of the ‘service settlements’ – the mode of organising human resources which (though it is historiographically contested) was distinctive of parts of East Central Europe between the mid-ninth (or the tenth) and the later twelfth century. Jacek Banaszkiewicz discusses an image of the good ruler recurrent in narrations produced between the late tenth and the early twelfth centuries. On the much later side of things, most of the contributions making up the second half of the book – by Tomasz Jurek, Bariša Krekić, Grzegorz Myśliwski, Richard Hoffmann, Stanisław Szczur, Krzysztof Ożóg, Thomas Wünsch and János Bak – focus, across a wide range of subjects, on the fifteenth century, with, however, some variation: Szczur is concerned, entirely,

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with the fourteenth century, Krekić is lodged (principally) within the sixteenth century, while Myśliwski ranges widely across the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in their entirety. The chronological criterion does not work rigorously – let alone rigidly – in part because, whenever they begin, our articles vary in the time span they cover. Though Samsonowicz opens his article with the end of the western Roman Empire, he continues his story of the urban expansion in Eastern and East Central Europe all the way into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In contrast, both Curta and Banaszkiewicz start later, but end earlier: Curta, at least implicitly, with the late-twelfth- and thirteenth-century systemic transformation as a result of which the ‘service settlements’ were dismantled in favour of other forms of rural exploitation; Banaszkiewicz, with the times of creation of written texts about the good ruler – of which the latest is the first decade of the twelfth century, when the Polish chronicler conventionally known as Gallus wrote his deeds of the Piast dukes of Poland.4 Nora Berend’s treatment of the use of oaths encompasses, at its outermost chronological extent, the early tenth to the thirteenth centuries. Moving toward the later articles, Jerzy Kłoczowski’s analysis of the Dominicans and their educational system in East Central Europe begins with a very precise, readily datable moment – the arrival of the Dominicans at particular destinations in the region, during the second decade of the thirteenth century5 – and continues for the subsequent two centuries, deep into the fifteenth. This is one of the reasons for placing Kłoczowski’s article at a transitional point in the book, between the ‘early’ group, and the entire, ‘late’, second half of the book. These overlaps in chronology create unexpected, second-level clusters. One could – against the grain of their intended, overall subjects – read portions of the articles by Myśliwski, Samsonowicz, Berend, Kłoczowski and Curta as an entrée into the thirteenth century in East Central Europe. Or one could use the pieces by Samsonowicz, Kłoczowski, Myśliwski and Szczur to study specific areas of continuity and change over many more centuries – at the outermost, the fifth to the fifteenth. The same possibilities are raised by the second criterion for our sequencing these articles: their subject matter. To be sure, some subjects are chronologically specific – Curta’s ‘service settlements’ necessarily belong early in East Central European history, while the 1444 Varna Crusade, important for Bak, or the Council of Basel, the backdrop for Wünsch, occurred late – and, to that extent, our two criteria converge. But other subjects – the city, ‘the Church’, long-distance exchange or trade, the procurement of water, fishing, learning, the courts of dukes, kings and bishops – are in their essence neither intrinsically ‘early’ nor intrinsically ‘late’, and required from us a non-temporal criterion for the sequencing.

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 195 To that effect, we have arranged those articles which closely overlap in subject matter into dossiers – that is to say, into groups with a substantially common, single subject.6 Of the 14 articles, eight comprise two dossiers of this kind. The contributions by Tomasz Jurek, Bariša Krekić, Grzegorz Myśliwski and Richard Hoffmann concern the late medieval and early modern city, examined in a wide variety of its aspects: legal, multi-ethnic, intercultural, spatial and economic. The articles by Stanisław Szczur, Krzysztof Ożóg, Thomas Wünsch and János Bak all explore the world of learning and politics: the city, the royal court, the papacy of the Avignon and the conciliar periods, ecclesiastical reform, political theory and practice. In addition, the four, historically early, opening articles of the book, by Samsonowicz, Curta, Berend and Banaszkiewicz, can also be grouped into dossiers of two each (that is, if two articles may constitute a ‘dossier’). Samsonowicz and Curta work with two highly concrete, material, resource-generating networks: the town and the ‘service settlement’, respectively. Berend and Banaszkiewicz look at phenomena which, while very different from each other, both centre upon ritual. These four thematic dossiers leave out the articles by Jerzy Kłoczowski and Nancy van Deusen. To complicate things further, on some levels the dossiers overlap in subject matter. Although the articles by Szczur, Ożóg, Wünsch and Bak are, as we noted, about learning and politics, they situate those two phenomena above all in cities – that is, in the setting which, from a different perspective, is the common, defining subject of the contributions by Jurek, Krekić, Myśliwski and Hoffmann. One city in particular, Kraków, recurs with a special frequency, especially in the articles by Szczur, Wünsch and above all Ożóg, but there are other important cities. Wünsch ties the two phases of his fascinating intellectual biography of one learned person – James of Paradyż – to two cities, Kraków and Erfurt.7 Jurek’s equally fascinating cases of marriage across the ethno-religious divide occur entirely in Poznań. The overall implication is that education, along with the phenomena related to it, happens specifically in an urban network, within which some cities are especially important – that is to say, central. This insight immediately provides a thematic home in this book for Jerzy Kłoczowski, who presents the Dominican studium squarely as an aspect of a large network of cities and towns. For Kłoczowski, some cities are especially important. Moreover, their hierarchy of importance works on several levels of magnitude. In the Piast principalities, Kraków is preeminent, but shares that position with Wrocław8 – a ranking that (in the Dominican educational context which is Kłoczowski’s subject) survives the reunification of the Polish kingdom and its political estrangement from the Silesian Piast duchies. At the level of that even larger space, the Dominican province of Polonia (in its original territorial extent,

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encompassing Bohemia and the Piast duchies in their entirety), Kłoczowski notes the importance of Prague, as an institutional role model and as a source of graduates and faculty for Kraków’s educational scene – the Dominican studia and the ‘secular’ schools, above all the university.9 Within the frameworks of East Central Europe and of Europe, in their entirety (including, among other regions, Poland and Bohemia), the most important, central city is Paris,10 joined in some respects by a handful of other cities which, at different times, had comparable status: Oxford and Cambridge early on,11 and, in the later fourteenth century, Prague. These connections, in Kłoczowski’s narration, mark out a brilliantly drawn loop, extending out of, then back into East Central Europe – through a double focus on a network of places, and on a pattern of collective activity, namely learning. But there is more. First, Kłoczowski’s attention to Prague and Paris dovetails with the importance of these two cities as seen from the perspectives of Samsonowicz, Banaszkiewicz, Myśliwski, Hoffmann, Szczur, Ożóg, Wünsch and van Deusen.12 Second, the kind of large-scale, inter- and intraregional European urban network which serves Kłoczowski as a setting for both the Dominican studia and the universities, also serves as background for several other subjects which are very different from Kłoczowski’s and from one another: Samsonowicz’s treatment of trade and urban expansion between late antiquity and the medieval period; Myśliwski’s reconstruction of one such dynamic trade network, focused on Venice and Wrocław; Hoffmann’s tracing of the patterns of procurement, processing, transport and consumption of one highly specialised commodity – a type of dried fish – between the Baltic region and Kraków; and Szczur’s examination of the presence, and the activities, of specialised papal collectors throughout East Central Europe, especially in Poland, during the Avignon period. The recurrent focus on specific, especially important cities raises other, more fragmentary, thematic affinities. At one point in his article, Curta develops some theoretical constructs related to early urbanisation, especially the central place theory, and its current aftermath.13 Some colleagues focus principally upon one city, or relate two cities to one another. Banaszkiewicz’s ritual moment of good kingship, as narrated, occurs in its entirety in Mainz, just outside the cathedral. Jurek’s entire inquiry is focused on Poznań, though he does contextualise that city economically and demographically, by comparing it to Kraków.14 Likewise, Krekić is concerned with one city, Dubrovnik, though he presents that city’s economy – specifically, its demand for water – in the commercial and geographical context of the Adriatic and the northcentral Mediterranean. Szczur and Wünsch each frame their contributions as an interplay between two cities: Avignon and Kraków, and Kraków and Erfurt, respectively. Perhaps the most elaborate inquiry, combining all these emphases, is Myśliwski’s article: embedded, as was noted earlier, in a major

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 197 inter-regional network of cities and towns, all nodes of long-distance trade, yet structured principally in terms of the interactions between two of them, Venice and Wrocław, and researched and narrated from the perspective of the latter.

Court, city and culture In short, the city emerges as our overarching, arguably the most important, subject. What about our other two opening themes, culture and court? As presented here, ‘city’ has a certain concreteness – spatial, material, economic – within which, or with reference to which, several other phenomena take place. The other two constructs are more abstract and elusive. We are therefore fortunate that, right at the outset of his article, Henryk Samsonowicz specifies the meaning of ‘culture’ along lines that resonate with the contributions of his colleagues, and that therefore help structure this book. Culture – especially a new, or a changing culture – is, for Samsonowicz, explicable in terms of ‘new forms of collective activity and new ideas’. Leaving aside for the moment the question of its transition, culture, as understood here, consists of patterns of group activity, and of the cognitive processes, or habits, related to that activity. Now, for Samsonowicz, this definition of culture is a by-product of, as he puts it, ‘defining a “city”’: as a place inhabited by people who routinely engage in specific patterns of ‘collective activity’, and who experience the related set of ‘ideas’.15 However, this definition is also a convenient bridge to a more generalised meaning of ‘culture’, as understood by our contributors. Thus, Samsonowicz himself points us, sometimes specifically (the Varangians for example), and elsewhere in more general terms, to a type of historical protagonist who combined the following qualities: a propensity to long-distance travel, ranging from temporary, ad hoc journeys, all the way to permanent resettlement; acquisition, transport and disposition, of movable goods – by force, purchase, exchange or gift; permanent, or at least longterm residence in or near one of those ‘centres’ which, by virtue of that fact, become (by definition) ‘cities’; and (though in Samsonowicz’s article this is implicit) the experience of ideas, or concepts, specific to the above range of qualities; ideas which, summing them up, we might place somewhere on the fluid boundary between bellicosity and entrepreneurship. Krekić and Myśliwski introduce us, in much closer detail, to specific types of protagonists who engaged in (some) of those ‘collective activities’, and who possessed the related ‘ideas’. Though Krekić notes the existence of merchants in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Dubrovnik, his subject is the procurement of a commodity which, in the nature of things, was difficult to obtain in large quantities by trade – water – but which instead called for

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a different and highly specific set of activities, by a different population: the city as a community, its civic institutions and its highly-skilled craftspeople, above all hydraulic engineers. Moreover, in fascinating case studies, Krekić sketches out intra-urban conflict centred upon that water supply, and the responses to that conflict, both legislative and judicial. The written traces of that area of conflict make a fascinating entrée into the ‘ideas’ concerning, ultimately, this aspect of economic demand, as experienced by the city and its inhabitants. Myśliwski paints what is probably the most detailed and textured picture of another specific population – the merchants, above all those based in the two cities comprising the organising axis of his research, Wrocław and Venice, but also their colleagues situated in other places, which in conjunction constituted far-flung networks, extending ulimately throughout Europe and beyond: in a southwestern direction, encompassing, among others, Vienna, Prague and Nuremberg; a northwestern cluster, leading through a group of German cities to Flanders; an eastern and northeastern group, including Kraków and Lwów in one direction, Novgorod in another, and, beyond both, the Rus’; and, by mediation of Venice itself, a far-eastern region, fusing, indirectly, with the trading centres (and merchant population) of the Middle East and Asia. This geographical framework positively swarms with specific, named individuals who specialised in the transfer of dozens of types of commodities, and in the credit operations related to that transfer. These three essays powerfully bring out one dimension of culture, in Samsonowicz’s sense of that word: the presence, and the role, of those groups and individuals whose ‘collective activity’ (and presumably ‘ideas’) were related specifically to the procurement, transfer and disposal of goods, in response to the interplay of supply and demand. We have here a collective study in commercial culture. The avatars of that culture are also visible, though from an entirely different perspective, in two other articles: early in the book, when Curta ponders the possible theoretical alternatives to the ‘service settlement’ as a model for the production and transfer of goods and other tangible resources during the earlier Middle Ages; and much later, when Jurek presents his fascinating Jewish and Christian litigants in marriage cases as active participants in the commercial and financial world of Poznań. An even larger group of authors – Kłoczowski, Szczur, Ożóg, Wünsch, Bak and van Deusen – introduce us to the culture of learning. Here, the ‘collective activity’, common to the individual and the collective protagonists mentioned by all the authors, is the acquisition and propagation, and use, of several areas of specialised knowledge. When all six articles are considered in conjunction, the resulting knowledge spans the broad formal curriculum of medieval learning – the liberal arts, canon and Roman law, theology and medicine – and several specific applications of that curriculum, above all in

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 199 international politics, constitutional theory and practice, historical writing and music. The authors in this group of essays vary strongly in their emphasis on these fields, their applications and the contexts in which learning occurred. Ożóg and van Deusen, for example, both note music, but Ożóg does so rather marginally, in the context of a number of other learned disciplines and of music’s presence in the cultural life of the Jagiellonian court,16 whereas van Deusen is concerned specifically with music, as a discipline both central to the intellectual system of the Middle Ages, and, in her view, much neglected by historians today.17 Bak also notes music, but, in contrast to the other two colleagues, only as a post-medieval, folk echo – a nineteenth-century recollection of King Władysław Warneńczyk’s death at Varna – not a learned discipline at all. Kłoczowski places Dominican learning, and above all theology, in the context of the networks of universities and Dominican studia, and, in the process, contributes to our understanding of the relationship between those two types of school, throughout Europe and in Europe’s East and Centre. Ożóg, again, discusses a broad range of learned subjects present at the Jagiellonian court, while van Deusen makes her plea for music’s importance in the medieval curriculum by a close, detailed analysis of that curriculum. Szczur’s portrayal of the diplomatic contacts between the Avignon popes and the courts of Władysław the Short and Casimir the Great positively presupposes the presence, on both ends and in between, of persons highly skilled in disciplines bearing upon international relations and diplomacy, especially canon and Roman law. Wünsch’s article is perhaps the culmination, in this book, of the portrayal of learning as a specialised activity – this time individual rather than ‘collective’, through its detailed case study of James of Paradyż as a political (especially constitutional) thinker, and a moral theologian, in the specific context of Church reform. But the subject of advanced learning, too, overlaps with contributions written principally about something else. Jurek’s marriage litigants on the two sides of the Jewish-Christian divide, their advocates and the Poznań consistory court take us directly into the world of substantive canon law – including the law regulating marriage and sexual contact, especially across religious boundaries, and the jurisdiction over that subject matter. As with Szczur at Avignon, the legal scene, as reconstructed here, both presupposes and describes a population with access to highly-differentiated, specialised learning; in this case, notably including one of the litigants, as he invokes his own (formerly?) Jewish identity in order to invalidate a putative marriage to his now-unwanted wife. Likewise, jurisdiction, procedure and the implications of religious difference between litigants are all raised by Berend in the context of the swearing of oaths, in Hungary, across several ethno-religious boundaries – between Jews, Christians, Muslims and pagans – though in her

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treatment the role of learning in the resulting activity is far less visible to the reader. In fact, learning, understood as a range of disciplines and of specialised activities, is so ubiquitous as to rival ‘the city’ as the overarching subject of this book. But – to return to Samsonowicz’s working definition of culture – several colleagues further address ‘collective activities’, and related ‘ideas’, which, while related to our three major issues – court, city and culture – are really quite distinct, and are not (without a great deal of strain) explicable as aspects either of a culture of commerce, or of a culture of learning. An area of ‘collective activity’ addressed by Berend and by Jurek consists of (and here we borrow Berend’s word) ‘interactions’ between ethnically different communities. Of course, in their two treatments these ‘interactions’ are very different. Berend ranges across several centuries and medieval Hungary in its entirety, while Jurek zooms in on an interval of (depending on how we assess this) weeks or months, in one city, Poznań. Berend looks at four ethnoreligious groups, while Jurek analyses only two, Jews and Christians. And yet, we most certainly have here two glimpses of yet another dimension of culture, ethnic diversity, and (some of) the practices by which that diversity was experienced, articulated and negotiated. The articles by Banaszkiewicz, Berend and Bak concern yet another type of ‘collective activity’, accompanied by related ‘ideas’: ritual. For Banaszkiewicz, ritual (or, at least, its written representation) is discernible in those acts whereby the king purposefully delayed his assumption of royal office, in a deliberate display made before some broader population, which, in turn, understood the appropriate meaning of the delay and the associated performance. For Berend, the ritual is the oath, typically performed in a forensic setting, as part of the acts leading to an agreement or reconciliation. Bak is concerned with several acts, jointly comprising the vesting of royal office upon the Hungarian king-elect, especially the use of one especially important material object, a crown – a crown which, at the time Bak examines, was, somewhat inconveniently, not the actual Crown of Saint Stephen. This awkward moment elicits from Bak an entertaining description of the elaborate group activities meant to endow the substitute with a sacral quality equivalent to the original. On the subject of ritual, these three authors take us in somewhat different directions. Banaszkiewicz is expressly concerned with the problem of representing ritual acts through texts, and with the inaccessibility of the ‘realities’ to which the texts refer – a problem most sharply raised by Philippe Buc, with whose position, unless we are mistaken, Banaszkiewicz agrees.18 Although Banaszkiewicz’s article is not, strictly speaking, about the two texts central to his article, Wipo or the Polish Anonymous – that is to say, not a textual study, but a study of one complicated image recurrent in these two (and in

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 201 other) texts – the author does take a strong, ironically assertive, position on the texts’ role in ‘representing’ supposed realities, and so the article is both an intervention in the debate involving Buc, Gerd Althoff and Geoffrey Koziol, and in itself a strongly post-modern reading of the issues with which the debate is concerned.19 Berend and Bak are unperturbed about that subject. For Berend, the oath is indeed very much a point of access to an area of a past social reality, namely the patterns of inter-ethnic interaction – this is consistent with the interests richly developed in her book of 2001, and in her article on the conceptual problem of the medieval frontier20 – and it is therefore a point of access to subjects which are indeed ‘theoretical’, but ‘theoretical’ in a very different sense. Bak, too, fully accepts the ‘reality’ behind the documents recording the collective endeavours to revalorise one crown – he has no doubt that such activities had in fact occurred, and failed – and is attentive to the documents themselves as (intellectually modest) expressions of medieval political theory. Nothing quite like Samsonowicz’s working definition of culture occurs, anywhere in these essays, for our remaining conceptual lure, the court. We, the two editors, initially raised this subject in open-ended fashion, and that is indeed how the court appears in these essays. Quite curiously, the court, in any sense of that word, appears here not as a differentiated subject, but as a setting. With the possible exceptions of Banaszkiewicz and Bak, who examine patterns of activity involving groups of people directly surrounding a king, our authors are relatively unconcerned about how courts were structured, how they worked, who staffed them, and so forth. In this book, we are light-years away from anything resembling administrative history. Much the same thing is true regarding courts understood in the more specialised, forensic sense. Even though Berend, Krekić and Szczur all describe places where, and parties among which, litigation occurs, and the issues that were litigated, they are relatively unconcerned with what actually happened in judicial courts and why. In this regard, Jurek, with his close and sustained focus on the course of the two trials in the Poznań consistory court, stands entirely apart in this volume. Rather than a subject fully in its own right, the court, at least as far as this book is concerned, is one of the settings where those ‘collective activities’ which comprise culture take place, and where the related ‘ideas’ are formulated, expressed and experienced. The other such setting is the city. Moreover – to close this thematic loop – the two settings are largely coextensive, because nearly all our authors situate the court (in any sense of that word) in the city. The king’s court is almost always found in Kraków; the pope’s, in Avignon; the court understood in the specifically judicial sense, in several cities: Poznań, Inowrocław, Warsaw, Várad, Avignon and Constance.

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The emergence, and the recurrence throughout this book, of a very specific space within which culture occurs – the court and the city – is perhaps the fundamental resonance between the book and the oeuvre produced by Paul Knoll himself. Let us now look at that resonance more closely, from some other perspectives.

Paul Knoll and this book First of all, this book displays one unintentional but fortuitous chronological parallel with Paul’s oeuvre. Despite some variations in this pattern, the articles are strongly bifurcated into two groups: one centred early, principally in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries; the other situated late, fully or in substantial part, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The second group is much larger, and so the book in its entirety takes on an unmistakeably Jagiellonian cast. That fact can quite properly be viewed as a collective echo of that second upswing in Poland’s medieval history toward which Paul first moved during the first decade of his output, and where – again, with important exceptions in particular contributions – he has remained ever since. But this chronological parallel has its limits. Our ‘early’ articles are not focused on Paul’s earlier upswing of Poland’s medieval history. Kings Władysław the Short and Casimir the Great – and, with them, the major issues comprising that earlier upswing, namely political reunification, consolidation or contestation of boundaries, the conflict with the Teutonic Order, the problem of Silesia, and the related diplomatic, administrative, institutional and educational activities – do all appear in this book, but in exactly one article: Szczur’s. Thus, in contrast to Paul’s own work, there is not a common, recurring Piast thread to these essays, and so this is indeed a ‘Jagiellonian’ but not a ‘Piast’ volume – even though, thanks to Szczur, the Piasts do make an important appearance. Apart from chronology, this book also converges with Paul Knoll’s work in terms of the specific subjects addressed. To a significant degree, we can trace out a one-to-one correspondence between the subjects which, at various times, Paul has developed in his work, and their counterparts here. In some cases, this correspondence is very specific. For example, in exactly one, brief remark, Bak notes that the notion of Hungary as a ‘bulwark of Christendom’ (antemurale Christianitatis) appears in that country’s dominant political ideology at the time, and in the circumstances which Paul had described in 1974 concerning Poland: in connection with the recruitment of Władysław Warneńczyk as a Hungarian king, and with his dramatic death.21 At greater length, Curta reassesses that supposed network of ‘service settlements’ about which Paul wrote in 1989.22 Berend’s and Jurek’s close attention to inter-ethnic interaction (especially between the Jews and others)

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 203 echoes Paul’s treatments of ethnic difference and identity published in 1989 and 1993,23 and his remarks about the Jewish community in Kraków in the context of King Casimir’s attempts, described in 1968, to situate the original university in the city’s late-fourteenth-century fabric.24 In other articles, the correspondence is broader and more recurrent. Samsonowicz, Krekić, Myśliwski and Hoffmann all develop the subject of the city, specifically in its material, spatial and economic dimensions, as Paul had done more tersely for Kraków in an article published in 198725 – an article which, is in turn, was enriched by the comparative approach taken in all the essays that comprise the volume (edited by Krekić) where that article appears, based on a large group of cities: Kiev, Novgorod, Kraków, Moscow, Buda and Dubrovnik. But by far the broadest, most persistent – we are tempted to say, the dominant – area of correspondence concerns, not surprisingly, the huge subject which quite simply defines the core of Paul Knoll’s work: the conjunction between the royal court, the city of Kraków, its university and the greater world encompassing (at different times) Avignon, Constance, Basel, Rome, Prague, Paris, Gdańsk, Wrocław and other places. This huge subject is especially ubiquitous in the contributions by Kłoczowski, Szczur, Ożóg and Wünsch, but it recurs elsewhere. Let us especially note here Wünsch’s intimate interest in Kraków and conciliarism, because of the resonance of that subject with Paul Knoll’s ongoing work. Finally, an important subset of the articles resonates with, and develops, one expository technique which, as was noted in the opening essay, is recurrent in Paul’s writings: the individual vignette, or biogram. Kłoczowski, Krekić, and Szczur identify, respectively, individual Dominican scholars and provincials, as they teach, supervise and organise; individual citizens of Dubrovnik, as they maintain, neglect or quarrel over the city’s system of water procurement; and individual clerics appointed as papal collectors in the metropolis of Gniezno, and entrusted with multiple incidental capacities. Myśliwski introduces us to a galaxy of merchants, debtors and creditors, principals and agents, and to their multiple interrelationships and activities, centred ultimately upon Wrocław and Venice, but also, as we have seen, encompassing a far larger inter-urban and inter-regional network. In the hands of Jurek, Szczur, Ożóg and Wünsch, such references blossom into fully-fledged biographical portaits very much of a kind Paul Knoll might have written. Among the large population of clerics whom Szczur identifies by name, two individuals assume this level of visibility: Gerward, the bishop of Cuiavia who diplomatically supported Władysław the Short against the Teutonic Order in the papal court at Avignon;26 and, in much more detail, Galhard of Carces, the papal collector who played a similar role on behalf of Władysław’s son, King Casimir.27 Jurek and Ożóg each develop well over a dozen biographical sketches – of the protagonists and the court personnel in

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the two marriage trials, and of a wide variety of learned specialists active at Hedwig and Jagiełło’s court, respectively. Jurek’s treatment of the identities and the stories of Jochna and of Nicholas Młynek reminds us that, among his other specialisations, Jurek is currently one of Poland’s most gifted prosopographers.28 Wünsch moves toward one, individual biogram, as he gives us James of Paradyż’s spiritual and intellectual biography, weaving into that biography references to other interesting individuals in Kraków and Erfurt. Several of the protagonists who appear in these articles are also well-developed actors throughout Paul’s writings. Thus, in conjuction with Paul’s work, these essays give us an entrée into a vivid, exceptionally interesting cast of characters, who collectively embody that encounter of culture, court and city which we, the two editors, had originally sought to elicit in the original call to our collaborators. It is that cast of characters, considered as a population, that points us, at long last, to a very different, we might say the ‘external’, very big subject of Paul’s work and, simultaneously, of this book: East Central Europe – especially, in these essays, Poland – within the broader context of the medieval and early modern world. This context comprises a new cultural history of this macro-region.

Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? The dozens, if not hundreds, of individuals identified by Paul and by our authors were actors in that broader world. The point can be made spatially – for example, by using our articles to map out, with their incidence indicated, the activities throughout an urban network, ranging, at its outermost, from Kiev and Novgorod to Barcelona. The point can also be made conceptually, by noting, among many other possibilities, the myriad of places and settings described by this book in which Aristotelian thought demonstrably mattered. This essential bridge between – indeed, the seamless identification of – say, Poland, Croatia or Hungary, with the medieval and early modern world in general is perhaps the most fundamental common message of Paul’s oeuvre and this book. As to the latter, let us add that this message, while very clear, is implicit. No one among our authors seems compelled to pause to explain that, and in what sense, the phenomena examined here were interesting, important or simply real, as an aspect of general medieval and early modern reality – any more than would have been the case if, in 1966, Paul Knoll had embarked upon the study of Scotland, Normandy, Lombardy, Sicily or the Île-de-France. This relatively unproblematic, unencumbered approach to the history of East Central Europe has always been Paul’s trademark, and, appropriately, it marks our book as well. And yet, there is a lurking issue here. That issue has been generated by those seismic changes in the history and the historiography of East Central Europe

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 205 with which we opened this book. Paradoxically, the two bursts of interest in that region in the English-speaking world – the first, approximately, in the early 1970s, the second beginning about one decade later, and lasting into our own present – have tended, in that world (and therefore among this book’s intended audience) to frame Europe’s ‘East’ (or ‘East-Centre’) as essentially one single unit, comprehensible, at least in principle, in terms of one single project. Herein lies the paradox. Inclusive interest has translated into a presumptive sense of global, region-wide difference. One such project has been the use, as a tool in that comprehension, of Archibald Lewis’s notion of ‘frontier’ – adapted, modified and refined considerably since its formulation in 1958, yet, in its intellectual essence, strongly continuous.29 Another has been a painstaking selection of the new adjectival label, ‘East Central’, for the relevant macro-region, in explicit preference to ‘Central’ and to ‘Eastern’ – with their implicit emphasis on Germany and Russia respectively.30 A third, though it occurs in English, is directly patterned on scholarship concerning Germany. It entails, as a point of departure, an importation from German of that gloriously untranslatable word, Sonderweg, to sum up the essential, primeval distinction of Europe’s ‘East’ in its entirety.31 Alternatively, that project might consist of just the opposite: a quite deliberate, axiomatic rejection of an essentialised, global difference, and an inquiry into the realities of particular places in East Central Europe on their own terms, with the comparative, conceptual, pan-European issues indeed present, but left more or less implicit – exactly as some of our best colleagues lodged in Europe’s ‘West’ have done regarding the Mâconnais, the Sénonais, or the banlieue of Battle Abbey. That last option, we think, was fully available just about half a century ago, at a time of thematic openness and indeterminacy when Paul Knoll became intrigued with one late-medieval kingdom, city and university. Precisely because of the work by those medievalists, and of its impact across several generations, that option is once again available today.32 And yet, because of that intervening legacy – left by a sudden discovery of the heretofore unknown – our paradox remains. As a result, we, the medievalists who think and write about East Central Europe in English, are constantly confronting an ongoing, irreducibly tense intellectual dilemma. Is East Central Europe, in whole and in its parts, interesting because it is presumptively comprehensible in the same terms in which we understand the European continent in its entirety? Is it analysable in terms of the same set of concepts – court, city and culture, for example? Is it in some meaningful sense similar to, or even seamlessly the same as, that even larger region of which it is a part? Or, is East Central Europe, with its constituent parts, interesting because it, and they, require us to generate analytical concepts and categories essentially different from those which help us with

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‘Europe’ as a whole – ‘service settlements’, ‘proto-towns’, and the like? Is it, in some global or perhaps even essential sense, different from the continent in its entirety, or from those regions of the continent (‘the West’) which work as Europe’s normative standard? This choice – between a presumptive essential likeness, or a presumptive essential difference, as a point of departure for understanding – strikes us as a crucial issue, perhaps the crucial issue, in the emerging new cultural history of East Central Europe of which this book is a manifestation. Neither this book in its entirety, nor the individual articles, answer these questions, or resolve our paradox. Instead, it, and they, confront the questions from several perspectives. On the one hand, there is no doubt that our authors – all of them – fully embrace, and continue, that originating, unapologetic, unencumbered approach to past reality in this part of Europe which has always been Paul Knoll’s signature. On the other hand, a recurrent theme of this book, resonating through many (though not all) the contributions, is indeed the place of each author’s specific subject, and of the region or locality where that subject arises, in the broader contemporary world – which (with two important exceptions, to be noted shortly) means Europe. This second theme, when addressed at all, is always addressed implicitly. For instance, no one in this group stakes out his or her subject in terms of one or more of those those big, unifying conceptual projects noted earlier – such as the medieval ‘frontier’. Nor, on the other hand, does anyone seem compelled explicitly to reject that kind of approach in favour of an inquiry that is deliberately localised, and, in a conceptual or empirical sense, somehow self-contained. Nevertheless, in their substance, the articles do develop the lurking subject of the peripherality (or otherwise) of Poland, Hungary and other places, with respect to Europe – in the process specifying what is meant by the construct ‘Europe’ – but that, too, only implicitly, yet consistently with a reference to somewhere: Avignon, Paris, Constance, Venice and in other specific, concrete and distant centres of civilisation. The theme of peripherality, distance and closeness, is also (but, in this case, without paradox) a direct outcome of the attentiveness by our colleagues working in Poland, Germany, Hungary and elsewhere in East Central Europe itself, to exactly the same seismic changes in history and historiography which have affected the successive phases of interest in East Central Europe among North American medievalists. Simply put, the transitions that have occurred in ‘our’, North American historiography – with Paul Knoll squarely at their centre – have had an impact ‘over there’, and have, moreover, coincided with a burst of interest, in that same academic world ‘over there’, in an explicitly comparative and interdisciplinary approach. We should add that, in its turn, that comparative and interdisciplinary approach, in East Central Europe, has had its own, very long history – a history brutally interrupted

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 207 by the Second World War and Stalinism, but, at least in Polish scholarship, clearly visible and vibrant once more from the late 1950s onwards. An excellent example of work in that vein is the participation in 1985 by a very prominent group of Hungarian and Polish economic and social historians (Henryk Samsonowicz, Antoni Mączak, Laszlo Mákkai, Andrzej Wyrobisz, Eric Fügedi, Leonid Żytkowicz, István Kiss, Maria Bogucka, Marian Małowist, Jerzy Topolski, Andrzej Wyczański, Jan Białostocki and Janusz Tazbir) in a collection of essays elicited largely by the debate between Immanuel Wallerstein and Robert Brenner – a debate conducted principally in North America, whose own parameters had been deeply influenced by a long line of Polish scholars, extending deep into the inter-war period, and most prominently represented by Jan Rutkowski, Marian Małowist and Witold Kula.33 It is both symbolic and fitting that one of the two Polish editors of that 1985 collection, Henryk Samsonowicz, opens our own book.34 And so it is not surprising that, as we hoped and intended, the articles do in fact, reflect and develop this one common, major problem, noted by colleagues from very different academic cultures. The authors who address this problem do so on a number of levels, and in terms of a number of criteria. Sometimes the medieval and early modern world really does mean the world – that is, the then-contemporary known universe, spanning Eurasia and northern Africa – as Samsonowicz and Myśliwski strive, in their analytical framework, to establish linkages between the urban network of East Central Europe and very distant but ultimately very important places and regions – on this subject, in explicit debt to Janet Abu-Lughod’s model of the later medieval world system.35 Typically, however, the world-historical level of analysis, suggestive as it is, yields to comparison and contextualisation on a lower geopolitical scale, namely Europe. Even in that more localised framework, Samsonowicz and Myśliwski, again, adopt an unusually broad perspective. Samsonowicz undertakes his explanation for urbanisation in the Continent’s ‘East’ in terms of an important, very large-scale absence: of the western Roman Empire of and its impact, in late antiquity. Myśliwski anchors the specific story of the very far-flung commercial networks centred on his two cities, Wrocław and Venice, within the model proposed long ago by Marian Małowist to explain the permanent divergence between Europe’s ‘West’ and ‘East’, in their entirety, from the fourteenth century onwards.36 Other colleagues place East Central Europe, or its sub-regions, in a broader European perspective with reference to lower-level phenomena. This happens in two ways. Curta and Berend each focus on one aspect of the past reality which works to distinguish East Central Europe (or, more accurately, part of it) within the continent as a whole. If, after all the doubts are resolved by additional archaeological research (as Curta hopes will be the case), those

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early-medieval ‘service settlements’ do indeed turn out to have existed in Poland, Hungary and Bohemia, then we will have pinned down a real, specifiable difference between medieval Europe in general and its ‘East-Centre’ – and, furthermore, a difference within the latter macro-region, because of the appearance of those ‘settlements’ in those three countries, and not elsewhere. Berend’s emphasis on the interaction between Christians, Jews, Muslims and Cumans is specific to East Central Europe, and to one country within it, because earlier-medieval Hungary is the place where Christians, Jews, Muslims and Cumans can be found. Of course, viewed from some broader perspective – for example, with the ‘service settlements’ understood as a sub-category of a specialised manor, or with those Hungarian four ethnicreligious groups as an example of inter-ethnic contact – each phenomenon is comparable to numerous counterparts elsewhere. But the localised variants are, in their particulars, distinctive. In contrast, Kłoczowski, Jurek, Szczur, Myśliwski and Samsonowicz all contextualise East Central Europe with reference to phenomena that are presumptively similar throughout Europe as a whole. For Samsonowicz and Myśliwski, those phenomena are urbanisation and trade. It is quite clear that, say, Samsonowicz’s Varangian trading warrior based in Kiev would have been at home in an enormous network of other places throughout Europe’s ‘East’, and the Continent in its entirety; or that those many Venetian merchants and financiers in Wrocław, or the Wrocław merchants and financiers in Venice, collectively embodied a single, continent-wide phenomenon: sophisticated, long-distance economic exchange. For Kłoczowski, Jurek and Szczur, that phenomenon is something quite different, namely universal Church institutions, present in, or exerting an impact upon, East Central Europe: the Dominican province and studium, the episcopal consistory court, and the papal collector. Of course, such frameworks do not obviate difference: on the contrary, they highlight it. Myśliwski and Samsonowicz imply a considerable variation within their urban and merchant networks, while Kłoczowski, Jurek and Szczur very explicity note the local, regional and Europe-wide range in the recruitment, structure and functioning of their respective ecclesiastical institutions. Nevertheless, these five authors consistently frame that difference and variety by means of essentially comparable, large-scale phenomena. These five authors also bridge those large-scale phenomena through one simple but useful expository technique: beginning their articles by the placement of their subject in the broader perspective of general medieval history. Szczur begins his article with a mini-essay on the Avignon papacy and on its financial constraints, possibilities and priorities. Jurek introduces us to the medieval canon law of marriage, specifically insofar as that law bore upon the archdiocese of Gniezno, and upon the status of sexual unions among

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 209 persons of different religions. Kłoczowski opens his article with a characteristically superb sketch of the Dominican Order, its studia, and their relationship to other schools, especially universities. Finally, as noted above, Samsonowicz and Myśliwski begin by situating their urban and merchant network within two discussions of European economic history – a context which is further enhanced by Samsonowicz’s brief but vivid invocation of several theoretical constructs relevant to urbanisation.37 Of our remaining authors – who do not, even implicitly, raise the question of ‘Europe’ as a part of their context – most present their findings consistently with that second approach, shared by Kłoczowski, Jurek, Szczur, Myśliwski and Samsonowicz. Therefore, in its entirety, this book tends to accentuate similarity or likeness, rather than distinctiveness or difference. From this perspective, let us revisit perhaps the most recurrent single protagonist, or actor, who appears in the articles, namely, the scholar – an actor who is likely to be learning, teaching and contributing to, and using, a range of disciplines substantially standardised throughout the Continent, in a range of settings that is, broadly speaking, similarly standardised – school, city, court, cathedral chapter, cloister – as (paraphrasing Kłoczowski) Prague becomes like Paris, and, half a century later, Kraków becomes like Prague. In addition to various types of protagonists, or actors, some of our authors report convergence of political ideas. Though he denies them the status of fully-fledged ‘political thought’, Bak zooms in on some of the political assumptions apparently held by those important Hungarians who selected their kings, and who contemplated the awkward question of which crown to use for that purpose. Banaszkiewicz explores ideas which recur, much earlier in Europe’s history, in narratives produced over a large number of places and times in Europe. Implicitly, but quite clearly, we move here toward issues of medieval European constitutionalism, that it to say, ideas and practices affecting the balance of power between the ruler and the ruled. And yet it would be misleading and inaccurate, we think, to suggest that the fundamental message of our articles, individually or as a book, is some kind of basic, overarching similarity, or equivalence, or identity, seamlessly fusing East Central Europe, or some part of it, with the Continent as a whole; or, more exactly, with its regions to the west, or to the south, which, adapting Robert Bartlett, we might call Europe’s Frankish and Italian heartlands, and their long-term successor cultures and polities.38 Lurking behind the presumptive and the demonstrated common denominators is the subject of the peripherality of our macro-region and its parts within Europe in its entirety – or (which is really saying the same thing) the subject of the exact relationship between Europe’s ‘East-Centre’ and its notional ‘core’, or ‘cores’. We should promptly add that, as it has actually taken shape, this book is not about that subject. That is to say, we do not have here yet another a collection

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of essays about the European ‘frontier’, similar to the volume dedicated to those subjects by Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay in (once again!) 1989.39 Nor do we have here some other model stressing Europe-wide convergence across some cultural or political gradient – even though throughout his work, and again in this book, Jerzy Kłoczowski has amply demonstrated that, in the course of the medieval and early modern period, such convergence did in fact occur.40 Nor, on the other hand, is this a book about a permanent state of diversity, or variety, either between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ Europe in the Middle Ages, or within East Central Europe – despite our clear sense, conveyed by Curta, Berend and Szczur, that ‘service settlements’ (if in fact they existed), or Jews, Muslims and Cumans interacting, or the collection of Peter’s Pence, were each specific to East Central Europe, and, furthermore, to one part of it. However, an absence of an explicit framing is not the same as an absence of a real, underlying subject. In fact, Samsonowicz raises the issue of peripherality very early in this book, by identifying ‘our’ macro-region (and, by deduction, its specific dynamics of urbanisation) in terms of the absence of the Roman Empire in its late classical and early medieval phases. If we posit (as Samsonowicz implicitly does) the impact of the Roman Empire as one criterion of full membership in ‘Europe’, then here, right from the start, is one kind of global peripherality for Europe’s ‘East’ and ‘East-Centre’. In addition, Samsonowicz develops this subject on a theoretical level, by recourse to Immanuel Wallerstein’s notion of ‘world-economies’ (économies-mondes)41 – of which some were (and, in a theoretical sense, are) at any one point more dynamic, more complex, more influential and – though these are, again, not Samsonowicz’s words – more functional and successful than others. The insight here is further bolstered from a world-historical perspective, as Samsonowicz adds that even that initial gold standard for membership in ‘Europe’, the Roman Empire, ranked low among its own contemporary ‘world-economies’ – such as Byzantium, or the civilisations of East and South Asia. And so (perhaps as yet another paradox) our book introduces, early on, a note of civilisational ranking, cultural gradients, and inequality, differentiating between the world’s macro-regions, all of which produces for East Central Europe a ruthlessly distant place in the scheme of it all. This kind of ranking, or distancing, recedes considerably in Samsonowicz’s own article after its opening pages, and in the book in its entirety. However, the theme of civilisational distance, within ‘Europe’, remains – albeit, again, by implication. For example, even though Myśliwski adopts a twin, and in some sense parallel, focus on Wrocław and Venice, there is simply no question about which city was more important – or, to adapt Samsonowicz’s use of Wallerstein’s concept – which was the centre of one, large, Europe-wide (or arguably world-wide) économie-monde, and which worked as a bilateral

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Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 211 transit node within that économie-monde. Similarly, for all the intrinsic interest of Dubrovnik, its demand for water, and its citizens and institutions, that city, as seen by Krekić, was part of a bigger ‘economic world’ centred (again) upon Venice, and perhaps Naples. Szczur’s story about the efforts made on Poland’s behalf at Avignon by Polish diplomats and friendly papal collectors is positively driven by the gradient of papal indifference: the sense, at the court on the Rhône, that Poland’s problems with the Teutonic Order were a ‘local conflict’, not worthy of a prompt (if any) remedy – until the conflict’s escalating notoriety, the implications for a continuous flow Peter’s Pence and other papal revenues, the Poles’ and their friends’ diplomatic skill and persistence, and a gradual but perceptible restoration of regional Piast power together prompted a measure of action. Jurek’s entire subject hinges on the relationship between the general norms of European canon law and its meanings and uses in Poland; a relationship which, he implies, entailed a complicated and protracted process, which (following Jurek) we might mark out with the 1267 visit by the papal legate Guido, and, from that occasion, all the way back to the Fourth Lateran Council, then chronologically forward to the fifteenth-century synodal statutes of Archbishop Nicholas Trąba, and, ultimately, to Poznań.42 Kłoczowski’s tracing of the presence, adaptation and function of one kind of standardised, pan-European institution, the Dominican studium and province, is lodged in, and crucially depends on, the distinction between (if we may paraphrase him) three zones, encompassing the continent in its entirety: the provinces comprising the Order’s, and Europe’s, core; the provinces situated, effectively, beyond Europe altogether; and, in between, the provinces in – as he again calls it here – the ‘younger’ Europe, which, among other regions, included the Polish province.43 Kłoczowski carefully describes the meaning of that differentiation of Europe into zones, by using the studium as a test case. Although he implies convergence (as he says, in its definitive, fifteenth-century form the Dominican studium in Poland was ‘normal’ by the standards of Europe), there is, as with Myśliwski, absolutely no question that Kłoczowski understands that context, at least in large part, in terms of proximity to, or distance from, some notional core or centre – except that, in Kłoczowski’s case, this core or centre is not at all notional, but fully specified. It is Paris. We do, therefore, have before us a book that, at least among its other organising themes, is indeed about frontier and core, difference and convergence, variety and likeness, and – resulting from all this – about inclusion: historical inclusion in the medieval and early modern past, conceptual inclusion today. Now, as Górecki has noted in the opening chapter, inclusion – articulated as a positive, self-conscious desire for the historian, and as an exhortation to others – has not been one of Paul Knoll’s rhetorical trademarks. Right from

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the beginning, he has not advocated inclusion: he has practised it – by thinking and writing about Poland and East Central Europe as a subject important because, from the perspective of an excellent historian, the past realities to be discovered there are, above all, profoundly and intensely interesting. Over the course of several decades, the dynamics of the profession – to which Paul Knoll has so materially contributed – have shaped that interest toward the subjects with which we have just now been concerned. This has happened both in North America and in Europe’s centre. And so we remain, cheerfully, in that permanent, not readily resolvable, but ultimately creative tension concerning the best placement of East Central Europe’s history – a tension which these essays do not resolve, but which they refresh. In this context, it is notable that, with Nancy van Deusen’s article, the book closes on an usually strong and explicit plea for inclusion: an inclusion not of Poland or East Central Europe in our conception of the continent as a whole, but of a long neglected discipline – music – into our fuller appreciation of that common, school-, city-, and court-based culture which is this book’s common subject.

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Notes

1 A road well travelled 1 G. Boyce, R. Dean, R. Hunt and B. Lyon, ‘S. Harrison Thomson’, Speculum 51 (1976), 578–80. 2 ‘The face of crisis: Eastern Europe in the 1960s’, Purdue Alumnus 55 (1968), 1–11. 3 P. Freedman and G.M. Spiegel, ‘Medievalisms old and new: the rediscovery of Alterity in North American medieval studies’, American Historical Review 103 (1998), 677–704; Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. R.L. Benson and G. Constable (Cambridge, MA, 1982); Spiegel, ‘In the mirror’s eye: the writing of medieval history in North America’, in Spiegel, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore, MD, 1997), pp. 57–80; W.C. Brown and P. Górecki, ‘What conflict means: the making of medieval conflict studies in the United States, 1970–2000’, in Conflict in Medieval Europe: Changing Perspectives on Society and Culture, ed. Brown and Górecki (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 1–35. 4 I do not mean to direct this comment at any colleague – cited in the preceding note, elsewhere in this essay, or not cited here; my awareness of the risks stems from my own historiographical work. For my own portrayal of one extraordinary instance of an older and a younger scholar – Richard Southern and Robert Bartlett – see P. Górecki, ‘“Tworzenie Europy” Roberta Bartletta w kontekście anglosaskich badań historycznych nad początkami i kształtowaniem się Europy’, in R. Bartlett, Tworzenie Europy. Podbój, kolonizacja i przemiany kulturowe, 950–1350, trans. G. Waluga (Poznań, 2003), pp. 505–15, at 508–9 (a historiographical afterword to a translation of Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350 [Princeton, NJ, 1993]). 5 Boyce et al., ‘Thomson’, pp. 578–9; S. Harrison Thomson, ‘Learning at the court of Charles IV’, Speculum 25 (1950), 1–20. For Paul Knoll’s own reflections on Thomson, see ‘Learning in late Piast Poland’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 120 (1976), 136–57, at 157 (n. 135); ‘Foreword’, in T. Manteuffel, The Formation of the Polish State: The Period of Ducal Rule, 963–1194, trans. and introd. A. Gorski (Detroit, MI, 1982), pp. 7–20, at 8; ‘Economic and political institutions on the Polish–German frontier in the Middle Ages: action, reaction, interaction’, in Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. R. Bartlett and A. MacKay (Oxford, 1989), pp. 151–74, at 151 (n. 1).

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6 A. Lewis, ‘The closing of the medieval frontier’, Speculum 33 (1958), 475–83; on this subject, and its own intellectual legacy, see R.I. Burns, ‘The significance of the frontier in the Middle Ages’, in Bartlett and MacKay, Medieval Frontier Societies, pp. 306–30; and, briefly, Górecki, ‘Tworzenie’, pp. 505–6, 509, 511, 513. 7 E.A.R. Brown, ‘The tyranny of a construct: feudalism and historians of medieval Europe’, American Historical Review 79 (1974), 1063–88. 8 T.N. Bisson, ‘The “feudal revolution”’, Past and Present 142 (Feb. 1994), 6–42; S.D. White, ‘Debate: the “feudal revolution”, II’, Past and Present 152 (Aug. 1996), 205–23. 9 For an excellent example, see S.D. White, ‘Tenth-century courts at Mâcon and the perils of structuralist history: re-reading Burgundian judicial institutions’, in Brown and Górecki, Conflict, pp. 37–68, in its entirety, with my point additionally illustrated by n. 2 at pp. 37–8. 10 L.J. Simon, ‘Preface’, in Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of Robert I. Burns, S.J., vol.1., ed. Simon (Leiden, 1995), pp. xi–xxvi, at xi–xx; for a survey of the literature on Germany, see P.J. Geary, Medieval Germany in America, German Historical Institute Annual Lecture 8 (Washington, DC, 1996). 11 Górecki, ‘Tworzenie’, p. 509. 12 J. Kłoczowski, ‘Oskar Halecki (1891–1973)’, in Nation and History: Polish Historians from the Enlightenment to the Second World War, ed. P. Brock, J. Stanley and P. Wróbel (Toronto, 2006), pp. 429–42, at 431, 433, 435–40; P. Górecki, ‘Medieval “east colonization” in post-war North American and British historiography’, in Historiographical Approaches to Medieval Colonization of East Central Europe: A Comparative Analysis against the Background of Other European Interethnic Colonization Processes in the Middle Ages, ed. J.M. Piskorski (Boulder, CO, and New York, 2002), pp. 26–61, at 30–5, 39–42; J. Keep, ‘Professor Peter Brock (1920–2006)’, Slavonic and East European Review 85 (2007), 322–4. 13 ‘Poland as Antemurale Christianitatis in the late Middle Ages’, Catholic Historical Review 60 (1974), 381–401; ‘The European context of sixteenthcentury Prussian humanism’, Journal of Baltic Studies 22 (1991), 5–28, at 5–6. 14 ‘Echoes of the New World in the international rivalries of East Central Europe’, in First Images of America: The Impact of the New World on the Old, ed. F. Chiappelli, M.J.B. Allen and R.L. Benson (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1976), pp. 279–84; ‘Polish–German frontier’, especially pp. 152–3, 159–64, 172–3. 15 ‘Echoes’, p. 283; ‘Louis the Great and Casimir of Poland’, in Louis the Great: King of Hungary and Poland, ed. S.B. Vardy, G. Grosschmid and L.S. Domonkos (Boulder, CO, 1986), pp. 105–27, at 112–3; ‘Prussian humanism’, pp. 9–13, 17; ‘Poland’, Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, ed. H.J. Hildebrand, 4 vols. (New York, 1996), 3:283–8. 16 ‘Władysław Łokietek and the restoration of the Regnum Poloniae’, Medievalia et Humanistica 17 (1966), 51–78, at 52; ‘Casimir the Great and the University of Cracow’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, n.s., 16 (1968), 232–49, at 232–3; The Rise of the Polish Monarchy: Piast Poland in East Central Europe, 1320–1370 (Chicago, IL, 1972), pp. 1–3, 14–15; ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, pp. 384–6; ‘The world of the young Copernicus: society, science, and the university’, in Science and Society: Past, Present, and Future, ed. N.H. Steneck

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17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27

28 29

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(Ann Arbor, MI, 1975), pp. 19–44, at 19–20 (with an important qualification at 35, n. 4); ‘Learning’, pp. 136–7; ‘Jan Długosz, 1480–1980’, Polish Review 21 (1982), 3–28, at 5; ‘National consciousness in medieval Poland’, Ethnic Groups 10 (1993), 65–84, at 67–71; ‘Literary production at the University of Cracow in the fifteenth century’, in The Development of Literate Mentalities in East Central Europe, ed. A. Adamska and M. Mostert (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 217–46, at 218. ‘Władysław Łokietek’, pp. 51–2; ‘Casimir the Great and the university’, pp. 232–3; Rise, p. 14; ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, p. 385; ‘Learning’, p. 136; ‘Feudal Poland: division and reunion’, Slavic Review 23 (1978), 40–52, at 40. Rise, p. 15; ‘Learning’, p. 137; ‘Feudal Poland’, pp. 43–5, 47–8. ‘The urban development of medieval Poland, with particular reference to Kraków’, in The Urban Society of Eastern Europe in Premodern Times, ed. B. Krekić (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1987), pp. 63–136, especially 64–76; ‘Polish–German frontier’; ‘Editors’ introduction: in cooperation with Wojciech Polak’ (co-authored with F. Schaer), in Gesta Principum Polonorum: The Deeds of the Princes of the Poles, trans. P. Knoll and F. Schaer, preface T.N. Bisson (Budapest, 2003), pp. xix–lxv, especially xxiv–xxxiii. ‘Władysław Łokietek’, pp. 52–4, 59–61, and elsewhere. ‘The stabilization of the Polish western frontier under Casimir the Great, 1333– 1370’, Polish Review 12 (1967), 3–29. ‘Władysław Łokietek’, pp. 59–61; Rise, pp. 121–42; ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, pp. 387–92; ‘Louis the Great’, pp. 110–4. Rise, pp. 26–7, 56. ‘Władysław Łokietek’, pp. 65, 67; Rise, pp. 37–9. ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, p. 395; ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 21; ‘The arts faculty at the University of Cracow at the end of the fifteenth century’, in The Copernican Achievement, ed. R.S. Westman (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1975), pp. 137–64, at 139–40; ‘Jadwiga and education’, Polish Review 44 (1999), 419–31; ‘Saints, studia, and scholarship’, Polish Review 45 (2000), 217–34, at 218, 222–6; Leonardo da Vinci and the Splendor of Poland: A History of Collecting and Patronage, ed. L. Winters (New Haven, CT, 2002), pp. 29–43, at 29–30; ‘Literary Production’, pp. 219–20. ‘Casimir the Great and the university’, p. 234; Rise, pp. 5–6, 233–4; ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, p. 395; ‘Learning’, pp. 153–5. ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 29; ‘Arts faculty’, p. 152; ‘Jan Długosz, 1480–1980’, pp. 6–7, 12–14, 18, 22; ‘The University of Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’, in Rebirth, Reform, and Resilience: Universities in Transition, 1300–1700, ed. J.M. Kittelson and P.J. Transue (Columbus, OH, 1984), pp. 190–212, at 194, 198, 207–8; ‘National consciousness’, pp. 72, 75–6; ‘Italian humanism in Poland: the role of the University of Kraków in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries’, in Renaissance Culture in Context: Theory and Practice, ed. J.R. Brink and W.F. Gentrup (Aldershot, 1993), pp. 164–75, at 164; ‘Jadwiga’, p. 232; Leonardo, p. 33; ‘Literary production’, p. 233. ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 34; ‘Arts faculty’, p. 149, 155; ‘Prussian humanism’, pp. 5–6, 16, 19. Rise, p. 6; ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 29–30; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 146, 152; ‘Jan Długosz and his “Banderia Prutenorum”’, Polish Review 25 (1980), 93–7; ‘Jan Długosz, 1480–1980’; ‘National consciousness’, pp. 75–7; ‘Jadwiga’, pp. 421, 428.

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30 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 22–3, 29; ‘Learning’, pp. 139–43; ‘Literary production’, pp. 237–40. 31 ‘Saints, studia, and scholarship’. 32 In alphabetical order: Janusz Bieniak, Czesław Deptuła, Aleksander Gieysztor, Andrzej Feliks Grabski, Roman Heck, Jerzy Kłoczowski, Brygida Kürbis, Marian Kutzner, Julian Lewański, Henryk Łowmiański, Kazimierz Myśliński, Stanisław Russocki, Henryk Samsonowicz, Władysław Seńko, Jerzy Strzelczyk, Stanisław Trawkowski and Aleksandra Witkowska. This group includes contributors to, and editors of, two books of essays, jointly reviewed here: Polska dzielnicowa i zjednoczona. Państwo – społeczeństwo – kultura, ed. A. Gieysztor (Warsaw, 1972), and Polska w okresie rozdrobnienia feudalnego, ed. H. Łowmiański (Wrocław, 1973). 33 ‘Feudal Poland’, pp. 50–1, nn. 33–5. 34 ‘Banderia Prutenorum’ and ‘In search of the Battle of Grunwald’, Polish Review 28 (1983), 67–76, reviewing, respectively, S. Ekdahl, Die ‘Banderia Prutenorum’ des Jan Długosz. Eine Quelle zur Schlacht bei Tannenberg 1410 (Göttingen, 1976), and Ekdahl, Die Schlacht bei Tannenberg 1410. Quellenkritische Untersuchungen, vol. 1: Einführung und Quellenlage (Berlin, 1982). 35 Spannungen und Widersprüche. Gedenkschrift für František Graus, ed. S. Burghartz et al. (Sigmaringen, 1992); František Graus – člověk a historik. Sbornik z pracovního semináře Výzkumnégo centra pro dějiny vědy konanégo 10. prosince 2002, Práce z dějin vědy 8, ed. Z. Beneš, B. Jiroušek and A. Kostlán (Prague, 2004); P. Horská, ‘Prolegomena k živopisu Františka Grause’, Soudobé Dějiny 12 (2005), 774–7; Cultus et cognitio. Studia z dziejów średniowiecznej kultury – Aleksandrowi Gieysztorowi w czterdziestolecie pracy naukowej, ed. S.K. Kuczyński et al. (Warsaw, 1976); Kultura średniowieczna i staropolska. Studia ofiarowane Aleksandrowi Gieysztorowi w pięćdziesięciolecie pracy naukowej, ed. D. Gawinowa (Warsaw, 1991); R. Jarocki, Opowieść o Alekandrze Gieysztorze (Warsaw, 2001); Historiae peritus. Księga Jubileuszowa Profesora Jerzego Kłoczowskiego – Część 2, ed. H. Gapski (Lublin, 1998), pp. 25–105, 186–213, 287–302. 36 Manteuffel, Formation. 37 ‘Foreword’, pp. 12–16, 20; see Wieki średnie. Medium Aevum. Prace ofiarowane Tadeuszowi Manteufflowi w 60 rocznicę urodzin, ed. A. Gieysztor, M.H. Serejski and S. Trawkowski (Warsaw, 1962). 38 ‘Foreword’, pp. 10–13. 39 Ibid, pp. 7–10. 40 The editors owe special thanks to János Bak for describing Paul’s involvement with the CEU, in a personal communication. 41 Karoli IV imperatoris Romanorum vita ab eo seipso conscripta et hystoria nova de sancto Wenceslao martyre: Autobiography of Emperor Charles IV and His Legend of St. Wenceslas, ed. B. Nagy and F. Schaer, introd. F. Seibt (Budapest, 2001); Gesta Principum Polonorum (n. 19 above). 42 ‘Władysław Łokietek’, p. 51; ‘Casimir the Great and the university’, p. 233. 43 ‘Władysław Łokietek’; ‘Polish Western Frontier’; ‘Casimir the Great and the university’; Rise. 44 ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’; ‘Young Copernicus’; ‘Arts faculty’. 45 ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, pp. 382–6. 46 ‘Learning’.

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Notes 217 47 ‘Casimir the Great and the university’. 48 Ibid, pp. 233–5; among the earlier articles, see ‘Władysław Łokietek’, pp. 56–8, 64, 78; ‘Polish western frontier’, pp. 9–15, 20–3, 25–6, 28. 49 ‘Casimir the Great and the university’, pp. 235–7. 50 Ibid, pp. 238–49. 51 Ibid, pp. 238–41, 248. 52 Ibid, pp. 239–46. 53 Ibid, pp. 246–8. 54 Ibid, pp. 240–1, 243–6, 247–8. 55 ‘The Papacy at Avignon and university foundations’, in The Church in a Changing Society: Conflict, Reconciliation or Adjustment? Proceedings of the CIHEC Conference in Uppsala, August 17–21, 1977 (Uppsala, 1978), pp. 192–6. 56 Ibid, pp. 193–5. 57 ‘Prussian humanism’, pp. 6–15, 17–20. 58 ‘Italian humanism in Poland’. 59 ‘Louis the Great’. 60 ‘Jan Długosz, 1480–1980’; ‘Jadwiga’. 61 Nn. 24–9 above. 62 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 22–5, 26–7, 29–34; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 139, 145–9, 150, 152–5. 63 ‘Young Copernicus’, in its entirety; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 140–3, and, for impact on particular scholars, the entire remainder. 64 ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 22; ‘Arts faculty’, p. 145, n. 20. 65 ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 21; ‘Arts faculty’, p. 139–40 (n. 5); ‘Learning’, pp. 145–6. 66 ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 22; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 146–7; ‘Literary production’, p. 222. 67 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 23–4; ‘Arts faculty’, p. 147, nn. 25, 27; ‘Literary production’, p. 222, n. 23. 68 ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 22; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 144–5. 69 ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 145–6. 70 ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 24; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 147–9 (n. 29), 150 (n. 38); ‘Literary production’, pp. 223–4 (n. 25), 229. 71 ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 150–1; ‘Literary production’, pp. 226, 240–1. 72 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 24–5; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 148–9 (n. 30); ‘Literary Production’, pp. 224–5 (n. 27). 73 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 27–8; ‘Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’, pp. 194–7; ‘National consciousness’, pp. 72–4; ‘Literary production’, pp. 232–3 (nn. 49–50). 74 ‘Jadwiga’, pp. 426–7, 430; ‘Saints, studia, and scholarship’, p. 224; ‘Literary production’, pp. 231–2. 75 ‘Jan Długosz, 1480–1980’, pp. 5–6; ‘Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’, pp. 201–2; ‘Jadwiga’, p. 431; ‘Saints, studia, and scholarship’, p. 233. 76 ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 28; ‘Jadwiga’, p. 426. 77 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 30–1; ‘Arts faculty’, p. 36; Leonardo, p. 35; ‘Italian humanism in Poland’, pp. 165–6. 78 ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 31; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 152–4; Leonardo, p. 35; ‘Italian humanism in Poland’, pp. 166–7. 79 ‘Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’, pp. 201–3, 206–7; ‘Literary production’, pp. 240, 242–4.

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80 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 32–3; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 142–3; ‘Literary production’, p. 221. 81 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 33–4; ‘National consciousness’, p. 74; ‘Jadwiga’, pp. 424–6, 429; ‘Literary production’, pp. 234–5. 82 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 22–6; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 144–9; ‘Literary production’, pp. 221–5. 83 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 25–7; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 149–52; ‘Literary production’, pp. 226–7. 84 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 25–7; ‘Arts faculty’, p. 143, 149–50, 155; ‘Literary production’, pp. 227–30. 85 ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 31, 33–4; ‘National consciousness’, p. 74; ‘Jadwiga’, p. 429; ‘Literary production’, pp. 230–4. 86 ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 27–8, 31; ‘National consciousness’, pp. 72, 74; ‘Jadwiga’, p. 426; ‘Literary production’, pp. 231–3, 236–45. 87 ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, pp. 382–6; ‘Polish–German frontier’, pp. 151–3, 155–8, 160–4; ‘National consciousness’, pp. 67–71. 88 ‘Casimir the Great and the university’, pp. 238–41, 248; ‘Young Copernicus’, p. 20; ‘Arts faculty’, pp. 140–2; ‘Jan Długosz, 1480–1980’, pp. 17–19; ‘Urban development’, pp. 67–9, 74–7, 79–90, 93–4, 100–6; ‘Jadwiga’, pp. 427–9. 89 ‘Poland’, Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. J.R. Strayer, 13 vols. (New York, 1982–89), 9:716–31; ‘Poland’, Encyclopedia; Leonardo, pp. 29–43. 90 Nn. 30–3 above. 91 N. 39 above. 92 ‘Władysław Łokietek’, pp. 64–6, 67–8; ‘Polish western frontier’, pp. 7, 12–13, 19–20; ‘Casimir the Great and the university’, pp. 237, 240–3, 245; ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, pp. 387, 392–4; ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 27–8; ‘Learning’, pp. 144–5; ‘Papacy at Avignon’, pp. 193–5; ‘Jan Długosz, 1480–1980’, pp. 11–13; ‘Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’; ‘Jadwiga’, pp. 424–5; ‘Saints, studia, and scholarship’, pp. 231–4; ‘Literary production’, pp. 219, 231–3, 236–45. 93 ‘Papacy at Avignon’; ‘Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’; ‘Literary production’, pp. 236–45. 94 ‘Władysław Łokietek’, pp. 59–61, 64–6, 67–8, 71–4, 77; ‘Polish western frontier’, pp. 4–6, 9–15, 18, 21–2, 25–7; ‘Casimir the Great and the university’, p. 35; ‘Young Copernicus’, pp. 27–8; ‘Learning’, pp. 138–9; ‘Feudal Poland’, p. 45; ‘Banderia Prutenorum’; ‘Jan Długosz, 1480–1980’, pp. 4, 8–9, 14–15, 20; ‘Battle of Grunwald’; ‘Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’, pp. 191–8; ‘National consciousness’, pp. 70–3; ‘Literary production’, pp. 217–8, 237. 95 ‘Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’, pp. 204–5; ‘Literary production’, pp. 231–2. 96 ‘Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’, pp. 198–205. 97 Ibid, pp. 201–3; ‘Literary production’, pp. 240, 242–4. 98 ‘Cracow and the Conciliar Movement’, pp. 204–5. 99 ‘Literary production’, pp. 231–3, 239. 100 H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law (2nd ed., Oxford, 1994), pp. 123, 128–36. 101 ‘Foreword’, pp. 7–9. 102 A recent example is The Experience of Power in Medieval Europe, 950–1350, ed. R.F. Berkhofer III, A. Cooper and A. Kosto (Aldershot, 2005), a tribute to Thomas N. Bisson. 103 J. Kłoczowski, Młodsza Europa. Europa Środkowo-Wschodnia w kręgu cywilizacji chrześcijańskiej średniowiecza (Warsaw, 1998), on which metaphor

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Notes 219

104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

and its significance see Górecki, ‘Tworzenie’, pp. 511–14; Górecki, ‘A View from a Distance’, Law and History Review 21 (2003), 367–76, at 369–70. ‘Foreword’, p. 9. On that early spike of interest, see Górecki, ‘East colonization’, pp. 32–3, 43–52; Górecki, ‘Tworzenie’, pp. 510–1. R.C. Hoffmann, Land, Liberties, and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside: Agrarian Structures and Change in the Duchy of Wrocław (Philadelphia, PA, 1989). Bartlett and MacKay, Medieval Frontier Societies. ‘Polish–German Frontier’. Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices, ed. D. Abulafia and N. Berend (Aldershot, 2002); Borders, Barriers, and Ethnogenesis: Frontiers in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. F. Curta (Turnhout, 2005). ‘Feudal Poland’; ‘Poland’, Dictionary, pp. 716–23; ‘Urban development’, pp. 65–76, 78–89; ‘Polish–German frontier’, pp. 153–68. ‘Poland’, Encyclopedia; Leonardo, pp. 31–3, 36–9, 43. ‘Poland’, Dictionary, pp. 717–21; ‘Urban development’, pp. 67–8; ‘Polish– German frontier’, pp. 153, 158–9, 166–7. ‘Poland’, Dictionary, pp. 721–2; ‘Urban development’, pp. 66–9, 78–89; ‘Polish–German frontier’, p. 153. ‘Urban development’, pp. 70–3; ‘Polish–German frontier’, p. 153, n. 5. ‘Polish–German frontier’, pp. 154–5, 158. Ibid, pp. 155–8.

2 The city and the trade route in the early Middle Ages 1 Out of an extensive literature on this subject, the following are a few especially important positions: M. Lombard, ‘L’évolution urbaine pendant le Haut Moyen Age’, Annales E.S.C. 12 (1957), pp. 7, 26; Studien zu den Anfängen des europaeischen Städtewesens, ed. V.E. Maschke and J. Sydow (Sigmaringen, 1975), pp. 12ff.; Frühgeschichte der europäeischen Stadt, ed. V.H. Brackmann and J. Herrmann (Berlin, 1991), pp. 3, 137ff.; L. Leciejewicz, Miasta Słowian północnopołabskich (Wrocław, 1968), p. 18; E. Ennen, Die europäische Stadt des Mittelalters (Göttingen, 1972), pp. 23ff. 2 Isidore of Seville, ‘Historia Gothorum, Wandalorum, Sueborum’, MGH Auct. ant., vol. 11 (Berlin, 1894), p. 298. 3 W. Hensel, Archeologia o początkach miast słowiańskich (Wrocław, 1963), p. 10; J. Hines, ‘North-Sea trade and the proto-urban sequence’, in Origins of Medieval Towns in Temperate Europe (Archaeologia Polona 32 [1994]), p. 7. 4 See n. 3, and L. Leciejewicz, Nowa postać świata. Narodziny średniowiecznej cywilizacji europejskiej (Wrocław, 2000), p. 444. 5 Out of the very rich literature on this subject, let me cite, by way of example: Military Aspects of Scandinavian Society in a European Perspective, A.D. 1–1300 (Copenhagen, 1997), passim; Die Skandinavier und Europa 800– 1200 (Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica 26–7 [1994–5]), pp. 57, 73; J. Callmer, Urbanization in Scandinavia and the Baltic Region, c. A.D. 700–1100 (Copenhagen, 1960), pp. 3ff.; Society and Trade in the Baltic during the Viking Age, ed. V.S.-O. Lindquist and B. Radke, Acta Visbyensia 7 (Visby, 1985); K. Randsborg, ‘Les activites internationales des Vikings. Raids ou commerce?’ Annales E.S.C. 36 (1981) 862; Der Handel der Karoliner- und Wikingerzeit, ed.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

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K. Duewel, H. Jahnkuhn, H. Siems and D. Timpe (Göttingen, 1987); W. Duczko, Viking Rus’: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe (Leiden, 2004); H. Jahnkuhn, Die Wikingerzüge und kulturellen Strömungen im Ostseegebiet während des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1970), p. 1; K. Heller, Die Normannen in Osteuropa (Berlin, 1993), especially p. 91. This construct, coined by I. Wallerstein in ‘The West, capitalism and the modern world-system’, Review F. Braudel Center 15 (1992), p. 561, is also discussed by J.L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System, A.D. 1200– 1350 (New York 1989). Compare F. Braudel, Les structures du quotidien. Le possible et l’impossible (Paris 1979), p. 387. H. Pirenne, Mahomet et Charlemagne (Paris, 1937); on this subject, compare R. Hodges and D. Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne, and the Origins of Europe (London, 1983), p. 169. H. Samsonowicz, ‘Więzi społeczne we wczesnym średniowieczu polskim’, Społeczeństwo Polski średniowiecznej 10 (2004), 61ff. The following summary is based on toll schedules compiled between the tenth and the mid-thirteenth centuries, as follows: Raffelstetten: Codex diplomaticus Regni Bohemiae, vol. 1, ed. G. Friedrich (Prague, 1904), no. 31; Pomnichów: Zbiór ogólny przywilejów i spominków mazowieckich, ed. J.K. Kochanowski (Warsaw, 1919), no. 88; Oleśno: Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Śląska, ed. K. Maleczyński and A. Skowrońska, vol. 3 (Wrocław, 1964), no. 309; Trier: Historia Trevirensis diplomatica et pragmatica, vol. 1 (Vienna, 1750), no. 249; Koblenz: Mittelrheinisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 2 (Koblenz, 1856), no. 242; Gdańsk: Pommerellsches Urkundenbuch, ed. M. Perlbach (Danzig, 1881), no. 33; Szczecin: Codex Pomeraniae Diplomaticus, vol. 1, no 481. This information is supplemented by the story about the attempt to move the residence of the prince of the Rus’ to Pereiaslavets; privilege for the merchants of Regensburg; and information conveyed by Arab writers: Poviest’ vremennykh let, ed. F. Sielicki (Wrocław, 1968), p. 259; V. Vasileskii, ‘Drevnaia torgovla’, Archiv für Kunde der österrechischen Geschichtsquellen 10 (1853), 87; Źródła arabskie do dziejów Słowiańszczyzny, ed. T. Lewicki, vol. 1 (Wrocław 1956), especially p. 69, the account of Ibrahim ibn-Ya’qub. Zbiór ogólny przywilejów, no. 88. M.P. Lesnikov, Der hansische Pelzhandel zu Beginn des 15. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1961), p. 219; A.A. Khoronkevich, Torgovla Velikogo Novgoroda s Pribal’tikoi i zapadnoi Evropoi v XIV–XV vekakh (Moscow, 1963), pp. 45ff. D. Kattinger, ‘Tyska och gotländska köpmänhandel po Novgorod och i England under 1100–1200-tallet’, Gotläntsk Arkiv 64 (1992), 131; H. Samsonowicz, Późne średniowiecze miast nadbałtyckich (Warsaw, 1968), p. 20. H. Samsonowicz, ‘Le commerce de drap aux foires de Pologne et des pays limitrophes du XIVe au XVIe siècles’, in Produzione, commercio e consumo dei panni di lana (Florence, 1976), p. 613. See P. Urbańczyk’s research project concerning the mission of Saint Adalbert, supported by the Foundation for Polish Science (Fundacja Nauki Polskiej). Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik (Budapest, 1949), pp. 33ff. See n. 20 below, and the account of Ibrahim ibn-Ya’qub, n. 9. Hansisches Urkundenbuch, ed. K. Koehbaum, vol. 3 (Halle, 1876), no. 532–3. H. Samsonowicz, ‘Szlak bałtycko-czarnomorski w XIII–XIV wieku’, in Balticum, ed. Z.H. Nowak (Toruń, 1992), p. 286.

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Notes 221 19 Primary Chronicle, p. 259. 20 T. Lewicki, ‘Znaczenie handlowe Drohiczyna nad Bugiem we wczesnym średniowieczu i zagadkowe plomby ołowiane znalezione w tej miejscowości’, Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej 2 (1956), 289. 21 See the reference to ibn-Ya’qub in n. 9 above. 22 Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, ed. B. Schmeidler, MGH S.S. rer. Germ., vol. 2 (Hanover, 1917), bk. 1, ch. 60, and bk. 2, ch. 22. 23 Snorre Sturlason, Heimskringla, ed. F. Jonson (Copenhagen, 1909), p. 564. 24 Ibn-Hurdadbeh, ‘O Słowianach wschodnich’, in Lewicki, Źródła, p. 75. 25 G.v.d. Ropp, Kaufmannsleben zur Zeit der Hanse (Leipzig, 1907), p. 27. 26 See n. 20 above. 27 Grossmähren und die Anfänge der tschechoslowakische Staatlichkeit, ed. J. Poulik and B. Chropovsky (Prague, 1986); Leciejewicz, Nowa postać świata, p. 289; Velka Morava mezi východem a zapadem (Brno, 2001). 3 The archaeology of early medieval service settlements in Eastern Europe 1 In that sense, the phrase is the equivalent of what is known in the Englishlanguage archaeological literature as a ‘subservient’, ‘subordinate’ or ‘attendant’ settlement. See C. Loveluck, ‘Rural settlement hierarchy in the age of Charlemagne’, in Charlemagne: Empire and Society, ed. J. Story (Manchester, 2005), pp. 230–58. 2 R. Grodecki, ‘Książęca włość trzebnicka na tle organizacji majątków książęcych w Polsce XII w.’, Kwartalnik Historyczny 26–7 (1912–4), 7–8, 10. Grodecki’s position was criticised by Kazimierz Tymieniecki, who insisted instead that service settlements existed long before the emergence of the ducal or royal estates (that is, before the rise of the Piast state) and that their existence may be explained by economic, not political factors. See K. Tymieniecki, ‘Organizacja rzemiosła polskiego a geneza miast polskich’, Studia wczesnośredniowieczne 3 (1955), 9–86. 3 K. Buczek, Książęca ludność służebna w Polsce wczesnofeudalnej (Wrocław, 1958). 4 J. Stanislav, ‘Za slovenského sociálneho miestopisu’, Jazykovedný sborník 5 (1951), 58–95; P. Ratkoš, ‘Velkomoravské obdobie v slovenských dejinách’, Historický Časopis 6 (1958), 3–31. Others pushed the service settlements even farther into the past, arguing for a pre-Moravian, Avar-age origin. See R. Krajčović, ‘Počiatky feudalizmu u nás vo svetle jazykových faktov’, Historický Časopis 4 (1956), 232–3, and Krajčović, ‘Z historickej typológie služobnych osadných nazvov v Podunajsku’, in O počiatkoch slovenských dejín. Sbornik materiálov, ed. P. Ratkoš (Bratislava, 1965), pp. 205–52. 5 M. Kučera, ‘K problému ranostredovekej služobníckej organizácie na Slovensku’, Historický Časopis 12 (1964), 552–71; Kučera, ‘Anmerkungen zur Dienstorganisation in frühmittelalterlichen Ungarn’, Zborník Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenského – Historica 21 (1970), 113–27, especially p. 136. 6 B. Krzemieńska and D. Třeštík, ‘Služebná organizace v raně středověkých Čechách’, Československý Časopis Historický 12 (1964), 628; E. Dąbrowska, ‘Elementy słowiańskie w organizacji służebnej wczesnofeudalnych Węgier’, in Cultus et cognitio. Studia z dziejow średniowiecznej kultury, ed. A. Gieysztor and S.K. Kuczyński (Warsaw, 1976), pp. 107–14; K. Modzelewski, Chłopi

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w monarchii wczesnopiastowskiej (Wrocław, 1987), pp. 99–106. See also D. Třeštík and B. Krzemieńska, ‘Zur Problematik der Dienstleute im frühmittelalterlichen Böhmen’, in Siedlung und Verfassung Böhmens in der Frühzeit, ed. F. Graus and H. Ludat (Wiesbaden, 1967), pp. 70–98, especially p. 91: ‘Man sieht also, daß die Dienstorganisation auf die Staatsbildungen beschränkt ist, die man als “mitteleuropäisch” bezeichnen konnte.’ For an early critique of this idea, see F. Graus, ‘Böhmen im 9. bis 11. Jahrhundert (Von der “Stammesgesellschaft” zum mittelalterlichen “Staat”)’, in Gli Slavi occidentali e meridionali nell’alto medioevo, vol. 1 (Spoleto, 1983), pp. 195–6. To my knowledge, the first scholar to link East Central European service settlements to Carolingian models was László Erdélyi, in ‘Szent István-kori bencések hatása a fold-és kertművelésre meg az iparra’, in Emlékkönyv Szent István király halálának kilencszázadik évfordulóján, ed. J. Séredi, vol. 1 (Budapest, 1938), pp. 479–91. K. Modzelewski, ‘La division autarchique du travail à l’échelle d’un état: l’organisation “ministériale” en Pologne médiévale’, Annales E.S.C. 19 (1964), 1125– 38, especially p. 1127. See also Modzelewski, Organizacja gospodarcza państwa piastowskiego X–XIII wiek (Wrocław, 1975), p. 6. L.P. Słupecki, ‘Osady służebne pod Sandomierzem i Zawichostem’, Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej 40 (1992), 153–66. For Sandomierz as provincial capital, see A. Buko, ‘Origins of towns in Southern Poland: the example of medieval Sandomierz’, Archaeologia Polona 32 (1994), 171–84. Buko endorsed Słupecki’s conclusions in his ‘Wczesnośredniowieczna aglomeracja sandomierska. Początki i podstawy rozwoju’, in Centrum i zaplecze we wczesnośredniowiecznej Europie środkowej, ed. S. Moździoch (Wrocław, 1999), pp. 197–206. Modzelewski, ‘La division autarchique’, p. 1128. P. Górecki, ‘Viator to Ascriptitius: rural economy, lordship and the origins of serfdom in medieval Poland’, Slavic Review 42 (1983), 27. M. Biddle, Nonsuch Palace: The Material Culture of a Noble Restoration Household (Oxford, 2003). For Poland, see the pertinent remarks of P. Urbańczyk, ‘Early state formation in East Central Europe’, in East Central and Eastern Europe in the Early Middle Ages, ed. F. Curta (Ann Arbor, MI, 2005), pp. 139–42. D. Třeštík, ‘Bohemia’s iron year’, in Europe Around the Year 1000, ed. P. Urbańczyk (Warsaw, 2001), pp. 427–50; J. Strzelczyk, ‘Bohemia and Poland: two examples of successful Western Slavonic state-formation’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, ed. T. Reuter, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 514– 35; Gy. Kristó, Histoire de l’Hongrie médiévale (Rennes, 2000); Kristó, Early Tranylvania (895–1324) (Budapest, 2003). For the creation of regional centres of power as accompanied by the re-settling of population groups, see P.M. Barford, The Early Slavs: Culture and Society in Early Medieval Eastern Europe (Ithaca, NY, 2001), p. 266; Barford, ‘Silent centuries: the society and economy of the northwestern Slavs’, in Curta, East Central and Eastern Europe, p. 83. See also Z. Kurnatowska, ‘Centrum a zaplecze. Model wielkopolski’, in Moździoch, Centrum i zaplecze, p. 55. H. Ludat, Die ostdeutsche Kietze (Bernburg, 1936); W. Fritze, ‘Zur Frage der Kietzsiedlungen’, Jahrbuch der Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands 12 (1963), 286–90; J.M. Piskorski, ‘Brandenburskie Kietze (chyże) – instytucja pochodzenia słowiańskiego czy “produkt” władzy askańskiej?’ Przegląd Historyczny 79 (1988), 301–29. B. Krüger, Die Kietzsiedlungen im nördlichen Mitteleuropa. Beiträge der

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19

20 21 22 23

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Archäologie zu ihrer Altersbestimmung und Wesensdeutung (Berlin, 1962). For how irrelevant the archaeological evidence is for solving the problem of the specifically Slavic character of the Kietzsiedlungen, see Sebastian Brather, ‘“Germanische”, “slawische” und “deutsche” Sachkultur des Mittelalters. Probleme ethnischer Interpretation’, Ethnographisch-archäologische Zeitschrift 37 (1996), 207–8. For the lack of archaeological research on service settlements in Poland, see A. Buko, Archeologia Polski wczesnośredniowiecznej (Warsaw, 2005), pp. 301, 303. In Bohemia, the only service settlement so far excavated was subordinated to the Benedictine abbey of Sázava; see P. Sommer, ‘Eine Dienstsiedlung des Benediktiner-Klosters in Sázava’, in Hausbau und Raumstruktur früher Städte in Ostmitteleuropa, ed. H.-J. Brachmann and J. Klápšte (Prague, 1996), 142–7. Krzemieńska and Třeštík, ‘Zur Problematik der Dienstleute’, p. 74. The archaeological literature on Pliska is enormous and grows exponentially by the day. For Pliska as the first capital of medieval Bulgaria, see R. Rashev, ‘Pliska: the first capital of Bulgaria’, in Ancient Bulgaria: Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Ancient History and Archaeology of Bulgaria, University of Nottingham, 1981, ed. A.G. Poulter (Nottingham, 1983), pp. 255– 67. Despite the large volume of finds and a complicated stratigraphy, there is still no synthesis of the excavation results. For a quick orientation, see however R. Rashev and Ia. Dimitrov, Pliska. 100 godini arkheologicheski razkopki (Shumen, 1999). Conspicuously absent from that book is a chapter on the rural settlements in the hinterland of Pliska. For the results of recent field surveys, see T. Balabanov, ‘Novootkriti rannosrednovekovni selishta v okolnostite na Pliska’, Problemi na prabălgarskata istoriia i kultura 1 (1989), 275–90. J. Henning, ‘Vom Herrschaftszentrum zur städtischen Großsiedlung mit agrarischer Komponente. Archäologische Nachweise der Landwirtschaft aus dem frühmittelalterlichen Pliska,’ Pliska-Preslav 8 (2000), 78: the inhabitants of the tenth- to eleventh-century rural settlements excavated in the Outer Town area supplied food to the inhabitants of the rural manors found to the north-east and east of the Inner Town. Such settlements must therefore have been ‘Dienstsiedlungen’. See also Henning, ‘Ways of life in Eastern and Western Europe during the early Middle Ages: which way was “normal”?’ in Curta, East Central and Eastern Europe, p. 43. Ibid, p. 47. Ibid, p. 43, n. 12, rejecting the chronology of the settlement at Părvomaiska cheshma advanced by Balabanov in ‘Novootkriti rannosrednovekovni selishta’, pp. 281–2. F. Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 177–8, 218–20 (for a description of Preslav). Henning, ‘Ways of life’, p. 56, fig. 1.2; P. Petrova, ‘Kăm văprosa za istorikoarkheologicheskata topografiia na Vănshniia grad na Pliska po danni na aerometoda’, Pliska-Preslav 5 (1992), 69–70, specifically p. 69, fig. 7, and p. 70, fig. 10. P. Georgiev, ‘Ranosrednovekovnoto selishte v raiona na Goliamata bazilika v Pliska’, Pliska-Preslav 2 (1981), 190–7; Georgiev, ‘Periodizatsiia i khronologiia na zhivota i stroitelstvoto v raiona na Goliamata Bazilika v Pliska’, in Zwischen Byzanz und Abendland. Pliska, der östliche Balkanraum und Europa im Spiegel der Frühmittelalterarchäologie, ed. J. Henning (Frankfurt am Main, 1999), p. 57; R. Vasilev, ‘Novi danni za rannosrednovekovnoto selishte v raiona na Goliamoto bazilika v Pliska’, Pliska-Preslav 7 (1995), 27–33.

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25 S. Mikhailov, ‘Arkheologicheski materiali ot Pliska’, Izvestiia na Arkheologicheskiia Institut 20 (1955), 49–181; Mikhailov, ‘Razkopki v Pliska prez 1959–1961 g.’, Izvestiia na Arkheologicheskiia Institut 26 (1963), 5–46. See also Mikhailov and A. Milchev, ‘Razkopki v Pliska prez 1955 g.’, Izvestiia na Arkheologicheskiia Institut 22 (1959), 263–90. 26 R. Vasilev, ‘Rannosrednovekovni selishta VIII–X v. v raiona na Pliska’, in Vtori mezhdunaroden kongres po bălgaristika, Sofiia, 23 mai–3 iuni 1986 g. Section 6: Bălgarskite zemi v drevnostta Bălgariia prez srednovekovieto, ed. Kh. Khristov et al. (Sofia, 1987), p. 401. 27 S. Stanilov, Ia. Dimitrov and I. Iankulov, ‘Prouchvane na selishteto, iugoiztochno ot Vătreshniia grad na Pliska’, Problemi na prabălgarskata istoriia i kultura 2 (1991), 124–37; Stanilov and Dimitrov, ‘Ranniat tip zhilishcha v selishteto iugoiztochno ot Vătreshniia grad na Pliska’, in Henning, Zwischen Byzanz und Abendland, pp. 41–6. The settlement has been coin-dated to the reign of Nicephorus I (802–11), but the stratigraphical (and, as a consequence, chronological) relationship between houses and palisades remains unclear. 28 P. Georgiev, ‘Selishtnata struktura na Aboba-Pliska’, Arkheologiia 41 (2000), 16–30. 29 P. Georgiev, ‘Vodosnabdiavane i kanalizatsiia v dvorcoviia centăr na Pliska’, Pliska-Preslav 5 (1992), 77–104; S. Vaklinov and M. Vaklinova, ‘Goliamoto vodokhranilishte na Pliska (Razkopki na Stancho Vaklinov prez 1961 g.)’, Pliska-Preslav 6 (1993), 5–21. 30 L. Doncheva-Petkova, ‘Peshti za dobivane na zheliazo krai zapadnata krepostna stena na Pliska’, Pliska-Preslav 7 (1995), 40. See also Doncheva-Petkova, ‘Za metalodobiva i metaloobrabotvaneto v Pliska’, Arkheologiia 22 (1980), 27–36. 31 L. Doncheva-Petkova and Z. Zlatinova, ‘Stăklarska rabotilnica krai zapadnata krepostna stena v Pliska’, Arkheologiia 20 (1978), 37–48; K.H. Wedepohl, ‘Die Glasherstellung im 8./9. Jahrhundert am Asar-dere in Pliska im Vergleich mit karolingischen Glas des Frankenreiches’, in Henning, Zwischen Byzanz und Abendland, pp. 93–4. 32 Henning, ‘Ways of life’, p. 44. 33 P. Ettel, ‘Karlburg, ein frühmittelalterlicher Zentralort und Handelsplatz am Main, Süddeutschland’, in Schutz des Kulturerbes unter Wasser. Veränderungen europäischer Lebenskultur durch Fluss- und Seehandel. Beiträge zum internationalen Kongress für Unterwasserarchäologie (IKUWA 99), 18.–21. Februar 1999 in Sassnitz auf Rügen, ed. H. von Schmettow (Lübstorf, 2000), pp. 213–20. 34 P. Donat, Gebesee, Klosterhof und königliche Reisestation des 10.–12. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1999). 35 A. Verhulst, The Carolingian Economy (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 73–6 (textiles) and 76–9 (metalworking); H. Steuer, ‘The beginnings of urban economies among the Saxons’, in The Continental Saxons from the Migration Period to the Tenth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. D.H. Green and F. Siegmund (Woodbridge, 2003), p. 175. 36 M. Federici-Schenardi and R. Fellner, ‘L’habitat rural du Haut Moyen Age de Develier-Courtételle (Jura, Suisse)’, in Rural Settlements in Medieval Europe: Papers of the ‘Medieval Europe Brugge 1997’ Conference 11, ed. G. de Boe and F. Verhaeghe (Zellik, 1997), p. 125. 37 Loveluck, ‘Rural settlement hierarchy’, p. 236. 38 Stanilov and Dimitrov, ‘Ranniat tip zhilishcha’, p. 42. This is in sharp contrast to

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40 41

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the late tenth- and early eleventh-century settlement excavated near the northern gate of the Inner Town, which produced 22 houses and five silos, all grouped at a distance from house 19. See T. Balabanov, ‘Zhilishcha pokrai severnata i iztochnata krepostna stena v Pliska’, Pliska-Preslav 5 (1992), 156. See for example Z. Văzharova, Srednovekovnoto selishte s. Garvăn, Silistrenski okrăg (VI–XI v.) (Sofia, 1986). The phrase ‘central place’ is used here in the sense established by the central place theory, derived by economic geographers for the spatial analysis of retail distribution among centres in a market economy. The central-place model had a number of applications in archaeology, but has currently been abandoned in favour of more sophisticated models. For a brief description, see C.L. Crumley, ‘Three locational models: an epistemological assessment of anthropology and archaeology’, Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 2 (1979), 151–7. For an East European application, see S. Moździoch, ‘Miejsca centralne Polski wczesnopiastowskiej. Organizacja przestrzeni we wczesnym średniowieczu jako źródło poznania systemu społeczno-gospodarczego’, in Moździoch, Centrum i zaplecze, pp. 21–51. Kurnatowska, in ‘Centrum a zaplecze’, p. 55, uses Pohansko as an analogy for service settlements surrounding the regional centres of power of the early Piast polity in Poland. Fortification: B. Dostál, Břeclav-Pohansko. Velkomoravský velmožsky dvorec (Brno, 1975). Cemeteries: F. Kalousek, Břeclav-Pohansko I. Velkomoravské pohrebište u kostela (Brno, 1971); J. Vignatiová, ‘Břeclav-Pohansko-jihozápadní předhradi (vyzkum 1960–1962). Kostrové hroby’, Sborník prací filozofické Fakulty Brnenské Univerzity. Rada archeologicko-klasická 26–7 (1977–8), 135–54. For the interpretation of the site, see J. Vignatiová, ‘Zum Stand der Erforschung des Burgwalls Břeclav-Pohansko’, in Frühmittelalterliche Machtzentren in Mitteleuropa. Mehrjährige Grabungen und ihre Auswertung. Symposion Mikulčice, 5.–9. September 1994, ed. Č. Staňa and L. Poláček (Brno, 1996), pp. 261–6; J. Macháček, ‘Rane středověké Pohansko u Břeclavi. Munitio, palatium, nebo emporium moravských panovníku?’ Archeologické Rozhledy 57 (2005), 100–38. B. Dostál, ‘Ein handwerkliches Areal des 9. Jhs. in Břeclav-Pohansko (Mähren)’, in Actes du XIIe Congrès international d’études préhistoriques et protohistoriques. Bratislava, 1–7 septembre 1991, vol. 4, ed. J. Pavuj (Bratislava, 1993), pp. 220–5. E. Opravil, ‘Archäobotanische Funde aus dem Burgwall Pohansko bei Břeclav’, in Studien zum Burgwall von Mikulčice, ed. L. Poláček, vol. 4 (Brno, 2000), pp. 165–9. B. Dostál, ‘Vývoj obydlí, sídlišt’ a sídlištní struktury a jižní Morave v dobe slovanské (6.–10. století)’, in Vývoj obydlí, sídlišt’ a sídlištní struktury a jižní Morave. XVI Mikulovské sympozium, 1986 (Prague, 1987), p. 24. J. Macháček and M. Kučera, ‘GIS and the excavation of the early medieval centre in Pohansko, Czech Republic’, in Enter the Past: The E-way into the Four Dimensions of Cultural Heritage. CAA 2003. Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology – Proceedings of the 31st Conference, Vienna, Austria, April 2003 (Oxford, 2004), pp. 246–9. See also P. Dresler and J. Macháček, ‘The hinterland of an early medieval centre at Pohansko near Břeclav’, in Das wirtschaftliche Hinterland der frühmittelalterlichen Zentren. Internationale Tagungen in Mikulčice VI, ed. L. Poláček (Brno, forthcoming). I am grateful to Jiří Macháček for permission to see the manuscript of this paper before its publication.

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46 B. Kavánová and P. Vitula, ‘Břeclav-Poštorná, pohřebište a sídlište střední doby hradištní’, in Pravěké a slovanské osídlení Moravy. Sborník k 80. narozeninám Josefa Poulíka, ed. V. Nekuda (Brno, 1990), pp. 327–52; J. Macháček, ‘Zpráva o archeologickém výzkumu Břeclav-Líbivá 1995–1998’, in Konference Pohansko 1999. 40 let od zahájení výzkumu slovanského hradiska Břeclav-Pohansko. Břeclav-Pohansko 3–4. VI. 1999, ed. Z. Měřínský (Brno, 2001), pp. 39–62. 47 P. Ettel, ‘Karlburg – Entwicklung eines königlich-bischöflichen Zentralortes am Main mit Burg und Talsiedlung vom 7. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert’, Château Gaillard 18 (1998), 83. 48 Die ‘Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum’ und der Brief des Erzbischofs Theotmar von Salzburg, ed. F. Lošek (Hanover, 1997), p. 122. For ninth-century Zalavár, see A.Cs. Sós, ‘Archäologische Beiträge zur Frage der Gestaltung der Zentrale des Pribina-Besitzes’, Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 17 (1965), 87–93; Sós, ‘Zalavár-Mosaburg, das befestigte Herrschaftsund Kulturzentrum des 9. Jahrhunderts in Pannonien’, Kirilo-metodievski studii 4 (1987), 148–59. See also B.M. Szőke, ‘The Carolingian civitas Mosapurc (Zalavár)’, in Europe’s Centre Around A.D. 1000, ed. A. Wieczorek and H.-M. Hinz (Stuttgart, 2000), pp. 140–2. For Pribina, see P. Štih, ‘Priwina: slawischer Fürst oder fränkischer Graf?’ in Ethnogenese und Überlieferung. Ausgewandte Methode der Frühmittelalterforschung, ed. K. Brunner and B. Merta (Vienna and Munich, 1994), pp. 209–22. For the date of Louis the German’s grant, see E.J. Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–876 (Ithaca, NY, 2006), p. 85, n. 135. 49 L. Vándor, ‘Die Siedlungen des 7.–8. Jahrhunderts im südlichen Teil des Kisbalatons (Klein-Plattensee)’, in Interaktionen der mitteleuropäischen Slawen und anderer Ethnika im 6.–10. Jahrhundert. Symposium Nové Vozokany 3.–7. Oktober 1983, ed. P. Šalkovský (Nitra, 1984), pp. 273–4. 50 B.M. Szőke, ‘Karolingerzeitliche Gräberfelder I–II von Garabonc-Ofalu’, Antaeus 21 (1992), 158. 51 R. Müller, ‘Karoling udvarház és temetője Zalaszabar-Borjuállás szigetről’, in Honfoglalás és régészet (A honfoglalásrol sok szemmel I.), ed. L. Kovács (Budapest, 1994), pp. 91–8. 52 N.I. Petrov, ‘Ladoga, Ryurik’s Stronghold, and Novgorod: fortifications and power in early medieval Russia’, in Curta, East Central and Eastern Europe, pp. 121–35. 53 E.N. Nosov, ‘Ein Herrschaftsgebiet entsteht. Die Vorgeschichte der nördlichen Rus’ und Novgorods’, in Novgorod. Das mittelalterliche Zentrum und sein Umland im Norden Rußlands, ed. M. Müller-Wille, V.L. Ianin, and E.A. Rybina (Neumünster, 2001), p. 30, fig. 12. 54 S.N. Orlov, ‘Slavianskoe poselenie na beregu r. Prost’ okolo Novgoroda’, Sovetskaia Arkheologiia 2 (1972), 127–38. 55 A. Alsleben, ‘Angebot und Nachfrage. Frühmittelalterliche Nahrungswirtschaft im Umland von Novgorod’, in Müller-Wille, Ianin and Rybina, Novgorod, pp. 361, 363–4, 367. 56 Nosov, ‘Ein Herrschaftsgebiet entsteht’, pp. 36–40; N.I. Petrov, ‘O kharaktere kontaktov etnosotsial’nykh grupp naseleniia Povolkhoviia i Priil’men’ia v kontse I tys. n. e. Klad khoziaistvennykh orudii na gorodishche Kholopy Gorodok’, in Kul’turnye vzaimodeistviia v usloviiakh kontaktnykh zon. Tezisy konferentsii molodykh uchenykh Sankt-Peterburga i SNG, ed. V.N. Masson and D.G. Savvinov (St. Petersburg, 1997), pp. 62–4.

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Notes 227 57 Nosov, ‘Ein Herrschaftsgebiet entsteht’, p. 30. 58 Ibid, pp. 32, 34. 59 There is an increasing body of literature about archaeology in Communist Eastern Europe. For generalising from the Polish case, see P.M. Barford, ‘Paradigms lost: Polish archaeology and post-war politics’, Archaeologia Polona 31 (1993), 257–70; S. Tabaczyński, ‘A future for the Marxist paradigm in Central European archaeology? The Polish case’, In Whither Archaeology? Papers in Honour of Evžen Neustupný, ed. M. Kuna and N. Venclová (Prague, 1995), pp. 69–81; Tabaczyński, ‘From the history of Eastern and Western archaeological thought: an introduction to discussion’, in Archäologien Europas. Geschichte, Methoden und Theorien, ed. P.F. Biehl, A. Gramsch and A. Marciniak (Münster, 2000), pp. 67–76. 60 See, for example, V. Goncharov, ‘Posad i sil’s’ki poselennia kolo Raykovets’kogo gorodyshcha’, Arkheologichni pam‘iatky URSR 1 (1949), 31–46. The approach remains popular with many archaeologists in post-Communist Eastern Europe. See B.O. Timoshchuk, ‘O sotsial’ne sushchnost Bol’shogo Borshevskogo gorodishcha’, in Arkheologiia i istoriia iugo-vostoka Drevnei Rusi (materialy nauchnoi konferentsii), ed. A.Z. Vinnikov, A.D. Priakhin and M.D. Tsybin (Voronezh, 1993), pp. 61–4; J. Bubeník, ‘Zur Problematik der befestigten Siedlungen des älteren Frühmittelalters (7./8.–9. Jahrhundert) in Böhmen’, in Život v archeologii středověku. Sborník příspěvku venovaných Miroslavu Richterovi a Zdenku Smetánkovi, ed. J. Kubková et al. (Prague, 1997), pp. 93–100. 61 Loveluck, ‘Rural settlement hierarchy’, p. 255. A good illustration of a different focus of research is the non-royal, elite settlement at Petegem (Flanders). Much attention has been paid to the large rectangular hall with tiled roof and ancillary buildings, as well as to the adjacent church with rectangular nave and square apse. By contrast, it is only assumed that the site had subservient settlements nearby, and none of them have been excavated. See D. Callebaut, ‘Résidences fortifiées et centres administratifs dans la vallée de l’Escaut (IXe–XIe siècle)’, in Archéologie des villes dans le Nord-Ouest de l’Europe (VIIe–XIIIe siècle). Actes du IVe Congrès International d’Archéologie Médiévale, ed. P. Demolon, H. Galinié, and F. Verhaeghe (Douai, 1994), pp. 95–7. 62 For the Carolingian origin of East-European service settlements, see above, n. 6. For recourse to East-European archaeology for illustrating historical conclusions pertaining to West European phenomena, see A. Verhulst, The Rise of Cities in North-West Europe (Cambridge and Paris, 1999), p. 117. 63 For Pliska during the late tenth and eleventh century, see L. Doncheva-Petkova, ‘Pliska i neinata istoriia’, in Părvoprestolna Pliska. 100 godini arkheologicheski prouchvaniia, ed. J. Henning and L. Doncheva-Petkova (Frankfurt am Main and Sofia, 1999), pp. 7–17; Doncheva-Petkova, ‘Pliska i pechenezite’, Pliska-Preslav 9 (2003), 244–58. 4 Oath-taking in Hungary 1 For an overview, see J. Spurr, ‘A profane history of early modern oaths’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th Series 11 (2001), 37–63; despite the title, this article also treats medieval evidence; R. Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal (Oxford, 1986), pp. 30–2; Le serment, ed. R. Verdier, vol. 1: Signes et fonctions, and vol. 2: Théories et devenir (Paris, 1991) contains many relevant articles for the medieval period, as

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well as overview articles on various aspects of the oath. 2 The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000, ed. T. Head and R. Landes (Ithaca, NY, 1992), offers multiple examples; S. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994), p. 19; a reinterpretation of the oath of fidelity: F.L. Cheyette, ‘Some reflections on violence, reconciliation and the “feudal revolution”’, in Conflict in Medieval Europe: Changing Perspectives on Society and Culture, ed. W.C. Brown and P. Górecki (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 243–64, at 259–63; Reynolds, ‘Afterthoughts on Fiefs and Vassals’, Haskins Society Journal 9 (1997), 1–15. 3 S. Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900–1300 (2nd ed., Oxford, 1997), pp. 25–6, 33; numerous cases in Brown and Górecki, Conflict in Medieval Europe, pp. 131, 154, 158, 167–8, 172, 185, 209. Overview on perjury in law: H. Hattenhauer, ‘Der gefälschte Eid’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter. Internationaler Kongreß der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, München 16–19 September 1986, vol. 2: Gefälschte Rechtstexte der bestrafte Fälscher, MGH Schriften, 33.2 (Hanover, 1988), pp. 661–89. 4 J.A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law (London, 1995, repr. 1996), pp. 131–2. 5 E.g. oath with peers: Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, p. 133. 6 Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water, pp. 135–6. 7 J.-C. Schmitt, La raison des gestes dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris, 1990), pp. 16–17, 62, 98–100; also F. Billacois, ‘Le corps jureur. Pour une phénoménologie historique des gestes du serment’, in Verdier, Le serment, 1:93–101. 8 R.J. Hexter, Equivocal Oaths and Ordeals in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, MA, 1975); Hattenhauer, ‘Der gefälschte Eid’, pp. 667–71, on successful cases of deceit in literature; Schmitt, La raison des gestes, p. 323, on the punishment of such an action in hagiography. 9 Spurr, ‘Profane history’. 10 E.g. E. Cameron, Waldenses: Rejections of Holy Church in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 2000), pp. 34, 46, 75, 84–6, 90, 105–7, 159; A. Vauchez, ‘Le refus du serment chez les hérétiques médiévaux’, in Verdier, Le serment, 2:257–63. 11 Spurr, ‘Profane history’, p. 38. 12 Schmitt, La raison des gestes, pp. 16–17, 62, 98–100; The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe, ed. W. Davies and P. Fouracre (Cambridge, 1986), passim, on the uses and forms of oaths; J. Gaudemet, ‘Le serment dans le droit canonique médiéval’, in Verdier, Le serment, 2:63–75, on canonical regulations. 13 H. Göckenjan, ‘Eskü és szerződés az altaji népeknél’, in Honfoglalás és Néprajz, ed. L. Kovács and A. Paládi-Kovács (Budapest, 1997), pp. 333–45, lists examples from the seventh century on. 14 S.C. Rowell, ‘A pagan’s word: Lithuanian diplomatic procedure 1200–1385’, Journal of Medieval History 18 (1992), 145–60, at 147–8. 15 For both: M. Stein-Wilkeshuis, ‘Scandinavians swearing oaths in tenth-century Russia: pagans and Christians’, Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002), 155–68. 16 Rowell, ‘A pagan’s word’, pp. 148–9. 17 Ibid, pp. 153–5. 18 Ibid, pp. 151–2. 19 Göckenjan, ‘Eskü és szerződés’, p. 336. 20 J.V.A. Fine, Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to

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the Late Twelfth Century (Ann Arbor, MI, 1983, repr. 2000), p. 106; Göckenjan, ‘Eskü és szerződés’, pp. 336–7. Stein-Wilkeshuis, ‘Scandinavians swearing oaths’; J. Shepard, ‘Rus’’, in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy, ed. N. Berend (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 369–416, at 375–7. Text in English translation: The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text, trans. S. Hazzard Cross and O.P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Cambridge, MA, 1953), p. 77. I thank Jonathan Shepard for the reference to the primary source. J. Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 1988, new ed. 1996), p. 99. A. Metcalf, Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily: Arabic Speakers and the End of Islam (London, 2003), p. 37. E.g. J. Boswell, The Royal Treasure: Muslim Communities under the Crown of Aragon in the Fourteenth Century (New Haven, CT, 1977), p. 122; Y. Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2 vols. (Philadelphia and Jerusalem, 1992), 1:88, 117, 148. For an overview on oaths in Hungarian litigation, see I. Hajnik, A magyar bírósági szervezet és perjog az Árpád- és a vegyes-házi királyok alatt (Budapest, 1899), pp. 276–341. For a full analysis, see N. Berend, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in Medieval Hungary, c. 1000–c. 1300 (Cambridge, 2001). ‘In his autem nuptiis X Comanorum convenerunt iurantes super canem gladio bipartitum iuxta eorum consuetudinem, quod terram Hungarorum tamquam regis fideles contra Thartaros et barbaras nationes obtinebunt.’ H. Marczali, Magyar Történelmi Tár (1878), p. 376; compare, with with some variations, G. Istványi, ‘XIII. századi följegyzés IV. Bélának 1246-ban a tatárokhoz küldött követségéről’, Századok 72 (1938), 270–2; Berend, At the Gate of Christendom, pp. 98–9. D. Sinor, ‘Taking an oath over a dog cut in two’, in Altaic Religious Beliefs and Practices: Proceedings of the 33rd Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference, Budapest June 24–29, 1990, ed. G. Bethlenfalvy et al. (Budapest, 1992), pp. 301–5; P.B. Golden, ‘The dogs of the medieval Quïpčaqs’, in Varia Eurasiatica. Festschrift für Professor András Róna-Tas (Szeged, 1991), pp. 45–55; P.B. Golden, ‘Wolves, dogs and Quipčaq religion’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 50 (1997), 87–97, repr. in Golden, Nomads and their Neighbours in the Russian Steppe: Turks, Khazars and Quipchaqs (Aldershot, 2003), chap. XIV; Göckenjan, ‘Eskü és szerződés’, pp. 338–9; Berend, At the Gate of Christendom, p. 99. A. Theiner, Vetera Monumenta Historica Hungariam Sacram Illustrantia, vol. 1: 1216–1352 (Rome, 1859), pp. 339–41, at 340, no. 556. J. Ziegler, ‘Reflections on the Jewry oath in the Middle Ages’, in Christianity and Judaism, ed. D. Wood, Studies in Church History 29 (Oxford, 1992), pp. 209–20; Berend, At the Gate of Christendom, p. 80. ‘Das Judenprivilegium Bélas IV vom Jahre 1251’, ed. A. Büchler, in Jubilee Volume in Honour of Prof. Bernhard Heller on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. A. Scheiber (Budapest, 1941), pp. 139–46, at 143; cf. M.T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (2nd ed., Oxford, 1993), p. 139, on Jews taking an oath on their roll (super rotulum suum). A. Scheiber, ‘Recent additions to the medieval history of Hungarian Jewry’, Historia Judaica 14 (1952), 145–58, at 154; E. Winkler, ‘A zsidó eskü

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Magyarországon’, Magyar Zsidó Szemle 44 (1927), 29–47; Werbőczy István Hármaskönyve (Budapest, 1897, repr. Pécs, 1989), p. 420, part 3, title 36; Berend, At the Gate of Christendom, p. 80. Az időrendbe szedett váradi tüzesvaspróbalajstrom (Regestrum Varadinense), ed. J. Karácsonyi and S. Borovszky (Budapest, 1903), pp. 203, 229, 276; Berend, At the Gate of Christendom, pp. 96–7. Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water, pp. 53–4, discusses Jews and draws the conclusion that such a Christian sacral proof would be meaningless in relation to non-Christians. On oath-helpers, see Davies and Fouracre, Settlement of Disputes, p. 220. The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary 1000–1301, ed. and trans. J.M. Bak, Gy. Bónis and J.R. Sweeney, The Laws of Hungary, series 1, vol. 1 (Bakersfield, CA, 1989), p. 5, ch. 17. Hajnik, A magyar bírósági szervezet, pp. 322–8. Ibid. Ibid, pp. 328–41. Az esztergomi főegyháznak okmánytára (Codex diplomaticus primatialis ecclesiae Strigoniensis), ed. F. Knauz, 2 vols. (Esztergom, 1863–6), vol. 2: Az esztergomi főkáptalan okmánytára, pp. 44–5, no. 59. M. Rady, Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary (Houndmills, 2000), p. 48; Hajnik, A magyar bírósági szervezet, pp. 334–5. Monumenta Ecclesiae Strigoniensis, ed. F. Knauz, 3 vols. (Esztergom, 1874– 1924), 2:233, no. 212. Codex diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis, ed. Gy. Fejér, 11 vols. (Buda, 1829–44), vol. 4, pt. 2, pp. 299–303, at 302 (1255). Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, vol. 8, pt. 6, pp. 180–1 (1341). At least during the fourteenth century, when explicit evidence appears: Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, vol. 9, pt. 2, pp. 343–55, at 352 (1354), and vol. 9, pt. 4, pp. 269–85, at 279 (1370). Árpádkori új okmánytár (Codex diplomaticus Arpadianus continuatus), ed. G. Wenzel, 12 vols. (Pest, 1860–74, repr. Pápa, 2001–3), 3:34–6, no. 27. Wenzel, Árpádkori új okmánytár, 1:306–7, no. 187. Theiner, Vetera Monumenta, p. 339. Ibid, pp. 341–4, no. 557, at p. 342. The oath is mentioned, but without detailed analysis, in L. Rácz, ‘Rulers’ oaths in the Kingdom of Hungary and in the Principality of Transylvania’, in Verdier, Le serment, 1:425–37, at 425, 432. Gy. Pauler, A magyar nemzet története az Árpádok korában, 2 vols. (2nd ed., Budapest, 1899, repr. Szeged, 1984), 2:365. Theiner, Vetera Monumenta, p. 340. Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, vol. 10, pt. 1, pp. 463–6, at 464 (1388), and similarly (manus suas ad pectus ponendo) Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, vol. 9, pt. 4, pp. 269–85, at 280 (1370). This was the usual practice in medieval Europe from the thirteenth century on: Billacois, ‘Le corps jureur’, p. 95. Rácz, ‘Rulers’ oaths in the Kingdom of Hungary’; E. Bartoniek, ‘A koronázási eskü fejlődése 1526-ig’, Századok 51 (1917), 5–44; Bartoniek, ‘A magyar királlyáavatáshoz’, Századok 57–8 (1923–4), 247–304, at 256–67. Lexicon Latinitatis Medii Aevi Hungariae, vol. 4, ed. I. Boronkai and K. Szovák (Budapest, 1993), p. 80, s.v. fides.

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Notes 231 5 Conrad II’s Theatrum Rituale 1 See J. Barrow, ‘Playing by the rules: conflict management in the tenth and the eleventh century’ (review article), Early Medieval Europe 12 (2002), 391, 396; P. Buc, ‘Text and ritual in ninth-century political culture: Rome, 864’, in Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography, ed. G. Althoff, J. Fried and P.J. Geary (Cambridge, 2002), p. 138, n. 50; Buc, ‘Nach 754. Warum weniger die Handelnden selbst als eher die Chronisten das politische Ritual erzeugten – und warum es niemandem auf die wahre Geschichte ankam’, in Die Macht des Königs. Herrschaft in Europa von Frühmittelalter bis in die Neuzeit, ed. B. Jussen (Munich, 2005), pp. 35ff. 2 See, among others, whole strings of such examples in Formen und Funktionen öffentlicher Kommunikation im Mittelalter, ed. G. Althoff, Vorträge und Forschungen 51 (Sigmaringen, 2001). For a different view, see H. Kamp, ‘Tugend, Macht und Ritual. Politisches Verhalten beim Saxo Grammaticus’, in Zeichen – Rituale – Werte, ed. G. Althoff and C. Witthöft (Münster, 2004), pp. 179–200. 3 H.K. Schulze, Königsherrschaft und Königsmythos. Herrscher und Volk im politischen Denken des Hochmittelalters – Festschrift für Berent Schwineköper zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag, ed. H. Patze (Sigmaringen, 1983), pp. 177– 86; Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi II imperatoris, ed. H. Bresslau, MGH SS, vol. 61 (Hanover, 1915, repr. 1993), pp. 26–7, ch. 5. 4 See, among others, W. Trillmich, Kaiser Konrad II und seine Zeit, ed. (from the author’s manuscript) O. Bardong (Bonn, 1991), p. 153; F.R. Erkens, Konrad II. Herrschaft und Reich des ersten Salierkaisers (Regensburg, 1998), pp. 45–6; H. Wolfram, Konrad II, 990–1039. Kaiser dreier Reiche (Munich, 2000), pp. 66ff; G. Althoff, ‘Demonstration und Inszenierung. Spielregeln der Kommunikation in mittelalterlicher Öffentlichkeit’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 27 (1993), 27–50, repr. in Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter. Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt, 1997), pp. 233ff; Althoff, ‘The variability of rituals in the Middle Ages’, in Althoff et al, Medieval Concepts, pp. 77ff.; Althoff, Die Macht der Rituale. Symbolik und Herrschaft im Mittelalter (Darmstadt, 2003), pp. 88 ff; Althoff, ‘Herrschaftsausübung durch symbolisches Handeln oder: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Herrschaft durch Zeichen’, in Comunicare e significare nell’alto medioevo – Spoleto, 15–20 April 2004, Atti delle settimane 52 (Spoleto, 2005), vol. 1, pp. 376–7; H. Keller, ‘Die Idee der Gerechtigkeit und Praxis königlicher Rechtswahrung im Reich der Ottonen’, in La giustizia nell’alto medioevo, secoli IX–XI – Spoleto, 11–17 April 1996, Atti delle settimane 44 (Spoleto 1997), pp. 125–6; L. Körntgen, Königsherrschaft und Gottes Gnade. Zu Kontext und Funktion sakraler Vorstellungen in Historiographie und Bildzeugnissen der ottonisch frühsalischen Zeit (Berlin, 2001), p. 144. 5 Schulze, Königsherrschaft, p. 180. In the ‘pre-ritual’ period of the historiography, this event also drew the attention of E. Kleinschmidt, Herrscherdarstellung. Zur Disposition mittelalterlichen Aussageverhaltens, untersucht an Texten über Rudolf I. von Habsburg (Bern, 1974), p. 47, where he concluded: ‘Der Bericht . . . stellt den Interpreten vor das Problem, inwieweit hier ein typologischmimetisches Realhandeln Konrads oder eine fictionale Stilisierung im Umkreis topischen Darstellungsverhaltens durch den Autor Wipo vorliegt, oder ob beide Aspekte ineinander übergehen. Eine Entscheidung sicherer Art dürfte darüber nicht möglich sein.’ Cf. Althoff, Die Macht der Rituale, p. 88.

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6 This point has been noted by W. Berschin, in Biographie und Epochenstil im lateinischen Mittelalter, vol. 4, pt. 1 (Stuttgart, 1999), p. 185. 7 Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi, p. 27. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid, and chap. 3, the beginning: ‘Peracta electione, regem sequi Moguntiam, ut ibi sacratissimam unctionem acciperet, cum maxima alacritate omnes properabant.’ Compare the translation by W. Trillmilch, ‘Gesta Chuonradi II imp.’, in Quellen des 9. und 11. Jahrhunderts zur Geschichte der hamburgischen Kirche und Reiches (Berlin, 1961), p. 547: ‘Nach Abschluss der Wahlhandlung hatten es alle eilig, den König in hoher Freude nach Mainz zu geleiten.’ Haste on the part of the ruler-elect’s entourage is conveyed even more explicitly by the following translation: ‘Nach der Wahl machten sich alle in grösster Eile auf, um dem König nach Mainz zu folgen’ (Wolfram, Konrad II, p. 66). 10 ‘The world which is represented – or referred to – by a text is . . . a social construct, and not the actual face of (that “truthful”, meta-human) reality; it is a deceptive image, a mirage created by rhetorical devices and by the conventions of language.’ R. Nycz, ‘Słowo wstępne’, in Dekonstrukcja w badaniach literackich (wybór tekstów), ed. Nycz (Gdańsk, 2000), p. 10. The author is here discussing a basic assumption of Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction theory. 11 In The Variability of Rituals (p. 78), Althoff observes that ‘For an unknown reason, the rituals of pleading for mercy, justice, and forgiveness were added to the ceremony of coronation . . . We think that this is precisely why these rituals were placed right here: in order to create a “high tension” between the protagonist’s most pressing priority of the moment, and his obligation.’ 12 R. Collins, Charlemagne (London, 1998), p. 144. 13 Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, ed. E.S. Firchow (Stuttgart, 1994), p. 52, ch. 28. 14 1 Kings 10:22. 15 For these examples, see Collins, Charlemagne, p. 144; J. Banaszkiewicz, ‘Königliche Karrieren von Hirten, Gärtner und Pflügern. Zu einem mittelalterlichen Erzählschema vom Erwerb der Königsherrschaft (die Sagen von Johannes Agnus, Přemysl, Ine, Wamba und Dagobert)’, Saeculum 3–4 (1982), 269–74. 16 Thegan, Gesta Hludowici imperatoris, ed. E. Tremp, MGH SS rer. Germ., vol. 64 (Hanover, 1995), pp. 188ff, chs. 8–13; E. Tremp, Studien zu den Gesta Hludowici imperatoris des Trierer Chorbischofs Thegan (Hanover, 1988), passim. 17 Eine Parteischrift, in the words of E. Tremp, ‘Thegan und Astronomus, die beiden Geschichtsschreiber Ludwigs des Frommen’, in Charlemagne’s Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840), ed. P. Godman and R. Collins (Oxford, 1990), p. 693; J. Nelson, ‘History-writing at the courts of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald’, in Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, ed. A. Scharer and G. Scheibelreiter (Vienna, 1994), p. 438: ‘Thegan’s subjectmatter was absolutely topical, and aimed at a court constituency’. See also L. Hageneier, Jenseits der Topik. Die karolingische Herrscherbiographie (Husum, 2004), p. 154. 18 M. Innes, ‘Charlemagne’s will: politics and the imperial succession’, English Historical Review 112 (1997), 837ff, 850ff; E. Boshof, ‘Untersuchungen zur Armenfürsorge im fränkischen Reich des 9. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 2 (1976), 265ff, 299ff. 19 J. Semmler, ‘Renovatio Regni Francorum. Die Herrschaft Ludwigs des

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Frommen in Frankreich, 814–829/30’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir, pp. 125ff; Semmler, ‘Jussit . . . princeps renovare . . . praecepta. Zur Verfassungsrechtliche Einordnung der Hochstifte und Abteien in die karolingische Reichskirche’, Studia Anselmiana 85 (1982), 97ff. Thegan, Gesta Hludowici, pp. 192, 194, ch. 13; G. Schmitz, ‘The capitulary legislation of Louis the Pious’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir, pp. 432 (n. 11), 433; E. Boshof, Ludwig der Fromme (Darmstadt, 1996), pp. 113–15. Thegan, Gesta Hludowici, p. 192, chap. 13: ‘[S]i alicui aliqua iniustitia perpetrata fuisset, et si aliquem invenissent [legati Hludowici], qui hec dicere voluisset et cum verissimis testibus hoc comprobare potuisset, statim cum eis in praesentiam eius venire praecepit’ (gloss added). Thegan, Gesta Hludowici, pp. 194, 195 (n. 70); Boshof, Ludwig, p. 114. C. Svetoni Tranquilli, De vita caesarum libri VIII, in Opera, vol. 1, ed. M. Ihm (Leipzig, 1908), p. 306, Divus Vespasianus, ch. 21: ‘[D]ein perlectis epistulis officiorumque omnium breviariis, amicos admittebat, ac dum salutabatur, et calciabat ipse se et amiciebat.’ A. Demandt, Das Privatleben der römischen Kaiser (Munich, 1996), chs. 3a and 2o, 2s; M. Staesche, Das Privatleben der römischen Kaiser in der Spätantike. Studien zu Personen- und Kulturgeschichte der späten Kaiserzeit (Bern, 1998), pp. 28–9. Einhard, Vita Karoli, p. 48, chap. 24: ‘Cum calciaretur et amiciretur, non tantum amicos admitebat, verum etiam, si comes palatii litem aliquam esse diceret, quae sine eius iussu definiri non posset, statim litigantes introducere iussit et, velut pro tribunali sederet, lite cognita sententiam dixit’. On modelling a protagonist’s appearance and behaviour in biography in conformity to an ‘overarching pattern’, see W. Berschin, ‘Personenbeschreibung in der Biographie des frühen Mittelalters’, in Scharer and Scheibelreiter, Historiographie, pp. 186–93; Tremp, Studien, pp. 55–63; Collins, Charlemagne, p. 1. See also H. Beumann, ‘Topos und Gedankengefüge bei Einhard’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 3 (1951), 337–50; Hageneier, Jenseits der Topik, p. 121, n. 617. The last of these authors – in the context of an interesting inquiry into the intertextual references and the borrowings used by medieval intellectuals to construct an image of reality – nevertheless does not go beneath the surface of the quotations/statements, and (as in the case of our motif) does not interest himself in the mechanics of the story, that is to say, in the anthropological and social message that story conveys. And those mechanics themselves, and that message, can (while fully retaining their identity) be expressed by a variety of set-design schemes (or realisations). It is worth recalling the occasion when Otto I decides to approach Udalric, who had come to the chamber door of the royal chamber too early, uno pede calciato et alio adhuc incalciato (Gerhardi Vita Uodalrici, I, 21, on which see also below, n. 26) – a detail which is intended to show us that, for the emperor, humility and respect for the holy man were ultimately more important than was concern with imperial majesty and with the appropriate, official image. Putting on shoes by the ruler as a sign of entrance into a public role, performed by virtue of office, appears also in the passage titled Casus s. Galli, by Ekkehard IV (ed. H.F. Haefele, in Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters, vol. 10 [Darmstadt, 1960], chs. 131–3, pp. 254–6), where the statement Interea pater ad calciandum in caminatam ivit puts an end to the joking and bantering between Otto I and the monks of St. Gallen, who, in order to present their

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request, had entered the emperor’s zone of private time and private space, with the permission of the young king. In the royal chamber, among close associates, Otto I continues for a while (specifically, until the moment when he gets dressed, and summons petitioners) to behave like an ordinary member of the household, not imperiously. Afterwards, he acts consistently within ‘the rite’. Compare this move by Otto I, as he returns from matins into the royal chamber dressed in ordinary household clothing in order to put on his ceremonial dress, to a similar action by another protagonist, Charlemagne: Expletis vero ymnis matutinalibus ad caminatam reversus, imperialibus vestimentis pro tempore ornabatur (Notkeri Balbuli Gesta Karoli Magni, ed. H.F. Haefele, MGH SS rer. Germ., N.S., vol. 12 [Munich, 1980], p. 42, bk. 1, ch. 31). The act of putting on one shoe – a phenomenon called ‘monosandalism’ – has been explained, in anthropological terms, with reference to the idea of ritual mutilation, and of a suspension between two worlds – of culture and of nature; of the word and of the otherworldly – in a state of ‘transitional’ chaos. See A. Brelich, ‘Les monosandales’, La nouvelle Clio 7–9 (1955–7), 469–84; P. Vidal-Naquet, Le chasseur noir. Formes de pensée et formes de société dans le monde grec (Paris, 1983), pp. 101–2, 116–17; P. MacCana, ‘The topos of the single sandal in Irish tradition’, Celtica 10 (1979), 160–6. Gerhard von Augsburg, Vita s. Uodalrici. Die älteste Lebensbeschreibung des heiligen Ulrich, ed. W. Berschin and A. Häse (Heidelberg, 1993), p. 304, bk. 1, ch. 26: repausationi lectuli se non commendavit ante horam vespertinam, sed super sedile suum calciatus consedit. See Berschin, Biographie, pp. 128–48, specifically p. 138; E. Karpf, Herrscherlegitimation und Reichsbegriff in der ottonischen Geschichtsschreibung des 10. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1985), pp. 105–14. Einhard, Vita Karoli, pp. 47–8, ch. 24. T.N. Bisson, ‘On not eating Polish bread in vain: resonance and conjuncture in the Deeds of the Princes of Poland (1109–1113)’, Viator 29 (1998), 275–89; Z. Dalewski, ‘Ritual im Text. Gallus Anonymus und die dynastischen Konflikte im Polen des früheren Mittelalters’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 38 (2004), 135–51; Gesta Principum Polonorum: The Deeds of the Princes of the Poles, trans. and annot. P.W. Knoll and F. Schaer (Budapest, 2003). Galli Anonymi Cronica et gesta ducum sive principum Polonorum, ed. K. Maleczyński, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, series nova, vol. 2 (Kraków, 1952), p. 27, bk. 1, ch. 9. Sicque diligenter rem pauperis, ut alicuius magni principis pertractabat; personam in iudicio non servabat; Galli Anonymi Cronica, p. 27, bk. 1, ch. 9. The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed., trans. and annot. B. Colgrave (Lawrence, KS, 1968), p. 128, ch. 29, pp. 161–3, and editor’s introduction, pp. 45–54, 59ff. See also S. Settis, ‘Roma fuori di Roma. Periferie della memoria’, in Roma nell’alto medioevo, vol. 2 – Atti delle Settimane 48 (Spoleto, 2001), pp. 1006ff. Dante Alighièri, La divina commèdia, ed. L. Polacco and G. Vandèlli (Milan, 1924), p. 175, Purg. X – cornice 1a: Supèrbia, vv. 76–93. Dante, La divina commèdia, p. 175, v. 39: giustizia vuòle e pietà mi ritène. Cosmae Pragensis Chronica Boemorum, ed. B. Bretholz, MGH SS rer. Germ., N.S., vol. 2 (Berlin, 1955), p. 109, bk. 2, ch. 17. In a new set-design and situational layout, it is Robert Bruce who takes the test of a good ruler, during the period when he is fighting in Ireland. According to John Barbour, the lamentations of a woman cause Bruce, in the face of an approaching foe, to halt the retreat of his

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troops. Having learnt that the lamenting voice belonged to a poor laundress who was just beginning to go into labour, he does not abandon her – as she was afraid he would do – but orders that a tent be put up, in which the delivery then takes place. It is not until the baby is born that the retreat resumes; J. Barbour, The Bruce, or the Book of the Most Excellent and Noble Prince Robert de Bruce, King of Scots, ed. W.W. Skeat (London, 1877, repr. 1968), vol. 2, pp. 389–90, bk. 16, vv. 270–88. See G.W.S. Barrow, Robert the Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland (Edinburgh, 2005), p. 342. Chronica Boemorum, p. 109, bk. 2, ch. 17: pater clericorum et defensor viduarum. See D. Třeštik, Kosmova kronika. Studie k počátkům českého dějepisectvi a politického myšleni (Prague, 1968), p. 164. Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi, p. 27: Abundantius erat in rege studium miserationis quam desiderium consecrationis. Ibid, p. 23. Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, p. 128: unius ad eum voce vidue misercorditer mollitus. Galli Anonymi Cronica, p. 27, bk. 1, ch. 9: Habebat etiam preterea quiddam iustitie magnum et humilitatis insigne. H. Keller, ‘Das Bildnis Kaiser Heinrichs im Regensburger Evangeliar aus Montecassino (Bibl. Vat., Ottob. lat. 74). Zugleich ein Beitrag zu Wipos “Tetralogus”’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 30 (1996), 177ff, 189ff, 192–3. Ibid, pp. 196–7; J. Fried, ‘Tugend und Heiligkeit. Beobachtungen und Überlegungen zu den Herrscherbildern Heinrichs III. in Echternachter Handschriften’, in Mittelalter. Annäherung an eine fremde Zeit, ed. W. Hartmann (Regensburg, 1993), pp. 52–4. Ibid, p. 63; Keller, ‘Das Bildnis’, pp. 192–3. And beyond. On 18 November 1804, the Polish scholar and politician Stanisław Staszic witnessed a scene in Paris which he described as follows (Dziennik podróży 1789–1805, ed. C. Leśniewski [Kraków, 1931], p. 406): ‘The emperor appeared to the people, among his guards, cavalry, and infantry, with his artillery roaming about, under the name “the Great Parade”. In this whole display, I noticed in the emperor a deep understanding of people, a great skill for winning them over. He listened to requests in the midst of his troops. Galloping on a white Turkish horse, he stopped abruptly whenever anyone made a request to him. Reading the request, then talking to the petitioner, attracted to the emperor the attention of thousands . . . The following, I thought, caused the admiration of all, although it offended me: the fact that the citizens and the women must struggle through the armies, the soldiers, and the horses, to reach an official with a plea for the justice or the help they deserved.’ The trope of Trajan and the widow was expressed in pictorial form by Delacroix, inspired by the passage in Dante; Thomas Mann evoked it in his novel, Der Erwählte; while in 2005, Donald Tusk, the (as it turned out) unsuccessful candidate for president of Poland, deployed a similar exemplum in a campaign advertisement (see The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, n. 122, p. 162, Dio Cassius’s story about Emperor Hadrian in haste, and the woman who had a request for the emperor) to attack a rival who, at one time in the campaign, scolded a simple man attempting abruptly to push his way toward this rival. See H. Zaremska, Banici w średniowiecznej Europie (Warsaw, 1993), pp. 121– 2, for interesting examples of convicts making their way to the ruler during his

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ceremonial entrance into Kraków, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and for further literature of the subject. 46 See P. Buc, Dangereux rituel. De l’histoire médiévale aux sciences sociales (Paris, 2003), p. 10. 6 The Dominican Order and the beginnings of higher education in the Polish Lands 1 Le scuole degli ordini mendicanti (secoli XIII–XIV), 11–14 ottobre 1976 (Todi, 1978), with an introduction by Girolamo Arnaldi, organiser of the meeting. 2 J. Verger, ‘Studia et universités’, in Le scuole, pp. 175ff. Since the end of the nineteenth century, historians of the Dominican Order have strongly underscored the connections between the Order and the world of the universities; see above all the superb article by P. Mandonnet, ‘La crise scolaire au début du XIIIe siècle et la fondation de l’ordre des Frères prêcheurs’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 15 (1914), 34–49. An English survey of the history of universities employs a distinctive description of the Dominican school system as ‘a kind of distributed university’; F.M. Powicke, Ways of Medieval Life and Thought (Boston, MA, 1951), p. 186. See also the classic work, H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, new edition, ed. F.M. Powicke and A.B. Emden, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1936). Recently, see M. Asztalos, ‘The faculty of theology’, in A History of the University in Europe, gen. ed. W. Rüegg, vol. 1: Universities in the Middle Ages, ed. H. de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 409–41, at 414 (her section on ‘The mendicants and the theological faculties: symbiosis and conflict’). 3 J. Verger, L’essor des universités au XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1998). 4 A good summary of slightly older but fundamental research is A. Duval, ‘L’étude dans la législation religieuse de saint Dominique’, in Mélanges offerts à M. D. Chenu (Paris, 1967), pp. 211–47; see also F. Müller OP, ‘Saint Dominique et les origines de l’Ordre des Prêcheurs dans l’historiographe du XXe siècle’, in Mémoire dominicaine (Paris, 1994), pp. 23ff; W.A. Hinnebusch, The History of the Dominican Order, vol. 2: Intellectual and Cultural Life to 1500 (New York, 1973); M.M. Mulchahey, ‘First the Bar is Bent in Study’: Dominican Education before 1350 (Toronto, 1998); J. Kłoczowski, Wspólnoty zakonne w tworzącej się Europie (Poznań, 2003). In the conclusion of her analysis of the connections between Dominican and strictly university studia, Mulchahey captures the subject with a happy formula: ‘In the first place, in many instances the Dominicans were at the universities, but not of the universities’ (‘First the Bar’, p. 352). 5 J. Kłoczowski, ‘Zakon Braci Kaznodziejów w Polsce, 1222–1972. Zarys dziejów’, in Studia nad historią dominikanów w Polsce, 1222–1972, ed. Kłoczowski (Warsaw, 1975), pp. 19ff, together with the appended atlas and basic bibliography. I introduced the issues concerning the studia in all the mendicant orders of East Central Europe at the Todi conference noted above; see Kłoczowski, ‘Europa Centro-Orientale’, in Le scuole, pp. 127–49. See also Kłoczowski, ‘Dominikanie w środkowo-wschodniej Europie i ich kultura intelektualna oraz pastoralna w wiekach średnich’, in Dominikanie w środkowej Europie w XIII–XV wieku. Aktywność duszpasterska i kultura intelektualna, ed. Kłoczowski and J.A. Spież (Poznań, 2002), pp. 153–72. 6 Concerning the conventual school, see Hinnebusch, History, pp. 20ff. See also the penetrating remarks by L.E. Boyle OP, ‘Notes on the education of the Fratres Communes in the Dominican Order in the thirteenth century’, in

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7

8

9 10 11 12

13 14

15

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Xenia Medii Aevi historiam illustrantia oblata Thomae Kaepelli (Rome, 1978), pp. 249–67. According to the author, during the thirteenth century conventual schools furnished 90 per cent of Dominican priests with a full education, and retained intellectual care over them until the end of their active lives. Hence also the exceptional level of attention – well reflected, among others, in the acts of the general chapter – to providing all convents with lectors, a task which was sometimes difficult to accomplish. Verger, L’essor, pp. 112ff; C. Ribaucourt, ‘Francia centro-settentrionale’, in Le scuole, pp. 73ff. For a brief summary of the research concerning the mendicant studia, see K. Elm, ‘Das Studienwesen der Bettelorden’, in Kłoczowski and Spież, Dominikanie, pp. 139–52, along with the basic literature. Verger, L’essor, p. 32, notes that the mendicant, especially Dominican, educational legislation has survived much more frequently than did university legislation, whence its great significance. Overall, with respect to theological training, ‘les studia réguliers, intégrés ou non à des universités, ont sans doute joué au XIIIe siècle un rôle supérieur à celui des universités stricto sensu’ (Verger, L’essor, p. 34). G. Barone, ‘Les couvents des mendiants, des collèges déguisés? Observations sur les liens entre les Écoles des Ordres Mendiants et les collèges (XIIIe–XIVe s.)’, in Vocabulaire des collèges universitaires (XIIIe–XIVe siècles), ed. O. Wijers (Brepols, 1993), pp. 149–57; see Verger, L’essor, pp. 60–2, and A. Gieysztor, ‘Management and resources’, in History of the University in Europe, vol. 1, pp. 108–43, at 116–19. Verger, L’essor, pp. 98ff; Asztalos, ‘Faculty’, pp. 914ff. Ibid, pp. 433ff. G. Leff, ‘The Trivium and the three philosophies’, in History of the University, pp. 307–36, at 322. For an attempt to present the Dominican ‘doctrine’ (Thomism above all) in its entirety, see Hinnebusch, History, vol. 2, pp. 117ff. For a general synthesis of the innovations in scholasticism, see F. Alessio, ‘Scholastique’, in Dictionnaire raisonnée de l’Occident médiéval, ed. J. Le Goff and J.-C. Schmitt (Paris, 1999), pp. 1039–55. Hinnebusch, History, vol. 2, pp. 7–9, with the footnotes; Verger, L’essor, pp. 114ff; Acta capitulorum generalium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. 1, ed. B.M. Reichert (Rome, 1898), pp. 99–100. There is much material concerning the curriculum of Dominican schools, and their evolution during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in the collection Le scuole; see especially G. Barone, ‘La legislazione sugli “studia” dei Predicatori e dei Minori’ (pp. 205–47), and A. Maierzi, ‘Tecniche di insegnamento’ (pp. 305–52). A good introduction to the subject in its entirety is M.M. Mulchahey, ‘The Dominican studium system and the universities in Europe in the thirteenth century: a relationship redefined’, in Manuels, programmes de cours et techniques d’enseignement dans les universités médiévales (Louvain, 1994), pp. 277–324. C. Douais, Essai sur l’organisation des études dans l’ordre des Frères prêcheurs au treizième at au quatorzième siècle (1216–1342). Première province de Provence, province de Toulouse (Paris and Toulouse, 1884); M. d’Alatri, ‘Italia’, in Le scuole, pp. 49–72; Acta capitulum provincialium provinciae Romanae (1243–1344), ed. T. Kapelli and A. Dondaine (Rome, 1941), in the series Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica. Le scuole, p. 322.

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17 In addition to the works cited above, see the proceedings from the session held at Prato in 1996, Le vocabulaire des écoles des Mendiants au Moyen Âge, ed. M.C. Pacheco (Turnhout, 1999), especially the conclusions by J. Verger. 18 Regarding England, we have valuable sources other than chapter registers; see J. Cannon, ‘Inghilterra’, in Le scuole, pp. 93–126; M. O’Carroll SND, ‘The educational organisation of the Dominicans in England and Wales, 1221: a multidisciplinary approach’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 50 (1980), 23– 62. 19 For a good analysis based on the English province see O’Carroll, ‘Educational organisation’; but this division was a principle of the Order in its entirety, on which see Hinnebusch, History, vol. 2, p. 19. For the division of the Polish province into districts (here called the contratae), see Kłoczowski, ‘Zakon Braci’, p. 45, and the atlas. 20 O’Carroll, ‘Educational organisation’, p. 28. 21 The fundamental evidence is presented by P. Kielar OP, ‘Studia nad kulturą szkolną i intelektualną dominikanów prowincji polskiej w średniowieczu’, in Kłoczowski, Studia nad historią, vol. 1, pp. 273ff. 22 Acta capitulorum, p. 109; Kielar, ‘Studia’, p. 275. 23 d’Alatri, ‘Italia’, p. 54. 24 Verger, L’essor, pp. 114ff. For the changes in approach to biblical texts, crucial for theological formation, see G. Dahan, L’exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident médiéval, XIIe–XIVe siècles (Paris, 1999). On Humbert of Romans, see M.H. Vicaire, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 7 (Paris, 1969), pp. 1108–16. 25 We can find confirmation of the role of lectors, among other places, in a very valuable source – still not adequately used – the Zbiór formuł Zakonu Dominikańskiego prowincji polskiej z lat 1338–1411, submitted to the printer by O.J. Woroniecki OP, introduced and ed. X.J. Fijałek, Archiwum Komisji Historycznej 12.2 (Kraków, 1938). 26 R.J. Loenertz, ‘Une ancienne chronique des provinciaux dominicains de Pologne’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 21 (1951), 13–16. Though the earliest lector in Kraków, from 1222–3 onward, was Henry of Moravia (Kielar, ‘Studia’, p. 272), the organisation of the lectors, within a framework of the emerging province, was obviously supervised by Gerard, in his capacity of provincial, over many years (1225–33), according to the model of the University of Paris with which he was directly familiar. 27 Hinnebusch, History, vol. 2, pp. 29ff. According to the author, ‘the scholastic organisation and lectures in a provincial house of theology were similar in many respects to those of the studium generale’ (pp. 30–1). He is inclined to assess the role of these schools very highly: ‘the provincial schools provided a professional and advanced education for thousands of friars’ (p. 32). One ought to bear in mind the significance of this type of assessment of the main theological centres in the provinces for the debates concerning their transformation into the socalled ‘general studia’. See below, in the text and at n. 30. 28 In 1257 Pope Alexander IV allowed the Dominican generals to nominate wellprepared theologians to teach this subject in Dominican schools; Hinnebusch, History, vol. 2, p. 10. 29 On the position of Silesian monasteries within the province, see J. Kłoczowski, Dominikanie polscy na Śląsku w XIII–XIV wieku (Lublin, 1956), pp. 171ff. 30 Acta Capitulorum, vol. 1, pp. 314, 320; Kłoczowski, Dominikanie, pp. 224ff; Kielar, Studia, pp. 335–6. The earliest resolution to establish studia generalia

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32 33

34 35 36 37

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in the provinces was adopted earlier, in 1282, but, consistent with the Order’s legislative practice, acquired legal force only after three successive resolutions of the general chapter, adopted in 1302, 1303 and 1304. See also the studies by my prematurely deceased student, Jerzy Bartłomiej Korolec, of revered memory, who presented his master’s thesis, ‘Organizacja szkolnictwa zakonu dominikanów w Polsce od początku XIII do końca XIV wieku’, in my seminar held in 1956. He continued working on these matters until the end of his life. The final version of his work, J.B. Korolec, ‘Studium generale dominikanów klasztoru Świętej Trójcy w Krakowie’, in Kłoczowski and Spież, Dominikanie, pp. 173–86, appeared posthumously. From among his earlier works, see Korolec, ‘Studium generalne w Krakowie. Prawne warunki istnienia’, Materiały i Studia Zakładu Historii Filozofii Starożytnej i Średniowiecznej 4.A (1965), 108–25. J. Kadlec, ‘Řeholni generalni studia při Karlově universitě v době předhusitské’, Acta Universitatis Carolinae. Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 7.2 (1966), 66–108; Š.M. Filip OP and R.T. Černusak OP, ‘Master Nicolaus Biceps OP and the relations between the Dominican Studium Generale of St. Clement in Prague and the Prague University’, in Kłoczowski and Spież, Dominikanie, pp. 187–200. Le scuole, p. 182. For a penetrating analysis, see Mulchahey, ‘Dominican studium system’, pp. 278ff, to whom my treatment below of the individual studia generalia is indebted. For the different formulations of the construct itself, see G. Ermini, ‘Concetto di “studium generale”’, Archivio Giuridico 128 (1942), 3–24. The studium in Cambridge was recognised as a studium generale by the general of the Order in 1314, and by the general chapter in 1320; O’Carroll, ‘Educational organisation’, pp. 48–9. Acta capitulorum, vol. 2, ed. A. Frühwirth (Rome, 1899), p. 99. Ibid, pp. 143, 151, 156. Hinnebusch, History, vol. 2, pp. 63ff; Verger, ‘Studia’, pp. 192ff. An image of a rapid expansion of a university network, usually with theology departments, is offered by Verger, ‘Patterns’, in History of the University, pp. 35–74, at 55ff; see also the list of the universities and the maps showing their distribution, at pp. 62–4, 68–77. Mulchahey, ‘Dominican studium system’, p. 296. Verger, ‘Studia’, pp. 193–4. Ibid, p. 194. Hinnebusch, History, vol. 2, p. 64; G.M. Löhr, Die Kölner Dominikanerschule vom 14. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert (Freiburg, 1946); for the studia in the German province, see the important work by I.W. Frank, Hausstudium und Universitätsstudium der Wiener Dominikaner bis 1500 (Vienna, 1968). The attempt in 1383 by the general of the Order, Raymond of Capua, to create – or, strictly speaking, renew – a Dominican studium generale closely tied to the University of Prague failed to achieve the desired results; his aims had been very ambitious, in that they envisioned creating in Prague a studium equal in rank to Paris; V.J. Koudelka OP, ‘Raimund von Capua und Böhmen’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 30 (1960), 209ff; Frank, Hausstudium, pp. 72ff. Near the end of the fourteenth century, the Dominicans created a rather formidable intellectual milieu in Prague, and their role requires deeper study. An outstanding figure was Professor Bitterfeld, from the Polish province; Koudelka, ‘Heinrich von Bitterfeld († c. 1405), Professor an der Universität Prag’, Archivum Fratrum

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Praedicatorum 23 (1953), 5–65. What deserves careful analysis are the diverse (as it appears) polemics by the Dominicans (and to what degree, we may ask, by other mendicants?) directed towards the increasingly radical tendencies which later became a foundation for the different factions of the Hussite movement; and towards, for example, the increasingly prevalent influences of the via moderna school, represented (among others) by Matthew of Kraków, who was very distinguished in the renewal of the University of Kraków. See, among others, F. Šmahel, Husitska revoluce, vol. 2 (Prague, 1993), pp. 184–5; A. PetitovaBénoliel, L’église à Prague sous la dynastie des Luxembourg (1310–1419) (Hilversum, 1996), pp. 176–7; S. Świeżawski, Dzieje filozofii europejskiej w XV wieku (Warsaw, 1974), pp. 350ff, but also concerning the school of Dominican thought elsewhere, pp. 188ff for example. Z. Kozłowska-Budkowa, ‘Odnowienie Jagiellońskiego Uniwersytetu Krakowskiego (1390–1414)’, in Dzieje Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w latach 1364–1764, vol. 1, ed. K. Lepszy (Kraków, 1964), pp. 37–89; M. Markowski, Dzieje wydziału teologii Uniwersytetu Krakowskiego w latach 1397–1525 (Kraków, 1996), is inclined to accept a larger role for the Dominicans, especially Bitterfeld, in the creation of the Kraków department – a rather doubtful view, requiring futher research; see K. Kaczmarek, ‘Głos w dyskusji nad początkami studium generalnego dominikanów w Krakowie’, Nasza Przeszłość 91 (1999), 77–100, at 98. Hinnebusch, History, vol. 2, p. 64. Ibid, pp. 58ff; and see pp. 44ff. concerning the conditions of study by ‘foreign’ Dominican students, and the difficulties they encountered in Paris and England. Ibid, p. 68. Master Dominic of Pecciola compiled a chronicle of the monastery situated in Pisa. In it, he wrote that masters of theology might be encountered only in Paris, and that, when he entered the monastery around 1347, there were only three of them in Italy. Ibid, p. 68. Ibid, pp. 64ff. Ibid, pp. 69–70 – see the vivid evidence assembled by Hinnebusch. P. Kielar OP, ‘Powstanie dominikańskiego studium generalnego w Krakowie’, in Kłoczowski, Studia nad historią, vol. 1, p. 348. Kielar, ‘Magister Franciszek Oczko – dominikanin’, pp. 357ff. Kaczmarek, ‘Głos’. Kłoczowski, Dominikanie, p. 226, where (following the valuable eighteenthcentury manuscript treatment by Wawrzyniec (Laurentius) Teleżyński, De rebus Provinciae Poloniae s. Hyacynthi Ordinis Praedicatorum [Kórnik Library, ms. 93 I.F 93], p. 253), I cite a passage, unknown in current editions, of the resolution by the Dominican general chapter held in Freiburg in 1419: Hoc anno, cum capitulum generale Friburgi sub RPM Generali Leonardo celebraret, in eo iam studium generale Cracoviae agnoscebatur et institutus est regens P. Joannes Frankenstiensis S. T. Bacalaureus . . . ad sententias F. Hermanus Wusserabo, ad legendam Biblia F. Andreas Pregang . . . Very modest excerpts of the acts of the 1419 chapter (the first after the end of the Great Schism), appear in the Acta Capitulorum, vol. 3, p. 160; see also R.P. Mortier, Histoire des Maîtres Généraux de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, vol.

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54 55 56 57

4 (Paris, 1909), p. 126. An important argument in support of the establishment of a studium generale in Kraków in 1419 is the publication of the heretofore unknown acts of the general chapter held in Genoa in 1413, with an extensive list of studia generalia throughout almost the entire Order, including Poland. No Kraków studium appears on this list, nor does one appear on the fragmentary lists dating from the previous years; Acta capituli generalis celebrati Genuae anno 1413, ed. S.L. Frote OP, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 26 (1956), 291–313. J. Fijałek, ‘Dwaj dominikanie krakowscy: Jan Biskupiec i Jan Falkenberg’, in Księga pamiątkowa ku czci Oswalda Balzera, vol. 1 (Lwów, 1925), pp. 271– 348; Kłoczowski, Dominikanie, pp. 191ff. Kielar, ‘Studia’, p. 340. See n. 42, above. A fact noted long ago by J. Fijałek, Studia do dziejów uniwersytetu krakowskiego i jego wydziału teologicznego w XV wieku, Rozprawy Akademii Umiejętności, Wydział Filologiczny 29 (Kraków, 1899), pp. 112ff: We cannot perceive . . . any particular connection between the university and the Preaching Order. . . . Indeed, attendance by the Dominicans . . . is, even in comparison with that by the Franciscans, extremely low, virtually nil; the sons of Saint Dominic continue to obtain an education in their own quarters.

The sharp polemic at the beginning of the fifteenth century between the university and the Kraków Dominicans was noted many years ago by Zofia Budkowa; see the text of a sermon cited in Kłoczowski, Dominikanie, pp. 233–4. The urgency of further research is especially pronounced here. 58 J. Kłoczowski, ‘Studia w polskiej prowincji dominikańskiej za prowincjalatu Jakuba z Bydgoszczy (1447–1478)’, in Europa – Słowiańszczyzna – Polska. Studia ku uczczeniu prof. K. Tymienieckiego (Poznań, 1970), pp. 47ff; Kłoczowski, ‘Studium generalne dominikanów w Krakowie w XV wieku’, Roczniki Filozoficzne 27 (1979), 239–43. 59 M. Rechowicz, ‘Początki i rozwój kultury scholastycznej (do końca XIV wieku)’, in Dzieje teologii katolickiej w Polsce, ed. M. Rechowicz, vol. 1 (Lublin, 1974), pp. 59ff, thinks that the Sentences were a subject of lectures in Gniezno or in Kraków ‘since at least the fourteenth century’. K. Stopka, Szkoły katedralne metropolii gnieźnieńskiej w średniowieczu. Studia nad kształceniem kleru polskiego w wiekach średnich (Kraków, 1994), notes with emphasis that ‘cathedral schools were grammar and liturgical schools rather than schools of theology’ (p. 169). Gradually, ‘during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, lectorates of theology and canon law were established not only in the capital of the province, but also in other episcopal sees’ (p. 180). 60 J. Kłoczowski, ‘Bracia Mniejsi w Polsce średniowiecznej’, in Zakony franciszkańskie w Polsce, ed. J. Kłoczowski, vol. 1 (Lublin, 1983), pp. 47, 50. 7 Matrimonium sub fide Judaica contractum 1 Deut. 7:3–4: neque sociabis cum eis coniugia, filiam tuam non dabis filio eius nec filiam illius accipies filio tuo, quia seducet filium tuum, ne sequatur me ut magis serviat diis alienis. 2 Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 11, col. 1052, vol. 12, col. 168.

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3 J. Freisen, Geschichte des kanonischen Eherechts bis zum Verfall der Glossenliteratur (2nd ed., Paderborn, 1893), pp. 635–43. 4 H.G. Gruber, Christliches Eheverständnis im 15. Jahrhundert (Regensburg, 1989), pp. 116–20. 5 J. Freisen, Geschichte, p. 642; see also Raymund of Peñaforte, Summa de poenitentia et matrimonio cum glossis Joannis de Friburgo (Rome, 1603, repr. Farnborough, 1967), p. 547: Aut fidelis contrahit cum infideli, Iudaeo scilicet, pagano vel haeretico, aut fideles inter se et postea labitur alter eorum in haeresim. In primo casu nullum est matrimonium, sponsalia tamen potest fidelis cum infideli contrahere sub conditione, ut infidelis convertatur ad fidem. 6 J. Freisen, Geschichte, p. 642: ‘Sponsalia tamen contrahere possunt sub tali conditione, ut infidelis convertatur ad fidem’ (Tancred of Bologna, ca. 1210– 13). 7 Schlesisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 4, ed. W. Irgang (Cologne and Vienna, 1988), no. 5, ch. 10, pp. 12–14; Kodeks dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski, vol. 1 (Poznań, 1877), no. 423. See T. Silnicki, ‘Kardynał legat Gwido, jego synod wrocławski w roku 1267 i statuty tego synodu’, in Silnicki, Z dziejów Kościoła w Polsce. Studia i szkice historyczne (Warsaw, 1960), pp. 321–79, at 363–4, 374–6. 8 This connection is explicitly reflected by a note recording travel around Poland – perhaps indeed written by someone associated with Legate Guido – which survived in one of the curial formularies, and where the author reports with outrage the widespread practice in that country of Jews hiring Christian nursemaids, whom their employers subsequently forced into cohabitation; Monumenta Poloniae Vaticana, vol. 3, ed. J. Ptaśnik (Kraków, 1914), n. 515. 9 Statuty synodalne wieluńsko-kaliskie Mikołaja Trąby z r. 1420, ed. J. Fijałek and A. Vetulani (Kraków, 1915–20, 1951), pp. 91–3. 10 M. Toch, Die Juden im mittelalterlichen Reich (Munich, 2003), pp. 42–3; Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 3 (1984–6), col. 1646. It is quite notable that the substantial entry ‘Mixed marriage’ in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 12, cols. 164–9, almost entirely concerns the modern period. 11 P. Dąbkowski, Prawo prywatne polskie (Lwów, 1910), 1:149. 12 In researching the present article, I have systematically examined volumes 9–18 of the series Acta causarum consistorii, situated in the Archdiocesan Archive in Poznań (hereafter cited as AC, followed by the signature number of the book), and volumes 8–12 of the series of the Poznań land law books situated in the State Archive (hereafter cited as Poznań Z, followed by the signature number of the book). 13 For a summary of the current state of knowledge about the city, see Dzieje Poznania, ed. J. Topolski, vol. 1, pt. 1 (Warsaw and Poznań, 1988). 14 Concerning the Jews of Poznań, see L. Koczy, ‘Studia nad dziejami gospodarczymi Żydów poznańskich przed połową wieku XVII’, in Kronika Miasta Poznania, vol. 12 (1934), no. 3, pp. 257–99, and vol. 13 (1935), no. 1, pp. 47–63, nos. 2–3, pp. 171–231; S. Nożyński, ‘Żydzi poznańscy w XV wieku’, ibid, vol. 10 (1932), no. 1, pp. 88–99, nos. 2–3, pp. 249–63; J. Rudzińska, ‘Żydzi w późnośredniowiecznym Poznaniu’, in Civitas Posnaniensis. Studia z dziejów średniowiecznego Poznania (Poznań, 2005), pp. 345–60. For basic information, see the Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 13, cols. 946–51.

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Notes 243 15 M. Horn, ‘Najstarszy rejestr osiedli żydowskich w Polsce z 1507 r.’, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 3.91 (1974), 12. 16 AC 12, fol. 47v: In causa Hedwigis mulieris de Poznania cum Johanne novo christiano de ibidem mulier oblata citacione petivit Johannem sibi in maritum qui adhuc existens in fide Judayca ut sepius per annum integrum proxime preteritum in celario ipsius Hedwigis fidem suam matrimonialem dedit hiis [verbis], ‘Ita me Deus adiuvat quod volo baptisari in fidem christianam et volo te michi ducere in uxorem et promitto tibi fidem meam matrimonialem.’ Ex adverso Johannes contestatus est litem negative addiciens quod si aliquis contractus fuit inter ipsum Johannem et Hedwigim ille tunc fuit perfidus et nullum vigorem habens ex eo quia in fide Judaica. Et dominus auditis proposicione et responsione parcium dixit se velle deliberare super eo si mulier debebit probare contractum an non ad feriam secundam post Conductum Pasce. On the margin is inserted the following text, in a contemporary hand: ‘alias petivit impsum compelli ad consumandum matrimonium in facie Ecclesie per verba de presenti contractum’. 17 Ibid, fol. 52v–3: In causa Hedwigis mulieris de Poznania cum Johanne novo christiano de ibidem m. Mathias Crispus nomine mulieris ad peticionem primam verbo adiecit quomodo idem Jo. lotus fonte baptismati matrimonium in fide Judayca contractum per verba de presenti ratificavit et resumpsit copula carnalis subsequente. Ex adverso Johannes contestatus est litem negative. Et dominus interloquendo super prima peticione mulieris admisit mulierem et probandum et presertim addicionem secundam. 18 Ibid, fol. 55v: ‘mgr Mathias Crispus nomine mulieris . . . induxit duas testes citatas a quibus dominus officialis de dicenda veritate recepit solita iuramenta et examen eorum commisit’, and fol. 58: ‘mgr Mathias Crispus nomine mulieris . . . induxit duos testes citatos a quibus’, etc. 19 Ibid, fol. 68v (4 May 1431): ‘In causa Hedwigis mulieris de Poznania cum Johanne novo christiano de ibidem m. Mathias nomine mulieris replicavit generaliter verbo contra excepciones pro parte adversa oblatas . . .’ and fol. 73v (14 May 1431): ‘In causa Hedwigis mulieris de Poznania cum Johanne novo christiano de ibidem . . . dominus locum tenens conclusit in causa cum potestate solita in presencia mgri Mathie procuratoris mulieris’. 20 Ibid, fol. 77v–8: In causa Hedwigis mulieris de Poznania cum Johanne novo christiano de ibidem . . . dominus ad peticionem parcium suam tulit diffinitivam sentenciam in scriptis pro Johanne absolvens eundem Johannem ab impeticione mulieris et mox ibidem mgr Crispus nomine mulieris protestatus est de gravamine et appellando alias verbo ab ipsa sentencia ad sanctam sedem metropolliticam Gneznensem appellavit et ap[p]elaciones petivit quas sibi dominus reverenciales decrevit . . . The Gniezno officialis’s 1431 court book has not survived.

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21 See W. Abraham, Zawarcie małżeństwa w pierwotnem prawie polskiem (Lwów, 1925); P. Hamperek, ‘Sprawy małżeńskie w oficjalacie okręgowym w Lublinie w XV w.’, Roczniki Teologiczno-Kanoniczne 17 (1970), 33ff. 22 H.G. Gruber, Christliches Eheverständnis, pp. 108–15. 23 Słownik łaciny średniowiecznej w Polsce. Lexicon mediae et infimae Latinitatis Polonorum, vol. 2 (Wrocław, 1959–67), col. 302. 24 Stadtbuch von Posen, ed. A. Warschauer (Posen, 1892), p. 207, no. 577. 25 This son is certainly John of Kalisz, who subsequently appears together with his mother (Akta radzieckie poznańskie, ed. K. Kaczmarczyk, 3 vols. [Poznań, 1925–48], vol. 1, no. 277), in all likelihood identical with John, son of John Kokundorf, documented in the years 1442–6 (Poznań, Archiwum Państwowe, M. Poznań, vol. 1.291, fol. 87 and vol. 1.293, fol. 33). Thus, Margaret’s first husband was John Kokundorf; for this family, see Słownik historycznogeograficzny województwa poznańskiego w średniowieczu, 4 parts (Wrocław, 1982–Poznań, 2003), pt. 2, p. 248. 26 In 1444, Peter Morlin was called a wheelwright (rotifex); Akta radzieckie, vol. 1, no. 270. The Morlins’ modest position is attested by the slight incidence of their appearances in the city books. 27 AC 16, fol. 202: In causa Johannis novi christiani de Poznania cum Margaretha uxore sua dominus officialis mandavit ipsis partibus sil[enciose] matrimonialiter commanere, obmissis omnibus displicensiis et rancoribus inter eos quomodolibet exortis ut unius alteri in vitam non machinabitur ex mox ibidem Johannes tacto ymagine crucifixi iuravit quod non affliget Margaretham inordinate nec eadem in membris aliquibus mutilabit neque eam occidet, et similiter ipsa Margaretha non intoxicabit Johannem ita quod non parabit sibi toxicum in cibo vel in potu sub penis excommunicacionum et carceris, presentibus . . . 28 Akta radzieckie, vol. 1, no. 277. 29 Poznań, Archiwum Państwowe, M. Poznań, vol. 1.291, fol. 114v: ‘Margaretha Kukundorfowa per tutorem suum legittimum Petrum Morlin resignavit unam marcam census . . .’ 30 The difficulties of cultural integration faced by Jews who converted to baptism are a well-known phenomenon; M. Toch, Die Juden, pp. 124–5. 31 AC 12, fol. 44: Ibidem magister Nico[laus] Mlinek procurator et maritus Jochne Judee de Poznania asserens ipsam Jochnam citatam ad hodiernam diem ad instanciam nobilis Gregorii de Golcz petivit ipsam Jochnam absolvi ab instancia termini quod dominus ab[solvi]t si in quantum est terminus, et nobilem expensis quoad presentem terminum condempnavit. 32 For example, a group of Jews from Głogów was represented in the Poznań consistory court by a Master Christopher; Acta capitulorum nec non iudiciorum ecclesiasticorum selecta, ed. B. Ulanowski, vol. 2 (Kraków, 1901), no. 981. 33 Advocates of the consistory court, based on the example of Gniezno, are the subject of A. Gąsiorowski, ‘Circumspecti et illuminati viri. Adwokaci gnieźnieńscy początków XV wieku’, in Mente et litteris. O kulturze i społeczeństwie wieków średnich, ed. H. Chłopocka (Poznań, 1984), pp. 247–52.

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Notes 245 34 Słownik łaciny średniowiecznej, vol. 6 (1985–92), col. 138–9. 35 Ibid, col. 800–3. 36 The form of the entrance of the surname, de Golcz, raises the possibility that we are dealing here with the well-known German knightly family, von Goltz of Neumark. However, this Gregory certainly originated from the Great Polish village of Golcz (today Gulcz) near Czarnków; Słownik historycznogeograficzny województwa poznańskiego, pt. 1, p. 518. 37 Poznań Z 10 (fols. 2v, 10v), 11, 163. The sum recorded in that last entry is perhaps unreliable, since earlier on we find that Gregory owed 18 marks; see n. 54. 38 Poznań, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne, Constitutiones procuratorum, vol. 2, fol. 91. Regrettably, I have not been able to find in this court book the act of Nicholas Młynek’s appointment as Jochna’s representative. 39 AC 12, fol. 65v: ‘In causa nobilis Gregorii de Golcz cum Jochna Judea de Poznania Stadnik nomine nobilis . . . obtulit libellum convencionalem cuius Mlynek copiam petivit . . . et terminum ad dandum contra sibi assignari . . .’; ibid, fol. 73: In causa nobilis Gregorii de Golcz cum Jochna Judea de Poznania Stadnik nomine nobilis petivit responderi libello olim per eum pro parte nobilis oblato, ex adverso Mlynek nomine Judee allegavit litis pendenciam in iudicio seculari inter easdem personas, Stadnyk replicante quod petivit usuram que non est de foro seculari et dominus deliberatus interloqueretur. Item Mlynek dixit adhuc non esse respondendum ex eo quia ipsa Judea fuit citata ad diem Lune septimam mensis Marcii ad respondendum eidem libello in quo termino ipse Mlynek nomine Judee comparuit parte adversa non comparente et petivit se absolvi ab instanciam termini et condempnari nobilem in expensis quoad illum terminum super quibus dominus deliberatus interloquetur. 40 Poznań Z 11, fol. 20: Item veniens nobilis Gregorius de Golcz coram iudicio dimisit Jochnam Judeam a citiacione spirituali prout ipsam citaverat ad ius spirituale, sed debet venire cum eadem Jochna super dominum capitaneum aut pallatinum seu pallatini locum tenentem et ipsi quodquod inter se ipsos iuberent, hec parte ex utraque tenere deberent videlicet pro usura et omnibus causis. Super hoc adiudicatum solvit. 41 See the Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 9 (1999), col. 341–5. Although the Polish statutes of 1267 and 1420 (see above, nn. 7, 9), based here on the constitutions of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), imposed sanctions on ‘immoderate’ usury, they threatened the Jews merely with boycott by the Christians. 42 For example, the same Nicholas Młynek represented the village advocate of Mileszyna Górka who had summoned the peasant Andrew of Chwalęcice de pravitate usuraria, while in 1460 James Sepieński sued the children of Nicholas of Błock – from whom he had borrowed money – for usury; Acta capitulorum, vol. 2, nos. 1055, 1293. 43 For example, AC 10, fol. 181v, 216; AC 11, fol. 26v; AC 12, fol. 26v; AC 19, fol. 162 (‘Sloma nomine uxoris . . . petivit se absolvi a sentenciis exommunicacionis super usurariam pravitatem’), 221. See also the intervention of Pope Boniface IX, who, in 1392, instructed the officialis of Kraków to examine the complaint

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44 45 46 47

48

49

50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58

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by Clement of Kurów against the Jew Lewko concering an excessive level of usury; Bullarium Poloniae, vol. 3, ed. I. Sułkowska-Kuraś and S. Kuraś (Rome and Lublin, 1988), no. 312. Poznań, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne, Constitutiones procuratorum, vol. 2, fol. 59 (10 Oct. 1427), 76v (3 Dec. 1427); Acta Capitulorum, vol. 2, no. 1004–6, 1023, 1031, 1092. Kodeks dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski, vol. 5, ed. F. Piekosiński (Poznań, 1908), no. 500: mgr Nicolaus Mlinek de Margolino, as witness of the officialis’s document (22 Aug. 1429); AC 10, fol. 142: Nicolaus Mlinek de Margolino. AC 16, fol. 49 (27 Feb. 1432): ‘In causa mgri N. Mlinek procuratoris causarum consistorii Poznaniensis . . . super instrumento publico per ipsum Mlinek de manu sua confecto, pro quo instrumento mgr Mlinek petivit unam sexagenam . . .’ AC 17, fol. 52 (31 Jan. 1433: ‘In causa mgri Nicolai Mlinek procuratoris causarum consistorii Poznaniensis et Barbare uxoris sue legittime olim bone recordacionis mgri Cristofori procuratoris consistorii predicti filie’), 53v, 54v, 62, 176v (7 Sep. 1433: ‘sex marcas annui census . . . de censibus per bone memorie Cristoferum patrem Barbare emptis et comparatis’); Akta radzieckie, vol. 1, no. 111 (‘olim bone memorie magister Cristopherus pater dicte Barbare’). In the sources known to me, Christopher appears as a consistory-court advocate in the years 1404–29 (Acta capitulorum, vol. 2, nos. 936, 1014), and he definitely died before 3 January 1431 (AC 14, fol. 75). He originated from Miłosław (Kodeks dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski, vol. 7, ed. A. Gąsiorowski and R. Walczak [Warsaw and Poznań, 1985], no. 518). He was also a cathedral vicar (30 May 1412; ibid, no. 697a), and he even exchanged his vicarage for the parish church in Białężyn (12 April 1421; Bullarium Poloniae, vol. 4, ed. S. Kuraś, I. Sułkowska-Kuraś and H. Wajs [Rome and Lublin, 1992], no. 803). Despite having occupied the vicarage and the parish, he may not have taken higher orders, which enabled him to marry and to beget legitimate offspring. Nicholas Młynek must have known Christopher well, since he often replaced him in court (AC 9, fol. 201; AC 12, fol. 166; AC 14, fol. 75; Constitutiones procuratorum, vol. 2, fol. 76v). Akta radzieckie, vol. 1, nos. 102, 108, 111, 198; Gniezno, Archiwum Archidiecezjalne, ACons. C 1, fol. 43–4 (23 Dec. 1440: an appellate verdict by the officialis of Gniezno, granting Nicholas Paduch rent from a garden in the suburb which Nicholas Młynek had refused to pay). Akta radzieckie, vol. 1, no. 250. Stadtbuch von Posen, pp. 164–5, no. 471 (19 May 1427: ‘perfida Jochna filia Manlini Magni’); see n. 58. See n. 63. See nn. 58, 65, 68–9. Poznań Z. 9, fol. 130v (11 Dec. 1427): ‘Item venientes nobiles Gregorius de Golcz tamquam principalis debitor et Nicolaus de Wargowo prout fideiussor . . . recognoverunt octodecim marcas latorum grossorum Pragensium Jochne Judee Posnaniensi . . .’ Poznań Z 9, fol. 62–62v, 74v, 86v, 106; Poznań Z 10, fol. 94–94v, 195. Poznań Z 9, fol. 7, 31, 67, 115v, 122; Poznań Z 10, fol. 80v, 83v, 163, 195; Poznań Z 11, fol. 31v, 54, 63, 79v; Poznań Z 12, fol. 62v, 138, 139v. Poznań Z 12, fol. 148, 160v, 183; Poznań Z 13, fol. 53v, 64v. Poznań Z 12, fol. 226 (10 [?] May 1434): ‘Item venientes Pessak maritus olym Jochne Judee et Mallin pater eiusdem Jochne, Judei de Poznania . . .’

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Notes 247 59 Jochna, Abraham’s widow: Poznań Z. 8, fol. 105 , 107; Jochna’s other cases with Andrew Krupa and Nicholas of Chomęcice: Poznań Z 8, fol. 78v, 87, 98v; Poznań Z 9, fol. 99v, 106; Poznań Z 11, fol. 76, 128; Manlin the Old: Poznań Z 8, fol. 58; Poznań Z 9, fol. 7, 12, 99v, 106, 114, 122, 131. 60 Stadtbuch von Posen, pp. 135–6 (no. 393), 142 (no. 412). 61 See L. Koczy, Studia, pp. 275–6, who, however, incorrectly indentifies Manlin the Old as Manlin the Red; they are certainly two different people, for which see AC 14, fol. 66v (21 March 1431): ‘a Iudeis Iczak et Ruffo Mandlyn et alio Antiquo Mandlyn’. Manlin the Old was also called ‘the Fat’ (Poznań Z 12, fol. 195: ‘Manlin Magnus’ in the preamble, ‘Manlin Pinguis’ in the text of the entry; AC 19, fol. 224v: ‘Manlin Tlusti’). Manlin the Old’s daughters also included Sława (married to Isaac), and Rosa (perhaps identical to the wife of the subsequently well-known Salomon–Słoma); see the entries concerning the joint transactions made by this sibling group, cited in n. 64. The wife of Manlin the Old who appears on 9 September 1428 is Racha (Poznań Z 10, fol. 83v). 62 Concerning this Abraham, see L. Koczy, Studia, p. 175. At the same time, two other Abrahams also lived in Poznań: the son of Muszko the Rich (Die ältesten großpolnischen Grodbücher, ed. J. Lekszycki, vol. 1 [Leipzig, 1887], no. 936, 1758), perhaps identical to the son of Muszko of Pyzdry (1407–9: Poznań Z 3, fol. 2, 66v, 95v, 102: ‘Abraham Judeus Muszconis de Pysdri nunc in Poznania morans’), and also perhaps the son of a man, or of a woman, named Jordan (Die ältesten großpolnischen Grodbücher, vol. 1, nos. 963, 2099, 2101, 2208, 2331). The identification of Abraham, Jochna’s husband, as Aaron’s son seems to be confirmed by the fact that, in 1332, Isaac the Old son of Aaron, together with Isaac son of Manlin (that is to say, Jochna’s brother) transferred to Jochna the debts due to them from Bartosz Chomęcki – which looks like a family transaction (Poznań Z 11, fol. 112). 63 The entry of 11 January 1426 (Stadtbuch von Posen, pp. 154–5, no. 447: ‘Jochna mit eren kindern Abrahomes erem manne’), which quite possibly concerns the no longer living Abraham, is unclear. Jochna is explicitly called a widow on 7 May 1426 (Poznań Z 8, fol. 105v, 107). See also Kodeks dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski, vol. 9, ed. A. Gąsiorowski and T. Jasiński (Poznań, 1990), no. 1139 (7 Oct. 1427), and Poznań Z 10, fol. 80v (9 Sep. 1428). 64 Poznań Z 9, fol. 93v (25 June 1427: the court bailiff places ‘Judeos Poznanienses videlicet Rosam, Jochnam et Iczak’ into possession of the goods of Lawrence Jeż in Nowy Dwór), 101 (July 1427: ‘Rosa, Jochna et Hyczak Judeus dederunt terminum sedendi in domo strenuo Laurencio Gesz de Nowy Dwor ab hunc ad quatuor septimanas, ita tamen quod ipsis in domorum edificiis et in aliis rebus dampnificare non debet, piscatores vero pisces domino cedentes dictis Judeis debeant assignare . . .’), 116 (22 Oct. 1427: Lawrence Jeż pays a penalty ‘quia non exivit de heredidate et domo’); Poznań Z 10, fol. 13 (10 Feb. 1428: ‘Iczak, Jochna, Rosa, Slawa Judei Poznanienses statuerunt tutorem et procuratorem nobilem Stanislaum Slap de Palandze in Nowi Dwor et Sady ipsorum acquisicionis et eciam domini decreverunt quod dominus Chwalantha de Lubycz burgrabius Pozanniensis eosdem Judeos unacum Slap a violencia et in dictis bonis aquisitis similiter defensare debet et tueri’), 29–29v (9 March 1428: Jeż pays off part of the debt, but in order to extinguish the remainder, the Jewish lenders are to draw the revenues from Nowy Dwór and Sady). 65 Stadtbuch von Posen, p. 194, no. 538 (24 Jan. 1431): ‘her Pessak der Jude und Jochne seyne hawsfraw’. v

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66 Poznań Z 12, fol. 138, 139v; the entries appear to refer to 16 February 1434. 67 Ibid, fol. 148 (‘dedimus sibi ad inligandum ipsam et Peschak cum pueris suis, videlicet Jochne, olim in hereditate Gorzewo’), 148v (‘domina Gorzewska . . . eisdem Judeis videlicet Peszakoni et pueris Jochne plus noscere non debet’). 68 Ibid, fol. 191v: ‘Item veniens Pessak Judeus ex parte sui et filiorum suorum et Jochne defuncte . . .’ 69 Ibid, fol. 190: ‘Item veniens Peschak et Muschcka privignus Peschak filius Jochne . . .’ Muszka appeared jointly with Jochna as early as 6 January 1430 (Poznań Z 11, fol. 39v). Concerning the children by Abraham, see the entry cited in n. 63. The existence of children by Pessach is documented by the entry cited in n. 68. 70 Akta radzieckie, vol. 1, no. 120 (2 July 1438); Poznań, Archiwum Państwowe, M. Poznań, 1.129, fol. 81 (25 Oct. 1448: ‘Jude Pyeszak’). 71 Poznań Z 10, fol. 152v–3v (4 Jan. 1429), 162v–3v (6 Jan. 1429), 171–3, 176v–7 (3 Feb. 1429), 185v, 191v, 195 (1 March 1429); Poznań Z 11, fol. 3v (4 April 1429), 28v, 30–1v, 33 (4 Jan. 1430). 72 Concerning the sixteenth century, this perspective has been forcefully presented long ago by L. Koczy, Studia, p. 258; see also T. Jurek, ‘Żydzi w późnośredniowiecznym Kaliszu’, Rocznik Kaliski 24 (1992–3), 29–53. 8 Notes on the Provision of Water for the City of Dubrovnik in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

1

2 3 4

5 6

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I wish to thank Mrs. Nan Lewis of Los Angeles for kindly editing my English text. Liber statutorum civitatis Ragusii, ed. and trans. (into Croatian) A. Šoljić, Z. Šundrica and I. Veselić (Dubrovnik, 2002), bk. 5, ch. 41, and bk. 7, ch. 62. See S. Ćirković, ‘Iz dubrovačke svakodnevnice XV stoleća’, in Lauree Bartholomeo Krekich septuagenario oblatae (Belgrade, 2004), p. 4. R. Jeremić and J. Tadić, Prilozi za istoriju zdravstvene kulture starog Dubrovnika, vol. 1 (Belgrade, 1938), pp. 36–8. For the development of textile production in Dubrovnik, see D. Dinić-Knežević, Tkanine u privredi srednjovekovnog Dubrovnika (Belgrade, 1982). Jeremić and Tadić, Prilozi, vol. 1, pp. 39–43. The cost of the aqueduct amounted to at least 12,000 and perhaps even 15,000 golden ducats; ibid, p. 39. A very interesting description of the building of the aqueduct can be found in the work of Philippus de Diversis de Quartigianis, from Lucca, who was the principal of the first high school in Dubrovnik, from 1431 until probably 1441, and left a fascinating description of the city. See Filip de Diversis, Opis slavnoga grada Dubrovnika, ed. and trans. (into Croatian) Z. Janeković-Römer (Zagreb, 2004), pp. 59–61, 152–4. See also L. Beritić, ‘Dubrovački vodovod’, Anali Historijskog instituta Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti u Dubrovniku 8–9 (1960–1), 99–116; R. Seferović and M. Stojan, ‘Čudo vode (prolegomena za renesansni vodovod u Dubrovniku)’, Anali Zavoda za povijesne znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti u Dubrovniku 44 (2006), 95–137. In 1453 five additional springs were found, and connected with the aqueduct: Liber viridis, ed. B. Nedeljković (Belgrade, 1984), ch. 438; Jeremić and Tadić, Prilozi, vol. 1, pp. 44–5. Liber viridis, ch. 341; Jeremić and Tadić, Prilozi, vol. 1, p. 43.

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Notes 249 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Državni arhiv u Dubrovniku (hereafter DAD), Consilium minus, xxi, p. 72. Ibid, pp. 32, 71v. Ibid, pp. 61v, 63. Ibid, p. 72v. Ibid, p. 78v. Ibid, pp. 90, 107. Ibid, Diversa notariae, lxiv, p. 128v. Ibid, lxv, p. 15. For a detailed description of the building of Onofrio’s big fountain see R.N. Klemenčič, ‘Dubrovniška velika fontana’, Zbornik za umetnostno zgodovino, n. s. 39 (2003), 57–91. I am very grateful to Dr. Nella Lonza, Scientific Researcher in the Historical Institute of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Dubrovnik, for providing me with a photocopy of this article. 16 DAD, Diversa notariae, lxiv, p. 134. The mason’s salary was to be 30 hyperpers. At this time, one Venetian ducat was worth three Ragusan hyperpers. 17 The masons were to fodere et terrenum fossionis eorum expensis asportare . . . dando ipsam cisternam longam brachiis sex cum dimidio intra muros et largam brachiis quatuor intra muros, et altam brachiis quatuor, bene involtatam et bene carazatam et cum canalibus quantum est longa domus supra viam, et cum cantullis per quos de dictis canalibus aqua vadat in dictam cisternam . . . et cum pozali in orio dicte domus. (ibid, lxv, p. 63v)

18 This contract was particularly long and detailed: ibid, pp. 62v–3. Another cistern more greco, 1487, at ibid, lxvii, 75. 19 DAD, Consilium minus, xxi, p. 180v. 20 This document has been published in its entirety by Ćirković, ‘Iz dubrovačke svakodnevnice’, pp. 17–19. 21 DAD, Diversa notariae, lxvii, p. 144v. 22 Consilium rogatorum, xxv, p. 175v. I am most grateful to Dr. Relja Seferović, Research Assistant in the Historical Institute of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Dubrovnik, for finding and copying this document for me. 23 DAD, Diversa notariae, lxvii, p. 155v. The man, Pethar Zofredouich, was supposed to bring trabes centum brachiorum decem de morello minori trabium quas ipse Pethar promisit ser Marino And. de Ragnina, et trabes quinquaginta de passis quattuor de bono morello . . . ad trabes quattuor pro singulo ducato, et tabulas [lacuna] de xernouiza de sega maiori ad ducatos novem pro singulo centenario.

24 25 26 27 28 29

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Petar received from the aforementioned ser Marino fifty ducats in rationem presentis mercati. DAD, Consilium minus, xxi, pp. 141v, 147v, 165v, 230. Ser Clemens was ordered in July 1481 ‘to remove all the dirt that was caused by the work performed under the roof [of his house] near the courtyard of the cistern’ (ibid, p. 232). Ibid, p. 236. Ibid, iv, p. 41. Ibid, xxxi, pp. 179v, 180v. Ibid, p. 203. Ibid, p. 206v.

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30 The fountain was to be built in casale nobilium de Gradis sub Prichiput, and the other one nearby (ibid, pp. 210, 212v, 225). 31 Ibid, xxxi, pp. 109v, 114. 32 Ibid, pp. 292–292v. 33 Consilium rogatorum, lviii, pp. 179–179v. 34 DAD, Consilium minus, xxxvi, p. 94. 35 Ibid, xliv, p. 128v. 36 Jeremić and Tadić, Prilozi, vol. 3 (Belgrade, 1940), pp. 27–9. 37 See B. Krekić, ‘Dubrovnik’s struggle against fires (13th–15th centuries)’, in B. Krekić, Dubrovnik: A Mediterranean Urban Society, 1300–1600 (Aldershot, 1997), ch. VI. 9 Venice and Wrocław in the later Middle Ages 1 F. Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (London and Baltimore, MD, 1973), p. 79; J. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250– 1350 (New York and Oxford, 1989), pp. 33–6, 353–9. 2 On the dissolution, see Abu-Lughod, European Hegemony, pp. 359–60. On the beginnings of the economic recovery in Europe, see G. Duby, ‘Medieval agriculture, 900–1500’, in The Fontana Economic History of Europe, vol. 1: The Middle Ages, ed. C.M. Cipolla (London, 1972), p. 215; M. Małowist, Wschód a Zachód Europy w XIII–XVI wieku. Konfrontacja struktur społecznogospodarczych (Warsaw, 1973), p. 376. 3 Małowist, Wschód, p. 27; H. Samsonowicz, ‘L’économie de l’Europe du CentreEst du haut Moyen Âge au XVIe siècle’, in Histoire de l’Europe du Centre-Est, ed. N. Aleksiun et al. (Paris, 2004), pp. 635–41. 4 L.B. Robbert, ‘Venice and the crusades’, in A History of the Crusades, gen. ed. K.M. Setton, vol. 5, ed. N.P. Zacour and H.W. Hazard (Madison, WI, 1985), pp. 416, 418, 451. See also the remarks by Lane, Venice, p. 43. 5 Lane, Venice, pp. 200–1, 238; F. Braudel, Civilisation matérielle et capitalisme, vol. 3: Le temps du monde (Paris, 1979), pp. 95–101; D. Quirini-Popławska, Urbs populosissima, opulentissima, liberalissima. Mit czy rzeczywistość późnośredniowiecznej Wenecji? (Kraków, 1997), pp. 133, 231. 6 J.C. Russell, Medieval Regions and Their Cities (Bloomington, IN, 1972), pp. 64–5. Compare the remarks by Lane, who offers the slightly higher aggregate figure of about 120,000 before the Black Death, a level reattained around the year 1500; Lane, Venice, pp. 18–19. Similarly D. Calabi, who estimates the city’s population in 1509 at around 110,000; Dalabi, ‘Gli stranieri e la città’, in Storia di Venezia dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, ed. A. Tenenti and U. Tucci, vol. 5 (Rome, 1996), p. 919. 7 C. Buśko and M. Kaczmarek, ‘Wrocław od pradziejów do połowy XIII wieku’, in Historia Wrocławia od pradziejów do końca czasów habsburskich, ed. C. Buśko, M. Goliński, M. Kaczmarek and L. Ziątkowski, vol. 1 (Wrocław, 2001), pp. 9–93, at 85. On German law in the Polish lands and Central Europe, see recently M. Bogucka and H. Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast i mieszczaństwa w Polsce przedrozbiorowej (Wrocław, 1986), pp. 45–88; P. Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland (1100–1250) (New York, 1992), pp. 193–284; A. Körmendy, Melioratio terrae. Vergleichende Untersuchungen über die Siedlungsbewegung im östlichen Mitteleuropa im 13.–14. Jahrhundert (Poznań, 1995), passim; S. Gawlas, O kształt zjednoczonego Królestwa.

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Notes 251

8

9

10 11 12 13

Niemieckie władztwo terytorialne a geneza społecznoustrojowej odrębności Polski (Warsaw, 1996), pp. 26–37, 88–90. H. Weczerka, ‘Die Südostbeziehungen der Hanse’, in Die Hanse und der deutsche Osten, ed. N. Angermann (Lüneburg, 1982), p. 119; M. Młynarska-Kaletynowa, Wrocław w XII–XIII wieku. Przemiany społeczne i osadnicze (Wrocław, 1986), p. 43. On the significance of the Odra in this period, see W. Kehn, Der Handel im Oderraum im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert (Cologne and Graz, 1968), pp. 198–9, 202. For examples in the sources of the import of fish and salt from Pomerania to Silesia, see, among others, M. Scholz-Babisch and H. Wendt, Quellen zur schlesischen Handelsgeschichte, vol. 1 (Breslau, 1940), pp. 44–6 (no. 51), 48 (no. 55); A. Grodek, ‘Handel odrzański w rozwoju historycznym’, in Monografia Odry, ed. A. Grodek, M. Kiełczewska-Zaleska and A. Zierhoffer (Poznań, 1948), p. 385; R. Stelmach, ‘Zasób dokumentowy Archiwum Państwowego we Wrocławiu’, in Średniowiecze polskie i powszechne, vol. 2, ed. I. Panic and J. Sperka (Katowice, 2002), p. 209. Scholz-Babisch and Wendt, Quellen, pp. 23 (nos. 31, 1176), 65–6 (nos. 74, 1225); K. Maleczyński and W. Hołubowicz, Historia Śląska, vol. 1, pt. 1 (Wrocław, 1960), p. 306. For doubts concerning the presence of Thuringian merchants in Wrocław, see M. Goliński, Podstawy gospodarcze mieszczaństwa wrocławskiego w XIII wieku (Wrocław, 1991), p. 48. Małowist, Wschód, p. 139; Samsonowicz, ‘L’économie’, p. 629. Samsonowicz, ‘L’économie’, p. 635. K. Maleczyński, ‘Dzieje Wrocławia od czasów najdawniejszych do roku 1618’, in Dzieje Wrocławia do roku 1807, ed. W. Długoborski, J. Gierowski and K. Maleczyński (Warsaw, 1958), p. 194. Wrocław merchants served the papal emissary, Giovanni di Piano di Carpini, as guides to Kiev: Insuper testes sunt mercatores Wratislavie qui usque in Kioviam venerunt nobiscum [et] sciverunt quod nos manus intravimus Tartarorum; et multi alii mercatores, tam de Polonia quam de Austria, qui venerunt in Kioviam postquam ad Tartaros ieramus. Sunt et testes mercatores de Constantinopoli qui per Tartaros in Rusciam venerunt, et erant in Kiovia cum de terra reversi sumus Tartarorum. Nomina autem mercatorum illorum sunt hec: Michael genuensis et Bartholomeus, Manuel veneticus, Iacobus Renerius Acre, Nicholaus pisanus, isti sunt maiores; alii minores sunt: Marchus, Henricus, Iohannes, Vasius, iterum Henricus Bonadies, Petrus Paschiani. Alii plures fuerunt, sed eorum nomina nescimus. (G. di Piano di Carpini, Historia Mongalorum, ed. E. Menestò [Spoleto, 1987], ch. 51, p. 332)

For the hypothesis that the expression ‘merchants from Austria’ in all likelihood refers to merchants from Regensburg, see G. Myśliwski, ‘Związki gospodarcze Wrocławia z miastami południowych Niemiec i Szwajcarii (XIII–XV w.)’, Roczniki Dziejów Społecznych i Gospodarczych 55 (2005), 129–31. 14 Abu-Lughod, European Hegemony, pp. 154, 158. 15 Scholz-Babisch and Wendt, Quellen, p. 164. 16 The fullest range of possibilities was presented by M. Goliński, in whose view the wine probably originated in northeastern Italy, in territories situated in the sphere of influence of Venice. According to one explanation of the name for this wine, the name derives from Rivallo, near Prosecco, close to Trieste. According to

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Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages another, it refers to Rivoli near Verona, or to Bozen in Tyrol . . . It is, however, worth noting that the best-known Rivoli is situated near Turin, and thus to the west of the aforenoted region. (Podstawy, p. 47)

17 Nürnberger Urkundenbuch, vol. 1, part 2, ed. Stadtrat zu Nürnberg (Nuremberg, 1952), p. 277, no. 447: [O]b di in der stat ze Chamb iht chauffent oder verchauffent, die geben niht . . . Daz reht habent auch, daz [den] Regenspurgern ist verschriben, di purger von Nuernberch unde von Bretzlach und in den selben steten habent auch Chamber daz selb reht. 18 H. Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venedig und die deutschvenetianischen Handelsbeziehungen, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1887, repr. Aalen, 1968), p. 47. 19 For the trade route through Munich, see Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco, p. 94. 20 A. Kraus, Geschichte Bayerns. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Munich, 1983), pp. 128–9. 21 ‘Item Davidi de Wratislavia pro pellibus et pelliciis variis datis dominis lb. 18½ venetorum pro argenti marcis 37 boni Wiennensis ponderis . . . ’ (‘Auszüge aus Amtrechnungen, Hauptrechnungen der Friscobaldigeselleschaft und Tiroler Kaufleute’, in F. Bastian, Oberdeutsche Kaufleute in den älteren Tiroler Raitbüchern [1288–1370]. Rechnungen und Rechnungsauszüge samt Einleitungen und Kaufmannsregister [Munich, 1931, repr. Aalen 1971], no. 73 [1299], pp. 76–7). 22 ‘Auszüge’, nos. 80–1 (1300), p. 78. 23 Lane, Venice, pp. 61, 186. 24 H. Ammann, ‘Zur Geschichte der wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zwischen Oberdeutschland und dem deutschen Nordosten im Mittelalter’, Schlesische Geschichtsblätter (1927), no. 3, p. 53. 25 Urkundliche Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte ober- und niederösterreichischer Städte, Märkte und Dörfer, ed. G. Winter (Innsbruck, 1877), no. 2 (ca. 1310), p. 57: Ist er aver Prage oder von Brezzla . . . und fürt ainen wagen vol geladen mit vechem verch, es sein chürsen oder palge, der geit ie von dem rad dez wagens ein vїrdung silber, daz ist von ainem wagen mir vїr scheiben ain markch silber. [I]ist aver daz er minner furt, so schol man nicht nach den redern dez wagens nehmen, man schol halt bescheidenleich und darnach und ez geacht wїrt, von im nehmen. For the meaning of the expression vechs verch, see p. 57, n. 1. 26 Ammann, ‘Zur Geschichte’, p. 53. 27 J. Ptaśnik, Kultura włoska wieków średnich w Polsce (2nd ed., Warsaw, 1959), p. 142. 28 H. Wendt, Schlesien und der Orient. Ein geschichtlicher Überblick (Breslau, 1916), p. 33. 29 On the story of Silesia’s incorporation into the Kindgom of Bohemia, see Maleczyński and Hołubowicz, Historia Śląska, vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 544–59; P.W. Knoll, The Rise of the Polish Monarchy: Piast Poland in East Central Europe, 1320–1370 (Chicago, IL, 1972), pp. 59–62, 96–7. 30 Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco, vol. 2, p. 80.

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Notes 253 31 Breslauer Urkundenbuch (hereafter BUB), vol. 1, ed. G. Korn (Breslau, 1870), no. 122 (1327), p. 112 (§§ 16–17). The 1327 tariff has been treated, among others, by Maleczyński, Dzieje, pp. 121–2, and Kehn, Der Handel, pp. 79–80. 32 BUB, pp. 112–13. For the wine referred to as welsch, see R. Sprandel, Von Malvasia bis Kötschenbroda. Die Weinsorten auf den spätmittelalterlichen Märtken Deutschlands (Stuttgart, 1998), pp. 27–8. 33 Maleczyński, Dzieje, p. 121; see BUB, vol. 1, no. 123 (1327), pp. 114–15. 34 C. Grünhagen, ‘Schlesien am Ausgang des Mittelalters’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Althertum Schlesiens 18 (1884), 39. See the remarks by M. Małowist, who considered supply from Venice to be the most important even for the lands of the Kingdom of Poland, despite the fact that that kingdom contained Lwów, with its strong ties to Genoa’s colonies on the Black Sea: Małowist, ‘Les routes du commerce et les marchandises du Levant dans la vie de la Pologne au bas Moyen Age et au début de l’époque moderne’, in Mediterraneo e Oceano Indiano. Atti del VI Colloquio di Storia Maritima (Venice, 1962), p. 175. 35 On the Flemish contacts of Wrocław’s inhabitants, see M. Małowist, ‘Le développement des rapports économiques entre la Flandre, la Pologne et les pays limitrophes du XIIIe au XIVe siècle’, Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 10 (1931), 1020–1; compare Hansisches Urkundenbuch (hereafter HUB), vol. 3, ed. K. Höhlbaum (Halle, 1882–6), pp. 419–20 (n. 1). On contacts between Wrocław and the Black Sea, see Ł. Charewiczowa, Handel średniowiecznego Lwowa (Lwów, 1925) pp. 31–2, 37; Kehn, Der Handel, pp. 44, 69; M. Balard, ‘Gênes et la mer Noire’, Revue Historique 270 (1983), 52–3; Samsonowicz, ‘L’économie’, p. 635. 36 M. Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1872, repr. 1974), p. 742, s.v. gast. 37 On the ties with Kraków in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, see S. Kutrzeba, Handel Krakowa w wiekach średnich na tle stosunków handlowych Polski (Kraków, 1902), pp. 72–3; on the importation of southern commodities through Toruń, see S. Weymann, Cła i drogi handlowe w Polsce piastowskiej (Poznań, 1938), pp. 101, 121; on the possible role of southern German merchants, see Myśliwski, ‘Związki’, p. 136. 38 Maleczyński, Dzieje, p. 130. 39 Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco, vol. 2, p. 81. 40 Wendt, Schlesien, p. 44. 41 Archiwum Państwowe we Wrocławiu (hereafter APWr), Dokumenty miasta Wrocławia (hereafter DmWr), no. 767 (1389): [D]ie Burger und kauflute von Bresslaw und andere unse undertanen wie das sie die von Wyen und andere von Osteriche an der Straze von Behem gen Venedigen und an andern iren sachen und kauffmanschafte hindern und gehindert haben ... See T. Mayer, Der auswärtige Handel des Herzogtums Österreich im Mittelalter (Innsbruck, 1909), p. 33. 42 APWr, DmWr, no. 767 (1389): [I]st unsre meynunng ernstlichen und wollen nicht gestatten das keine kauflute von Wyenn und von Osterich mit kheinerley kaufmanschaft . . . gen Behem Polan oder sust in andere unsere lande noch von Behem Polan oder andern unsern

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Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages landen gen Wyenn oder Osterich hin und herwider czihen oder varen sullen und ouch das dieselben von Wyenn und von Osterich in unsern landen keynerley kaufmanschaft mit kauffen oder vorkauffen treiben sullen uncz den unsern von Bresslau und andern unsern undertanen die Strasse gen Venedien ungehindert durch der Herzogen von Osterich lande offen werden.

43 APWr, DmWr, no. 770 (1388); see Ptaśnik, Kultura, p. 128. 44 Grünhagen, ‘Schlesien’, p. 39. 45 Mayer, Der auswärtige Handel, p. 33; K. Fajkmajer, ‘Die Streitigkeiten zwischen den böhmischen und den Wiener Kaufleuten am Ende des XIV. Jahrhunderts’, Mittheilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtforschung 31 (1910), no. 3, 442 (see p. 444 for Fajkmajer’s remarks about the dating of this document, which are more exact than Mayer’s). 46 Fajkmajer, ‘Die Streitigkeiten’, p. 443: Item die purgar von Prag, von Bressla und aus andern steten des chunikreichs von Behaim mugem mit irem gelt und mit irem wechsel reiten die strass ueber Zeyrekch oder welich ander strass sy wellen durich des herczogen lannd ze Oesterreich ungehindert und ungevaerlich. 47 The earliest attempt to assemble a list of the Venetians whose names appear in the town books of Wrocław was A. Schultz, ‘Topographie Breslaus im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Alterthum Schlesiens 10 (1871), no. 2, 245–6. 48 A. Hoffmann, ‘Unmittelbarer Verkehr zwischen Schlesien und Venedig’, Schlesische Geschichtsblätter (1926), no. 1, 39–40. 49 See H. Pruckner, ‘Der Prozess eines Breslauer Kaufmanns gegen einen Passauer Bürger und dessen Auswirkungen’, in Passauer Studien. Festschrift für Bischof Dr. Simon Konrad Landersdorfer OSB zum 50. Jahrestage seiner Priesterweihe (Passau, 1953), pp. 257–72. 50 Wendt, Schlesien, p. 50. 51 Regesta imperii, vol. 11, pt. 1 (1410–24), ed. W. Altmann (Innsbruck, 1896), p. 17 (no. 254, [1412]). 52 ‘Mittheilungen aus Breslauer Signaturbüchern’, ed. O. Stobbe, in Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Althertum Schlesiens 7 (1866), no. 2, 344–5 (1421) (hereafter MitthSign–3); see Ptaśnik, Kultura, p. 78. On Ricci, see K. Wutke, Schlesiens Bergbau und Hüttenwesen. Urkunden 1136–1528 (Codex Diplomaticus Silesiae, vol. 20) (Breslau 1900), p. 87; Ptaśnik, Kultura, pp. 36–8, 76–82; G. Székely, ‘Wallons et Italiens en Europe Centrale aux XIe–XVIe siècles’, Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestensis 6 (1964), 36–7, 56; A. Sapori, ‘Gli Italiani in Polonia fino a tutto il Quattrocento’, in Sapori, Studi di storia economica, vol. 3 (Florence, 1967), pp. 156, 159. 53 W. Stieda, Hansisch-venetianische Handelsbeziehungen im 15. Jahrhundert (Rostock, 1894), pp. 24, 34. 54 H. Klein, ‘Kaiser Sigismunds Handelssperre gegen Venedig und die Salzburger Alpenstraße’, in Aus Verfassungs- und Landesgeschichte. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Theodor Mayer dargebracht von seinen Freunden und Schülern, vol. 2 (Constance and Lindau, 1955), p. 323. 55 APWr, Zbiór Klosego (hereafter ZbKlosego), vol. 48, fol. 19v–22. On Beringer, see: Wendt, Schlesien, pp. 45–6; G. Pfeiffer, Das Breslauer Patriziat im

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Notes 255

56 57 58

59 60 61 62

63

64 65 66 67

68 69 70

71

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Mittelalter (Breslau, 1929), p. 166; Kehn, Der Handel, p. 92; W. von Stromer, ‘Nürnberg-Breslauer Wirtschaftsbeziehungen im Spätmittelalter’, Jahrbuch für fränkische Landesforschung 34–5 (1974–5), 1091. M. Štefánik, Obchodná vojna král’a Žigmunda proti Benátkam (Bratislava, 2004), pp. 43–51. APWr, ZbKlosego, fol. 19v, pp. 21–2. W. von Stromer, ‘Landmacht gegen Seemacht. Kaiser Sigismunds Kontinentalsperre gegen Venedig (1412–1433)’, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 22 (1995), no. 2, 181, 185. The rise in the importance of Nuremberg merchants as mediators between their colleagues from Wrocław and Venice was noted long ago by Wendt, Schlesien, p. 45. See for example APWr, Libri excessuum et signaturarum (hereafter Lib.exc. sign), vols. 23, p. 58 (1421); 24, p. 52 (1423). Lib.exc.sign, vol. 24, pp. 50, 52, 62 (1422). Wendt, Schlesien, pp. 50–1; Maleczyński, Dzieje, p. 238. See also, for example, APWr, DmWr, no. 2535 (1440); Lib.exc.sign, vols. 36, p. 111 (1446 ); 41, p. 3 (1456). APWr, Akta miasta Wrocławia (hereafter AmWr), Liber Magnus (hereafter LMag), fol. 24v (1397); Lib.exc.sign, vol. 14, p. 40 (1403); MitthSign–3, pp. 344–5 (1421); Lib.exc.sign, vols. 24, p. 50 (1422); 34, p. 206 (1443); 43, p. 226 (1444). In 1466, a certain Johannes Kinar de Wratislavia sold unspecified merchandise in Lwów to the Venetian (mercator de Venecys), Pietro Veluti. In addition, this Wrocław merchant was obliged to pay the Italian the toll assessed on the transport of that merchandise (‘Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi istoricheskii arkhiv Ukrainy m. L’viv’, Acta officii consularis, no. 258 [1466], p. 118). This is because Veluti possessed the Lwów toll in tenure, in order to collect on the city’s debt to himself. Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco, vol. 2, p. 72 (the data in Venetian sources); see also the data drawn from Wrocław sources, in APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 55, p. 95 (1478); DmWr, no. 6064 (1489). Grünhagen, ‘Schlesien’, p. 39; Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco, vol. 2, pp. 191–2. See J. Drabina, Kontakty Wrocławia z Rzymem w latach 1409–1517 (Wrocław, 1981), p. 190. H. Kellenbenz, ‘Die Wirtschaft in Deutschland, Italien und Frankreich im 14. Jahrhundert, insbesondere ihre verkehrwirtschaftlichen Verflechtungen’, in Der deutsche Territorialstaat im 14. Jahrhundert, vol. 1, ed. H. Patze (Sigmaringen, 1970), p. 207; Calabi, Gli stranieri, p. 915. See APWr, DmWr, no. 6064 (1489), containing a notice about soap (venedische Seiffe). Wendt, Schlesien, p. 46. APWr, AmWr, LMag, p. 46 (1407). We might similarly interpret the 1489 regulation concerning trading in (among other goods) Oriental and Mediterranean commodities, although, apart from Venetian soap, we cannot be certain whether the remaining exotic merchandise was also imported from Venice (APWr, DmWr, no. 6064). For the terminology pertaining to commodities from Venice in Passau, see R. Loibl, ‘Die Stadt im späten Mittelalter. Wirtschaftskraft und Verfassungsstreit’, in Geschichte der Stadt Passau, ed. E. Boshof, W. Hartinger, M. Lanzzinner, K. Möseneder and H. Wolff (Regensburg, 1999), p. 105. Wendt, Schlesien, pp. 50–1.

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72 APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 7, p. 3 (1394). 73 Wendt, Schlesien, p. 46. 74 APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 41, p. 89 (1456). Contrary to what might seem its obvious meaning, German historians have variously interpreted the phrase as ‘merchandise worth a penny’; see B. Kuske and M. Scholz-Babisch, ‘Oberdeutscher Handel mit dem deutschen und polnischen Osten nach Geschäftsbriefen von 1444’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Alterthum Schlesiens 64 (1930), 63; Kuske, ‘“Köln”. Zur Geltung der Stadt, ihrer Waren und Massstäbe in älterer Zeit (12.–18. Jahrhundert)’, in Kuske, Köln, der Rhein und das Reich. Beiträge aus fünf Jahrzenhten wirtschaftgeschichtlicher Forschung (Cologne and Graz, 1956), p. 153; W. von Stromer, Die Nürnberger Handelsgesellschaft Gruber–Podmer–Stromer im 15. Jahrhundert (Nuremberg, 1963), p. 77–8. 75 APWr, ZbKlosego, vol. 48, p. 21 (1419); Lib.exc.sign, vol. 41, pp. 3, 90 (1456). 76 MitthSign, ed. O. Stobbe, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Alterthum Schlesiens, 6 (1865), no. 2 (hereafter MitthSign–1), p. 339; APWr, ZbKlosego, vol. 48, p. 21 (1419). On the properties of saffron, see W. von Stromer, ‘Wirtschaft unter den Luxemburgen’, in Nürnberg. Geschichte einer europäischen Stadt, ed. G. Pfeiffer (Munich, 1971), p. 96. 77 APWr, ZbKlosego, vol. 48, fol. 21, 21v (1419). 78 APWr, ZbKlosego, vol. 48, fol. 21v (1419). 79 Wendt, Schlesien, p. 46. 80 APWr, DmWr, no. 6064 (1489). 81 See APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vols. 22, p. 23 (1418); 41, p. 89 (1456). See P. Eschenloer, Historia Wratislaviensis et que post mortem regis Ladislai sub electo Georgio de Podiebrat Bohemorum rege illi acciderant prospera et adversa (Scriptores Rerum Silesiacarum, vol. 7), ed. H. Markgraf (Breslau, 1872), p. 115 (1466). Compare the later, German version of the chronicle, where the Venetian merchandise is described with the expression an venedischen pfennwerten (P. Eschenloer, Geschichte der Stadt Breslau, ed. G. Roth [Munich and Berlin, 2003], vol. 1, p. 528), a phrase I interpret to mean ‘craft products’ (see above). 82 Concerning the extracts, made by the Wrocław historian and archivist Samuel B. Klose, see L. Harc, Samuel Beniamin Klose (1730–1798). Studium historiograficzno-źródłoznawcze (Wrocław, 2002), pp. 127–30. 83 APWr, ZbKlosego, vol. 48, fol. 21. 84 Stieda, Hansisch-venetianische Handelsbeziehungen, p. 103. 85 As a basis for these calculations, I use the lesser Venetian pound, equal to 301 grams; see R.E. Zupko, Italian Weights and Measures from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1981), p. 130; see also the weight of a Venentian ounce, of which twelve constituted one pound, p. 175. Other merchants purchased similar quantities of saffron – over 3.5 centners, that is, about 190 kilograms; see MitthSign–1, p. 340 (1394). 86 H. van der Wee, ‘Structural changes in European long-distance trade, and particularly in the re-export trade from south to north (1350–1750),’ in The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World (1350–1750), ed. J.D. Tracy (Cambridge, 1990), p. 26. 87 APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 41, p. 90. 88 Z. Pach, ‘Levantine trade routes and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages,’ in Le XVe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques à Bucarest (Bucharest, 1980), vol. 2, p. 225.

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Notes 257 89 See the Études anversoises. Documents sur le commerce international à Anvers (1488 –1514) (hereafter Ét.anv), vol. 2, Certificats 1488–1510, ed. R. Doehaerd (Paris, 1962), nos. 660, p. 98 (1492) and 1008, p. 148 (1494), where there is a note of importation by the Wrocław merchants of the droech goet, an expression understood to mean ‘spices’, ‘medications’ or ‘dyestuffs’; for these explanations, see Ét.anv, vol. 3, p. 361. On the contacts between Antwerp and the Polish lands (including Silesia, which was Czech at this time), see H. Samsonowicz, ‘Relations commerciales polono-italiennes dans le bas Moyen Age’, in Studi in memoria di Federigo Melis, vol. 2 (Rome, 1978), pp. 289–91. 90 On supplies by merchants from Regensburg, see Das Runtingerbuch (1383– 1407) und verwandtes Material zum Regensburger-Südostdeutschen Handel und Münzwesen, vol. 2, ed. F. Bastian (Regensburg, 1935), p. 148 (1404); APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 23, p. 99 (1420); for import of pepper by a merchant from Passau, see Myśliwski, ‘Związki’, p. 146. The price of pepper in Venice fell considerably at that time; Lane, Venice, p. 288. 91 APWr, ZbKlosego, vol. 48, fol. 21v. 92 Wendt, Schlesien, p. 46. 93 Italia mercatoria apud Polonos saeculo XV ineunte (hereafter IMer.), ed. J. Ptaśnik (Rome, 1910), no. 50, p. 34 (1428). 94 APWr, ZbKlosego, vol. 48, fol. 21v. For a description of baldechin and bukeschin, see W. Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1879, repr. Hildesheim and New York, 1971), pp. 686–7, 692. 95 APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 7, p. 3 (1394). 96 APWr, ZbKlosego, vol. 48, fol. 21v. 97 Wendt, Schlesien, p. 46. 98 Scholz-Babisch, ‘Oberdeutscher Handel’, pp. 64, 66. On Brazil-wood, brought from India through Jerusalem and Egypt, see Lane, Venice, p. 298. 99 For lapis lazuli, see Heyd, Geschichte, pp. 582–3. 100 Ptaśnik, Kultura, pp. 36–7. 101 Ibid, pp. 132–51. 102 IMer, no. 50, p. 34 (1428). 103 Wendt, Schlesien, p. 7; H. Samsonowicz, ‘Handel Litwy z Zachodem w XV wieku’, Przegląd Historyczny 90 (1999), 454. 104 IMer, no 50, p. 34 (1428). I take one stone to equal twelve kilograms, following T. Goerlitz, Verfassung, Verwaltung und Recht der Stadt Breslau, vol. 1 (Würzburg, 1962), pp. 73, 78. 105 Kuske and Scholz-Babisch, ‘Oberdeutscher Handel’, p. 63. J. Ptaśnik thought that cochineal dye was imported from the Rus’: Kultura, p. 134. However, another region of its origins is worth considering. L. Koczy has cited examples of its production in Masovia, within the estates of the archbishops of Gniezno: Handel Poznania do połowy wieku XVI (Poznań, 1930), p. 354. To be sure, his remarks rest upon evidence from the 1540s; yet it appears that cochineal dye had been procured in Masovia much earlier. Production of this commodity required merely a traditional, herbal culture, and a demand beyond Masovia’s boundaries. Both conditions were in place by the end of the Middle Ages; thus in this period Masovian cochineal dye was probably traded over long distances. 106 See Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco, vol. 1, no 412, p. 227 (1437), for transport of cochineal dye there by merchants from Nuremberg.

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107 Grünhagen, ‘Schlesien’, p. 41. For copper mining in Silesia (which was not very well-developed), see K. Maleczyński, ‘Aus der Geschichte des schlesischen Bergbaus in der Epoche des Feudalismus’, in Beiträge zur Geschichge Schlesiens, ed. E. Maleczyńska (Berlin, 1958), pp. 244–5. 108 U. Tucci, ‘Monete e banche nel secolo del ducato d’oro’, in Storia di Venezia dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, ed. A. Tenenti and U. Tucci, vol. 5 (Rome, 1996), p. 765. 109 Małowist, ‘Le développement’, pp. 1020–1. 110 For gold mining in Silesia, see Grünhagen, ‘Schlesien’, pp. 37–8 (Złoty Stok/Reichenstein); K. Peter, ‘Die Goldbergwerke bei Zuckmantel und Freiwaldau’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Alterthum Schlesiens 19 (1885), 35–62; M. Gumowski, ‘Moneta na Śląsku do końca XIV w.’, Historja Śląska od najdawniejszych czasów do roku 1400, vol. 3, ed. W. Semkowicz (Kraków, 1936), pp. 710–11. For silver mining, see Peter, ‘Die Goldbergwerke’, passim; Maleczyński, ‘Aus der Geschichte’, pp. 240–2. 111 Peter, ‘Die Goldbergwerke’, p. 47. 112 Tucci, Monete, p. 754. 113 On the transit of precious metals from Hungary through Vienna, see Mayer, Der auswärtige Handel, p. 20, and MitthSign–3, p. 355 (1424). 114 APWr, ZbKlosego, vol. 48, fol. 20v (1415); Lib.exc.sign, vol. 26, pp. 46–7 (1427). 115 Lane, Venice, p. 61; on later import of silver into Venice, see Tucci, Monete, p. 765. 116 BUB, no. 286, pp. 237–8. On Kutná Hora, see J. Janáček, ‘L’argent tchèque et la Méditerranée (XIVe et XVe siècles)’, in Mélanges en l’honneur de Fernand Braudel, ed. B. Tenenti, vol. 1 (Toulouse, 1973), pp. 247–9, 255. 117 Pruckner, ‘Der Prozess’, passim; Loibl, Die Stadt, p. 125; Myśliwski, ‘Związki’, pp. 138–9. 118 APWr, AmWr, LMag, fol. 24 (1397). 119 APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 45, p. 231. 120 Ibid, vols. 43, p. 78 (1461); 44, p. 81 (1463). 121 If we thought that this name referred to a Byzantine coinage (the hyperperon, for which see N.J.G. Pounds, An Economic History of Medieval Europe [2nd ed., London, 1994], p. 117), then one person would be the equivalent of over three ducats: D. Quirini-Popławska, Włoski handel czarnomorskimi niewolnikami w późnym średniowieczu (Kraków, 2002), p. 126. 122 According to F. Friedensburg, one Hungarian florin was the equivalent of 24 Prague groats in the years 1400–30, 26 in 1432–3, and 28 from 1434 onward; Schlesiens Münzgeschichte im Mittelalter, pt. 2: Münzgeschichte und Münzbeschreibung (Codex diplomaticus Silesiae, vol. 13 [Breslau 1888], p. 67). Because, in this author’s opinion, a mark of a Polish unit of account (that is, consisting of 48 groats – for which see Schlesiens Münzgeschichte, p. 52) dominated in Silesia throughout the entire Middle Ages, we can easily assess the fact that one mark was equal in value to two Hungarian florins during the early period, 1.85 florins in 1432–3, and 1.71 florins from 1434 onward. This value, during the third and latest period, was accepted by L. Petry, Die Popplau. Eine schlesische Kaufmannsfamilie des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (Breslau, 1935), p. 92. 123 APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 30, p. 150 (1436). Similarly, the two instances concerning the obligations by a Toruń–Poznań–Legnica-based venture, where

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Notes 259

124 125 126

127

128 129

130 131 132

133

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the sources refer at one point to a debt of 399 ducats, and at another to a debt in the same amount of florins, appear to support the one-to-one equivalence of these two currencies; see APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 24, pp. 53–4. Until 1491, the latter loaned the inhabitants of Wrocław about 2,500 Hungarian florins, i.e. about 1390 marks of Prague groats; Myśliwski, ‘Związki’, p. 152. Samsonowicz, ‘L’économie’, p. 627. The prices here follow Stieda, Hansisch-venetianische Handelsbeziehungen, pp. 95–6, 98, 103. Because the Venetian pound weighed 0.301 kilograms, the local centner must have weighed 30.1 kilograms; see also Zupko, Italian Weights, p. 130. In 1432, a house with a lot situated in the Wrocław market square was worth as much as 600 marks (MitthSign, ed. O. Stobbe, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Althertum Schlesiens 9 [1868], nos. 1, 178 [1446] [hereafter MitthSign–6]; compare APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 36, p. 60 [1446]; p. 203 [1447]). However, in the same space it was also possible to acquire a house, probably without a lot, for as little as 370 marks (APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 36, p. 203 [1447]). The castle in Cisów (Zeisberg), near Wałbrzych, elicited a payment of 500 marks (APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 32, p. 105 [1438]). The price of one bale (postaw) of high-quality woollen cloth from Brussels oscillated between 16 and 18 marks (MitthSign–1, p. 340 [1394]; Lib.exc.sign, vol. 20, p. 16 [1414]; vol. 28, p. 103 [1431]). One stone (that is, twelve kilograms) of pepper cost slightly below seven marks in 1420 (Lib.exc.sign, vol. 23, p. 99). For the price of lead, which was 26 Prague groats for one centner (i.e. fifty kilograms; see Goerlitz, Verfassung, pp. 73, 78) in 1411, see MitthSign–1, p. 349. Hungarian copper cost six florins per centner in 1440 (MitthSign, ed. O. Stobbe, Zeitschrift für Geschichte Schlesiens, 8 [1867], no. 2, p. 448). He was a member of the town council continuously from 1406 to 1437, and, in 1423, the town treasurer; R. Stein, Der Rat und die Ratsgeschlechter des alten Breslau (Würzburg, 1962), p. 141. The repayment of a sum this large progressed with difficulty, despite the support offered to the creditors by the doge, and the distribution of the payment over 17 years; APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 33, p. 110 (1440); DmWr, no. 2582 (1441). According to R. Stein, at this time the first person to be pressured for repayment of the debt was Hans’s son and Johannes Banke’s heir: Stein, Der Rat, p. 142. At a certain point, in 1441, the Venetian Senate prohibited the acceptance of Wrocław merchandise unless Banke paid off his debt, which was assessed at ca. 4,000 ducats (an assessment that either included the interest accrued, or that was rounded off on the high side, so as to underline this debtor’s unreliability); Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco, vol. 1, p. 239, no. 434. The available sources do not mention repayment of the debt. However, we cannot rule out a repayment by Banke in Venice, which would not be recorded in the Wrocław sources. For the position of Niklas and Hans Banke, see Stein, Der Rat, pp. 141–3 (Niklas, Johannes’s brother and councillor in 1417, and Hans, Johannes’s son and chancellor of the duchy of Wrocław). Stein, Der Rat, pp. 126 (concerning Stronechen), 147–8. APWr, respectively vols. 17, p. 116 (1410); 14, p. 40 (1403); 19, p. 28 (1412). Bernardo de Musto was demanding repayment of the debt from Jenitz, with support from the doge, Michele Steno, as early as 1410; APWr, DmWr, no. 1200. See APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 14, p. 40 (1403).

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260 134 135 136 137

138 139

140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

151 152 153 154 155 156

Notes.indd 260

Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages See Stein, Der Rat, pp. 126 (concerning Gurteler), 153 (concerning Beda). Stein, Der Rat, p. 100, concerning the Dumlose kindred. Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco, vol. 2, p. 72. [N]obilem virum Ser Bartholomeum Paruta . . . (Archivio di Stato in Venezia, Giudizi di Petizione: Sentenze e Giustizia [hereafter AStVen, GPet:SentGiust], vol. 15, fol. 12v, 1408); ‘von wegen Jeronimi Parutha und seinen brudern Seidenere und ouch Burger in Venedien’ (APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 30, pp. 147– 8 [1435]). In a Venetian source, Francesco Amadi is described as Ser (ASt.Ven, GPet: SentGiust, vol. 16, fol. 52v [1408]; vol. 17, fol. 78 [1409]). R.C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200–1500 (Baltimore, MD, 1997), pp. 582, 586. Priolli loaned 120 florins to Niklas Banke (APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 17, p. 122 [1410 – the year of repayment]), and his relatives, Niccolo and Giacomo, loaned an unspecified sum to Johannes Banke (APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 33, p. 110 [1440]). For the activities of Giacomo Priulli, see Mueller, Money Market, p. 104. Ibid, pp. 583, 586 (the end of the bank’s activities in 1450). For the Zane brothers, see APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 33, p. 110 (1440). For these kindreds in general, see Y. Renouard, Les hommes d’affaires italiens du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1949), p. 230; Lane, Venice, pp. 35, 43, 52, 139, 143, 193–4. APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 24, p. 63 (1422). For Andrea Barbarigo, see Mueller, Money Market, pp. 526ff, 583. APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 18, fol. 51v (1411). For the Loredano family, particularly Lorenzo Loredano, who was especially active in the first half of the fifteenth century, see Mueller, Money Market, pp. 527, 540. For example, APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vols. 24, p. 62 (1422); 26, p. 56 (1427). For the Contarini kindred, see Mueller, Money Market, pp. 582–3. APWr, DmWr, nos. 1200 (1410); 2535 (1440); 2578 (1441). APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vols. 24, p. 52 (1423); 26, p. 56 (1427); 30, p. 150 (1436). APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vols. 23, pp. 58 (1421), 62 (1422); 24, pp. 48 (1422), 50–2, 62–3, 68 (1422). PWr, LMag, fol. 24 (1397). Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco, vol. 1, p. 239, no. 434. APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 41, p. 90 (1456). On this institution, which enjoyed a broad competence related to trade and to credit operations, see A. da Mosto, L’archivio di Stato di Venezia. Indice generale storico, descrittivo ed analitico, vol. 1 (Rome, 1937), p. 99. Wendt, Schlesien, p. 39. Fajkmajer, ‘Die Streitigkeiten’, p. 443. APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 21, p. 39. APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 26, p. 46 (1427); MitthSign–6, 169 (1444); Lib.exc. sign, vols. 35, p. 194 (1445); 37, p. 116 (1448). MitthSign, ed. O. Stobbe, Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Althertum Schlesiens 8 (1866), no. 1, 156 (1433); APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 41, p. 90 (1456). K. Kopiński, ‘Mieszczanin Dawid Rosenfeld w dyplomatycznej i gospodarczej służbie zakonu krzyżackiego w Prusach w pierwszej połowie XV w.’, Zapiski Historyczne 56 (2001), 49 (the author, however, does not include Strosberg in this partnership, although he does, accurately, associate him with Rosenfeld

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Notes 261

157

158 159 160 161

and with another partnership of which Rosenfeld was a member, established jointly with Falbrecht and Morser of Gdańsk); see APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 22, pp. 23, 27 (1418). Archiv der Stadt Salzburg, Sendbriefe der Stadt Salzburg, vol. 1, no. 26 (1419). For a description and assessment of this collection, see H. Dopsch, ‘Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung’, in Geschichte Salzburgs. Stadt und Land, vol. 1, pt. 2, ed. H. Dopsch (Salzburg, 1983), p. 758. Wendt, Schlesien, p. 45. See, respectively, APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vols. 22, p. 126 (1419); 23, p. 62 (1422); 24, p. 62 (1423); MitthSign–1, p. 342 (1399). Kopiński, ‘Mieszczanin’, p. 49. APWr, Lib.exc.sign, vol. 15, p. 65 (1404). Concerning Bicharani and his economic and political role, see Ptaśnik, Kultura, pp. 71–5; von Stromer, ‘Nürnberg-Breslauer Wirtschaftsbeziehungen’, p. 1087 (also concerning Kamerer), 1092; von Stromer, ‘Landmacht’, pp. 164, 166.

10 Strekfusz 1 What follows was presented in a different form to the Thirteenth Meeting of the Fish Remains Working Group (ICAZ-FRWG), Basel, Switzerland, 4–9 October 2005. Collegial suggestions there, especially from Daniel Makowiecki and Dirk Heinrich, helped improve the author’s understanding, while leaving him solely responsible for any remaining errors and omissions. 2 As no fish were eaten from Sunday to Tuesday or on Thursday, it came to only 17 per cent of the weekly food bill. Data from Rachunki dworu króla Władysława Jagiełły i królowej Jadwigi z lat 1388 do 1420, ed. F. Piekosiński, Monumenta medii aevi historica res gestas Poloniae illustrantia, vol. 15 (Kraków, 1896), p. 310. These accounts always quantified strekfusz in units of 60 (sexagena). 3 Ibid, p. 22. 4 Ibid, passim. Although Piekosiński’s index is plainly flawed, its entries number 52 for ‘salt fish’, 46 for ‘dried fish’, 37 for eel, etc. With only nine references, herring (aleces) is grossly under-indexed. 5 Acknowledging only some of the written Polish sources explored here and below, Maria Dembińska recognised strekfusz early on not as a fish species but a type of product analogous to stockfish. She remained, however, ambiguous as to its origins: in her path-breaking original Konsumpcja żywnościowa w Polsce średniowiecznej (Wrocław, 1963), p. 57, it seems to be another form of cod; the abridged revision done with W.W. Weaver, Food and Drink in Medieval Poland: Rediscovering a Cuisine of the Past, trans. M. Thomas (Philadelphia, 1999), p. 100, proposes pike. But more than just the Polish verbal evidence is needed to test these suggestions and interpret the results. 6 R.C. Hoffmann, ‘Carp, cods, connections: new fisheries in the medieval European economy and environment’, in Animals in Human Histories: The Mirror of Nature and Culture, ed. M.J. Henninger-Voss (Rochester, NY, 2002), pp. 19–32; Hoffmann, ‘Frontier foods for late medieval consumers: culture, economy, ecology’, Environment and History 7 (2001), 149–50. Assertions about medieval cod fisheries in M. Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (Toronto and New York, 1997), pp. 17–51 and passim, should be consumed with much salt. 7 Najstarsze księgi i rachunki miasta Krakowa od r. 1300 do 1400, ed. F. Piekosiński

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262

8 9

10 11 12

13

14

15 16

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and J. Szujski (Monumenta medii aevi historica res gestas Poloniae ilustrantia, vol. 4 [Kraków, 1877–8]), 2:225–88. As is common in medieval account-books, the amount paid was rarely accompanied by the size or quantity of the fish; when city officials do record this information, strekfusz were bought by the sexagena. Kodeks dyplomatyczny miasta Krakowa (1257–1506), ed. F. Piekosiński, 2 vols., Monumenta medii aevi historica res gesta Poloniae illustrantia, vols. 5, 7 (Kraków, 1879, 1882), no. 336, p. 459. Prawa, przywileje i statuta miasta Krakowa (1507–1795). Leges, privilegia et statuta civitatis Cracoviensis (1507–1795), ed. F. Piekosiński and S. Krzyżanowski, vol. 1: 1507–1586, Acta historica res gestas Poloniae illustrantia ab anno 1507 usque ad annum 1795, vol. 8 (Kraków, 1885), no. 326, pp. 420–2. F.W. Carter, Trade and Urban Development in Poland: An Economic Geography of Kraków, from its Origins to 1795 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 134–9, 252–4. ‘Higiena wedle Tomasza z Wrocławia’, ed. J. Burchardt, Studia Copernicana 36 (1997), 80. Das Regimen Sanitatis Konrads von Eichstätt: Quellen, Texte, Wirkungsgeschichte, ed. C. Hagenmeyer, Sudhoffs Archiv Beihefte 35 (Stuttgart, 1995), pp. 99–101, 211, 245, with wider context and examples in M.W. Adamson, Medieval Dietetics: Food and Drink in Regimen Sanitatis Literature from 800 to 1400 (Frankfurt and New York, 1995), pp. 142–9, 180–90, and passim, and L. Thorndike, ‘Three tracts on food in Basel manuscripts’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 8 (1940), 361–4. Olaus Magnus, Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus. Romae 1555, ed. J. Granlund (Copenhagen, 1972), bk. 20, ch. 9, p. 705, on pike in particular, and chs. 26–7, pp. 722–3, on fresh and preserved fishes in general; trans. in Olaus Magnus, Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus – Romae 1555: Description of the Northern Peoples – Rome 1555, trans. P. Fisher and H. Higgens, 3 vols., Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, nos. 182, 187–8 (London, 1996–2002), pp. 1039 and 1058–60 respectively. Preussisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 1, pt. 2, no. 317, p. 216. For discussion of these fisheries see J. Muhl, ‘Fischerei und Störfang im Danziger Gebiet’, Mitteilungen des westpreussischen Geschichtsvereins 30.4 (1931), 69–84; W. Łęga, Obraz gospodarczy Pomorza Gdańskiego w XII i XIII wieku (Poznań, 1949), pp. 33–5; H.A. Willam, ‘Die Fischerei des Deutschen Ordens in Preussen bis zu Dietrich von Altenburg’, Jahrbuch der Albertus-Universität zu Königsberg/Pr. 11 (1961), 104; J. Filuk, ‘Biologiczno-rybacka charakterystyka ichtiofauny Zalewu Wiślanego na tle badań paleoichtiologicznych, historycznych i współczesnych’, Pomerania Antiqua 2 (1968), 146–50; K. Dąbrowski, Rozwój wielkiej własności ziemskiej klasztoru cysterek w Żarnowcu od XIII do XVI wieku (Gdańsk, 1970), pp. 44–6; Dąbrowski, Opactwo cystersów w Oliwie od XII do XVI wieku (Gdańsk, 1975), p. 51; G. Kisch, Das Fischereirecht im Deutschordensgebiete. Beiträge zu seiner Geschichte, 2nd (rev.) ed., Forschungen und Quellen zur Rechts- und Sozialgeschichte des Deutschordenlandes 3 (Sigmaringen, 1978), pp. 172–3 [original ed. 1932]. See, for instance, J. Rostafiński, Średniowieczna historia naturalna w Polsce. Symbola ad historia naturalis medii aevi, Munera saecularis universitatis Cracoviensis 7–8 (Kraków, 1900), pp. 399, 402. Das Marienburger Tresslerbuch der Jahre 1399–1409, ed. E. Joachim (Königsberg, 1896, repr. Bremerhaven, 1973), pp. 117, 174, 188, 316, 582, with general remarks by A. Seligo, ‘Zur Geschichte der Fischerei in Westpreussen’, Mitteilungen des westpreussischen Fischereivereins 14 (1902), 22.

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Notes 263 17 Das grosse Ämterbuch des Deutschen Ordens, ed. W. Ziesemer (Danzig, 1921, repr. Wiesbaden, 1968). 18 Seligo, ‘Zur Geschichte’, p. 27. As noted above, the same applied in Polish sources. 19 Die Deutschordens-Ballei Böhmen in ihren Rechnungsbüchern 1382–1411, ed. J. Hemmerle, Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens 22 (Bonn, 1967), pp. 64, 80, 100, 112, 134. 20 Codex diplomaticus Prussicus, ed. J. Voigt (Königsberg, 1836), vol. 3, p. 171; compare B. Benecke, ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Fischerei in Ost- und Westpreussen’, Altpreussisch Monatsschrift 17 (1880), 171, and Seligo, ‘Zur Geschichte’, pp. 40–1. 21 PrUB, vol. 2, pt. 2, no. 617, p. 409 (compare Willam, ‘Fischerei’, p. 134). 22 The author welcomes any additional references, earlier or not. 23 J. Sarnowsky, Die Wirtschaftsführung des Deutschen Ordens in Preußen (1382–1454), Veröffentlichungen aus den Archiven Preussischer Kulturbesitz 34 (Cologne, 1993), pp. 130–1, 819–20. This product was not, however, bought for early sixteenth-century inmates of the Wrocław Holy Spirit hospital, who had to make do with herring; see M. Słoń, ‘Pięćset lat temu na szpitalnym stole’, Mówią Wieki 40.7 (1997), 46–9. 24 Simon Grünau, Preussische Chronik, ed. M. Perlbach (Leipzig, 1875), pp. 46–7. The lack of strekfusz on the market at Nuremberg (see the 1501 listing of fishes there by Kunz Hass in E. Schmauderer, ‘Studien zur Geschichte der Lebens mittelwissenschaft’, Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 62 [1975], 260–1), despite that town’s intimate trading relations with Prague, Wrocław and other eastern centres, probably sets the southwestern limits of its distribution somewhere along the Bohemian border. 25 For general information about preserving fish, see C.L. Cutting, Fish Saving: A History of Fish Processing from Ancient to Modern Times (London, 1955), or his brief summary, ‘Historical Aspects of Fish’, in Fish as Food, ed. G. Borgstrom, vol. 2: Nutrition, Sanitation, and Utilization (New York, 1962), pp. 1–28. 26 For a clear summary of archaeozoological signatures for sites producing or consuming dried cod, see S. Perdikaris, ‘Scaly heads and tales: detecting commercialization in early fisheries’, Archaeofauna 5 (1996), 25–30; J.H. Barrett, ‘Fish trade in Norse Orkney and Caithness: a zooarchaeological approach’, Antiquity 71 (1997), 616–38; J.H. Barrett, R.A. Nicholson and R. Cerón-Carrasco, ‘Archaeoichthyological evidence for long-term socioeconomic trends in Northern Scotland 3500 BC to AD 1500’, Journal of Archaeological Science 26.4 (1999), 370–4. Other processes and other types of fishes have analogous features. 27 Z. Bukowski, ‘Uwagi o konserwacji ryb u Słowian w świetle materiałów archeologicznych i etnograficznych’, Studia z dziejów gospodarstwa wiejskiego 9.3 (1967), 67–79; N. Storå, ‘Barrels and bundles of herring’, in Food and Drink and Travelling Accessories: Essays in Honour of Gösta Berg, ed. A. Fenton and J. Myrdal (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 80–3. Compare drying fish from medieval Alpine waters, as reported in U. Amacher, Zürcher Fischerei im Spätmittelalter, Mitteilungen der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zürich 63 (Zürich, 1996), p. 110. 28 Bukowski, ‘Uwagi o konserwacji’, pp. 49–61. 29 ‘Taphonomy’ refers to the processes intervening between the death of an organism and the archaeological recovery of its remains. 30 I. B. Enghoff, ‘Fishing in the Baltic region from the 5th century BC to the 16th century AD: evidence from fish bones’, Archaeofauna 8 (1999), 58–9, 61;

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35

36

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L. Jonsson, ‘Finska gäddor och Bergenfisk ett försök att belysa Uppsalas fiskimport under medeltid och yngre Vasatid’, in Från Östra Aros till Uppsala. En samling uppsatser kring det medeltida Uppsala, ed. N. Cnattingius and T. Neréus, Uppsala stads historia 7 (Uppsala, 1986), pp. 122–39. S. Sten, ‘Trading with fish in medieval Sweden: some examples from archaeological bone finds’, Archaeofauna 4 (1995), 65–9; Enghoff, ‘Fishing in the Baltic’, p. 61. N. Friberg, Stockholm i bottniska farvatten: Stockholms bottniska handelsfält under senmedel tiden och Gustav Vasa (Uppsala, 1983), pp. 196–9. As translated in Magnus, Historia . . . Description, 1:99–100. Original Latin in Magnus, Historia, bk. 2, ch. 6, pp. 65–6. Dried fish in colligatis fasciculis (ibid, bk. 20, ch. 1–2, pp. 697–9, and trans. p. 1032) and pike so abundant they fed not only northerners ‘sed etiam latius sale, solecque siccati nauigiis, velut lignorum magnae strues, in amplam Germaniam vendendi exportentur’ (ibid, bk. 20, chs. 8–9, pp. 704–5, and trans. p. 1039). D. Heinrich, ‘Untersuchungen an mittelalterlichen Fischresten aus Schleswig: Ausgrabung Schild 1971–1975’, Ausgrabungen in Schleswig. Berichte und Studien, vol. 6 (Neumünster, 1987); Enghoff, ‘Fishing in the Baltic’, p. 75; Enghoff, ‘Fishing in the southern North Sea region from the 1st to the 16th century AD: evidence from fish bones’, Archaeofauna 9 (2000), 127. M. Iwaszkiewicz, ‘Szczątki ryb z zamku krzyżackiego w Małej Nieszawce (woj. toruńskie)’, Roczniki Akademii Rolniczej w Poznaniu – Archaeozoologia 16 (1991), 3–5; D. Makowiecki, ‘Catalogue of subfossil fish remains from Poland’, Archaeofauna 9 (2000), 143; Makowiecki, Historia ryb i rybołówstwa w holocenie na Niżu Polskim w świetle badań archeoichtiologicznych (Poznań, 2003), pp. 125–7, 136–7. Enghoff, ‘Fishing in the Baltic’, pp. 68, 70, is an inaccurate history of this site. I am unconvinced that the pike remains from Mścięcino, a ninth- to eleventhcentury fortified site near Szczecin on the Odra estuary, signify any special preservation methods as suggested by Enghoff (‘Fishing in the southern North Sea region’, p. 127). Pike remains, all head bones, number but ten of the 690 identified remains, so ranking ninth of the ten taxa identified. The site was not sieved, so little can be inferred from the absence of vertebrae. See Z. Chełkowski, ‘Szczątki ryb w materiale wykopaliskowym z osady wszesnośredniowiecznej Szczecin–Mścięcino’, Materiały Zachodniopomorskie 5 (1959), 165–86. Most recently Z. Chełkowski and J. Filipiak, ‘Cognitive potential of bone remains of fish from archaeological excavations on the banks of the Odra River estuary’, Archeozoologia 21 (2003), 37–48, does not engage this issue. M. Iwaszkiewicz, ‘Szczątki ryb z wykopalisk opactwa Benedyktynów w Lubinie, woj. Leszczyńskie’, Archaeozoologia 15 (1991), 3–8; Makowiecki, ‘Historia ryb’, pp. 125–30, 132; D. Makowiecki, ‘Some aspects of studies on the evolution of fish faunas and fishing in prehistoric and historic times in Poland’, in The Holocene History of the European Vertebrate Fauna: Modern Aspects of Research, ed. N. Benecke (Rahden/Westf., 1999), fig. 6. Since the progressive twentieth-century commercial collapse in the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America of populations and fisheries of lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis), ‘lake trout’ (a charr, Salvelinus namaycush), walleye (Stizostedion vitreum) and yellow perch (Perca flavescens), markets in the central and eastern United States and in Canada have largely been supplied from the large

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Notes 265 lakes of northwestern Canada (Winnipeg, Athabaska and Great Slave), although all four species survive in the consuming region and are caught and eaten by native communities, sport fishermen and their families. 40 D. Makowiecki, ‘About the history of fishing and its development in prehistoric and mediaeval times in Poland’, in Beiträge zum Oder-Projekt, vol. 5 (Berlin, 1998), p. 120; Makowiecki, ‘Some aspects, p. 172; Makowiecki, ‘Catalogue’. 41 Hoffmann, ‘Frontier foods’. 11 Papal collectors and state power in Central Europe during the fourteenth century 1 J. Favier, Philippe le Bel (Paris, 1978), pp. 499–500. 2 J.P. Kirsch, ‘L’administration des finances pontificales au XIVe siècle’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 1 (1900), 274–96. 3 G. Mollat, La collation des bénéfices ecclésiastiques sous les Papes d’Avignon (Paris 1921), p. 85; L. Caillet, La papauté d’Avignon et l’Église de France. La politique beneficiale du pape Jean XXII en France (1316–1334) (Paris, 1975), p. 213. 4 Bullarium Poloniae, ed. I. Sułkowska-Kuraś and S. Kuraś (hereafter BP), vol. 1 (Rome, 1982), no. 1075; C. Schuchard, Die papstlischen Kollektoren im späten Mittelalter (Tübingen, 2000), pp. 25ff. 5 B. Guillemain, La cour pontificale d’Avignon (Paris, 1962), pp. 278–304. 6 G. Mollat and C. Samaran, La fiscalité pontificale en France au XIVe siecle (Paris, 1905), pp. 179–97. 7 E. Mornet, ‘Per nives de nocte. Un nonce pontificale dans les royaumes nordiques au XIVe siècle’, in Milieux naturels, espaces sociaux. Études offertes à Robert Delort (Paris, 1997), pp. 591–60. 8 B. Barbiche, ‘Les “diplomates” pontificaux du moyen âge tardif à la première modernité’, in Offices et papauté (XIVe–XVIe siècle). Charges, hommes, destins, ed. A. Jamme and O. Poncet (Rome, 2005), pp. 361–2 . 9 BP, vol. 1, nos. 1047, 1075. 10 J. Bieniak, ‘Zjednoczenie państwa polskiego’, in Polska dzielnicowa i zjednoczona. Państwo – społeczeństwo – kultura, ed. A. Gieysztor (Warsaw, 1972), pp. 202–78. 11 B. Nowacki, Czeskie roszczenia do korony w Polsce w latach 1290–1335 (Poznań, 1987), pp. 55–61, 96–9, 103–8. 12 T. Gromnicki, Świętopietrze w Polsce (Kraków, 1908), pp. 45–6. 13 Monumenta Poloniae Vaticana, ed. J. Ptaśnik (hereafter MPV), vol. 1 (Kraków, 1913), no. 53; BP, vol. 1, no. 1047. 14 S. Szczur, Annaty papieskie w Polsce w XIV wieku (Kraków, 1997), p. 121. 15 BP, vol. 1, nos. 1060–1, 1081. 16 MPV, vol. 1, no. 72. 17 See BP, vol. 1, nos. 1284, 1291–2, 1751. 18 A. Wojtkowski, Tezy i argumenty polskie w sporach terytorialnych z Krzyżakami (Olsztyn, 1968), pp. 9–10. 19 K. Tymieniecki, ‘Studia nad XIV wiekiem. Proces polsko-krzyżacki z lat 1320– 1321’, Przegląd Historyczny 21 (1919), 87ff. 20 Vetera Monumenta Poloniae et Lithuaniae gentiumque finitinarum historiam illustrantia, ed. A. Theiner, 4 vols. (Rome, 1860–4) (hereafter VMPL), vol. 1, no. 231.

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21 H. Chłopocka, ‘Losy wyroku wydanego w 1321 roku na procesie polskokrzyżackim w Inowrocławiu’, Roczniki Historyczne 31 (1965), 153–80. 22 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 447–8. 23 Ibid, vol. 1, no. 448. 24 H. Paszkiewicz, ‘Ze studiów nad polityką krzyżacką Kazimierza Wielkiego’, Przegląd Historyczny 25 (1925), 187. 25 J. Tęgowski, ‘Kanclerz kujawski Jarosław Bogoria i jego stosunki z Galhardem de Carceribus’, in Personae – colligationes – facta, ed. J. Bieniak (Toruń, 1991), pp. 39–49. 26 S. Szczur, ‘Początki działalności Galharda z Carces’, in Bieniak, Personae, pp. 33–8. 27 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 470. 28 Paszkiewicz, ‘Ze studiów’, p. 188. 29 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 475–6. 30 Paszkiewicz, ‘Ze studiów’, pp. 190–1; Z. Kaczmarczyk, Kazimierz Wielki (Warsaw, 1949), p. 37; J. Wyrozumski, Kazimierz Wielki (Wrocław, 1982), p. 16. 31 Paszkiewicz, ‘Ze studiów’, p. 195. 32 Preussisches Urkundenbuch (hereafter PUB), vol. 2 (1309–35), ed. M. Hein and E. Maschke (Königsberg, 1939), no. 860. 33 S. Szczur, ‘Zjazd wyszehradzki z 1335 roku’, Studia Historyczne 35 (1992), 5. 34 H. Chłopocka, ‘Galhard de Carceribus i jego rola w sporze polsko-krzyżackim w XIV wieku’, in Europa – Słowiańszczyzna – Polska. Studia ku uczczeniu profesora Kazimierza Tymienieckiego, ed. C. Łuczak (Poznań, 1970), p. 141. 35 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 506. 36 Szczur, ‘Zjazd’, pp. 7–8. 37 See J. Leniek, ‘Kongres wyszehradzki w roku 1335’, Przewodnik Naukowy i Literacki 12 (1884), 247–71. 38 PUB, vol. 3, no. 64. 39 H. Chłopocka, Procesy Polski z Zakonem krzyżackim w XIV wieku (Poznań, 1967), p. 31. 40 PUB, vol. 3, no. 104. 41 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 519, p. 393. 42 S. Szczur, ‘Traktat pokojowy Kazimierza wielkiego z Zakonem krzyżackim z 1343 r.’, Zapiski Historyczne 56 (1991), 30. 43 E. Mornet, ‘Le chanoine Pierre Gervasis, nonce et collecteur pontifical. Jalons pour une biographie’, in Campagnes médiévales – l’homme et son espace. Études offertes à Robert Fossier, ed. E. Mornet (Paris, 1995), pp. 565–77. 44 PUB, vol. 3, no. 345; Chłopocka, Procesy, p. 33. 45 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 544. 46 Ibid, vol. 1, no. 568. 47 Ibid, vol. 1, no. 581. 48 PUB, vol. 3, no. 377. 49 Gromnicki, Świętopietrze, pp. 45ff; E. Maschke, Der Peterspfennig in Polen und dem Deutschen Osten (Leipzig, 1933), pp. 124ff. 50 Monumenta Poloniae Historica, 3:286. 51 BP, vol. 1, no. 1047. 52 Gromnicki, Świętopietrze, p. 116. 53 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 328. 54 PUB, vol. 3, no. 223; Gromnicki, Świętopietrze, pp. 120–1.

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Notes 267 55 Urkundenbuch des Bistums Culm, ed. C.P. Woelky (Danzig, 1887), no. 228. 56 Gromnicki, Świętopietrze, p. 122. 57 See VPML, vol. 1, no. 519: Item in diocesi Kaminensi que notorie est infra antiquos limites regni Poloniae. Quia ibi filius Bavari dominatur et . . . episcopus ibidem est Theutonicus igitur omnia iura camere totaliter indebite denegantur nam nec clerus aliquid solvit de decima supradicta et populares censum solvere indebite contradicunt, nec clerus nec populus interdictum curant observare. 58 Gromnicki, Świętopietrze, p. 107. 59 W. Maydorn, ‘Der Peterspfennig in Schlesien bis Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Geschichte und Alterthum Schlesiens 17 (1872), 54– 5. 60 Gromnicki, Świętopietrze, p. 108. 61 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 519. 62 Vetera Monumenta Historica Hungariam Sacram illustrantia, ed. A. Theiner, 2 vols. (Rome, 1859–60), vol. 1, no. 910. 63 MPV, vol. 1, no. 174. 64 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 546. 65 S. Szczur, ‘Okoliczności zrzeczenia się Śląska przez Kazimierza Wielkiego’, Studia Historyczne 30 (1987), 519–35. 66 Vita Caroli IV, Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum, vol. 3, p. 362. 67 Gromnicki, Świętopietrze, p. 111, n. 1. 68 Monumenta Vatricana res gestas Bohemicas illustrantia. Tomus prodromus, ed. Z. Hledicova (Prague, 2003), nos. 190, 195, 204. 69 Monumenta Vaticana historiam Regni Hungariae illustrantia, vol. 1 (Budapest, 1884), pp. xxvii–iii. 70 N. Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 1305–1378 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 65–74. 71 VMPL, vol. 1, no. 605; MPV, vol. 1, no. 214. 72 Ibid, vol. 2, no. 97. 73 S. Gawęda, ‘Polityka fiskalna Kazimierza Wielkiego wobec kurii papieskiej’, Studia Historyczne 13 (1970), 369. 74 MPV, vol. 1, no. 211. 75 Ibid, vol. 2, nos. 97–8. 76 Ibid, vol. 2, no. 232. 77 Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, ed. A. Theiner, vol. 2 (Rome, 1860), no. 263. 78 MPV, vol. 2, no. 232; Gawęda, ‘Polityka’, pp. 369–70. 12 University masters at the royal court of Hedwig of Anjou and Władysław Jagiełło 1 H. Kręt, Dwór królewski Jadwigi i Jagiełły (Kraków, 1987); K. Ożóg, ‘Polityka i kultura odnowionego Królestwa Polskiego (koniec XIII–XV w.) w badaniach historycznych’, in Pytania o średniowiecze. Potrzeby i perspektywy badawcze polskiej mediewistyki, ed. W. Fałkowski (Warsaw, 2001), pp. 30–8. 2 J. Wolny, ‘Kaznodziejstwo’, in Dzieje teologii katolickiej w Polsce, vol. 1, Średniowiecze (Lublin, 1974), pp. 289–92; U. Borkowska, ‘Królewscy

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4 5

6

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8 9

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19 20

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34 Ożóg, Uczeni, pp. 47, 69–70; M. Markowski, Burydanizm w Polsce w okresie przedkopernikańskim. Studium z historii filozofii i nauk ścisłych na Uniwersytecie Krakowskim w XV wieku (Wrocław, 1971), pp. 120–1, 153–6, 374–5; M. Zdanek, Szkoły i studia dominikanów krakowskich w średniowieczu (Warsaw, 2005), pp. 112–13, 123, 166. 35 G. Głuch, ‘Dominikańscy spowiednicy i kaznodzieje Jagiellonów’, in Dominikanie w środkowej Europie w XIII–XV wieku. Aktywność duszpasterska i kultura intelektualna, ed. J. Kłoczowski and J.A. Spież (Poznań, 2002), p. 247; Borkowska, ‘Królewscy spowiednicy’, p. 186. 36 Zbiór dokumentów małopolskich, vol. 6, no. 1819; J. Sawicki, ‘Jan Biskupiec biskup chełmski (1377–1452)’, Nasza Przeszłość 4 (1948), 112–18; Borkowska, ‘Królewscy spowiednicy’, p. 186; Głuch, ‘Dominikańscy spowiednicy’, pp. 246–7. 37 Zbiór dokumentów małopolskich, vol. VI, no. 1819; Sawicki, ‘Jan Biskupiec’, pp. 103–24; Zdanek, Szkoły, pp. 110–11, 128–31, 166. 38 Ożóg, Uczeni, pp. 71–2; Zdanek, Szkoły, pp. 128–31. 39 Metrica Universitatis Cracoviensis a. 1400–1508. Bibliotheca Jagellonica cod. 258, ed. A. Gąsiorowski, T. Jurek and I. Skierska, vol. 1 (Kraków, 2004), p. 58; Liber promotionum facultatis artium in Universitate Cracoviensi saeculi decimi quinti, ed. A. Gąsiorowski, with collaboration of T. Jurek, I. Skierska and V. Swoboda (Kraków, 2000), p. 12; J. Wroniszewski, Ród Rawiczów. Współrodowcy Warszowiców i Grotowiców (Toruń, 1994), p. 64. 40 Zbiór dokumentów małopolskich, vol. 7, no. 2009; Wroniszewski, Ród Rawiczów, pp. 64–6; Borkowska, ‘Królewscy spowiednicy’, p. 186. 41 Kodeks dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski, ed. A. Gąsiorowski and T. Jasiński, vol. 9, Dokumenty z lat 1426–1443 (Warsaw and Poznań, 1990), no. 1171; Bullarium Poloniae litteras apostolicas aliasque monumenta Poloniae Vaticana continens, vol. 5: 1431–1449, ed. I. Sułkowska-Kuraś and S. Kuraś (Rome and Lublin, 1995), no. 1023. 42 Zbiór dokumentów małopolskich, vol. 8, no. 2280. 43 Wroniszewski, Ród Rawiczów, pp. 65–6. 44 Ioannis Dlugossii Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae, liber undecimus et duodecimus 1431–1444, pp. 167–9; Wroniszewski, Ród Rawiczów, p. 64. 45 Ioannis Dlugossii Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae, liber decimus et undecimus 1406–1412, p. 186; Kodeks dyplomatyczny Małopolski, ed. F. Piekosiński, vol. 4: 1386–1450 (Kraków, 1905), no. 1014; I. SułkowskaKurasiowa, Dokumenty królewskie i ich funkcja w państwie polskim za Andegawenów i pierwszych Jagiellonów 1370–1444 (Warsaw, 1977), p. 229; Ożóg, ‘Polityka i kultura’, pp. 18–19. 46 J. Wolny, ‘Kaznodziejstwo’, p. 290. 47 M. Zwiercan, ‘Mikołaj z Błonia’, Polski Słownik Biograficzny, 21:102–3; M. Zahajkiewicz, Tractatus sacerdotalis Mikołaja z Błonia na tle teologii przełomu XIV i XV wieku (Lublin, 1979), pp. 15–31. 48 Ioannis Dlugossii Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae, liber undecimus et duodecimus 1431–1444, p. 50; K. Niemczyńska, ‘Jan Elgot. Życie i twórczość’, Przegląd Tomistyczny 5 (1992), 9–14. 49 Niemczyńska, ‘Jan Elgot’, pp. 9–38. 50 Biblia Szaroszpatacka. Podobizna kodeksu Biblioteki Ref. Gimnazjum w Szaroszpataku, ed. L. Bernacki (Kraków, 1930); Biblia królowej Zofii (szaroszpatacka) wraz ze staroczeskim przekładem Biblii, ed. S. Urbańczyk and

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63 A. Gieysztor, ‘Mistrzowie polscy uniwersytetu paryskiego w XIV i XV wieku’, in Wieki średnie – Medium Aevum. Prace ofiarowane Tadeuszowi Manteufflowi w 60 rocznicę urodzin, ed. A. Gieysztor, M.H. Serejski and S. Trawkowski (Warsaw, 1962), pp. 221–2; A. Strzelecka, ‘Jakub z Krakowa’, Polski Słownik Biograficzny, 10:359. 64 Starodawne Prawa Polskiego Pomniki, vol. 2, ed. A.Z. Helcel (Kraków, 1870), no. 2276; J. Fijałek, Polonia apud Italos scholastica saeculum XV (Kraków, 1900), p. 81. 65 Akta grodzkie i ziemskie z czasów Rzeczypospolitej, vol. 2, ed. X. Liske (Lwów, 1868), no. 58. 66 Metrica, 1:32; Fijałek, Polonia, pp. 81–2; M. Kowalczyk, ‘Lekarz krakowski Jan z Dobrej’, Studia Mediewistyczne 34–5 (2000), 260–1. 67 W. Wisłocki, Katalog rękopisów Biblioteki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2 vols. (Kraków, 1877–81), pp. 417–18, 505; Catalogus manuscriptorum medii aevi latinorum qui in Bibliotheca Jagellonica asservantur, vol. III, numeros continens inde a 445 usque ad 563, ed. M. Kowalczyk et al. (Wrocław, 1984), pp. 307–15. 68 Kraków, Biblioteka Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności–Polskiej Akademii Nauk, ms. 7534, fol. 42r–v; Kowalczyk, ‘Przywilej nobilitacji’, pp. 157–8; Kowalczyk, ‘Lekarz krakowski Jan z Dobrej’, p. 261; A. Birkenmajer, ‘Herman z Przeworska’, Polski Słownik Biograficzny, 9:461–2. 69 M. Kowalczyk, ‘Przywilej nobilitacji’, p. 157. 70 Starodawne Prawa Polskiego Pomniki, vol. 2, no. 2496; A. Birkenmajer, ‘Hesse Bernard’, Polski Słownik Biograficzny, 9:486–7; B. Wyrozumska, Kancelaria miasta Krakowa w średniowieczu (Kraków, 1995), p. 122. 71 Codex epistolaris saeculi decimi quinti, ed. A. Lewicki, vol. 3 (Kraków, 1894), app. no. 9, pp. 513–14; F. Šmahel, Husitská revoluce, vol. 4 (Prague, 1993), pp. 120, 197; P. Kras, Husyci w piętnastowiecznej Polsce (Lublin, 1998), p. 57. 72 Codex epistolaris saeculi decimi quinti, appendix, no. 9, pp. 513–14. 73 Šmahel, Husitská revoluce, 4:120, 197; Kras, Husyci, p. 57. 74 Ioannis Dlugossii Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae, liber undecimus 1413–1430, p. 229; Markowski, Kształtowanie się krakowskiej szkoły astronomicznej, p. 85; A. Birkenmajer, ‘Sprawa magistra Henryka Czecha’, Collectanea Theologica 17 (1936), 207–24. 75 Ibid; Kras, Husyci, pp. 57, 277. 76 M. Kowalczyk, ‘Przyczynki do biografii Henryka Czecha i Marcina z Żurawicy’, Biuletyn Biblioteki Jagiellońskiej 21 (1971), 87–8. 77 S. Gawęda, ‘Próba osadzenia Fryderyka Hohenzollerna na tronie polskim a sprawa pomorska’, in Mediaevalia. W 50 rocznicę pracy naukowej Jana Dąbrowskiego (Warsaw, 1960), pp. 185–90, 193. 78 Ioannis Dlugossii Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae, liber undecimus 1413–1430, p. 164; H. Barycz, ‘Eliasz z Wąwolnicy’, Polski Słownik Biograficzny, 6:232–3; M. Świerczyńska, ‘Teolodzy krakowscy w pierwszej połowie XV wieku’ (PhD dissertation, Kraków, 2001), pp. 63–4. 79 Ioannis Dlugossii Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae, liber undecimus 1413–1430, p. 328. 80 Ibid, pp. 234–5. 81 T. Sinko, ‘Historia poezji łacińskiej humanistycznej w Polsce’, in Encyklopedia Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności, vol. 21 (Kraków, 1918), p. 123; Gębarowicz,

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86 87

88

89 90

91

92 93 94 95 96 97 98

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Psałterz floriański, pp. 56–7; T. Michałowska, Średniowiecze (Warsaw, 1995), pp. 692–5. M. Gębarowicz, Psałterz floriański, pp. 56–9; L. Seńko, Piotr Wysz z Radolina i jego dzieło ‘Speculum aureum’ (Warsaw, 1996), pp. 267–8, 274–5. Seńko, Piotr Wysz, p. 254. J. Tęgowski, Pierwsze pokolenia Giedyminowiczów (Poznań and Wrocław, 1999), pp. 136, 138. Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, ms. III 8054, fol. 180v–1r; R. Gansiniec, ‘Liryka Stanisława Ciołka’, Roczniki Historyczne 23 (1957), 166–9; H. Kowalewicz, ‘Twórczość liryczna Stanisława Ciołka’, Eos 65 (1977), 160–1; Michałowska, Średniowiecze, pp. 685–9. Kowalewicz, ‘Twórczość liryczna Stanisława Ciołka’, pp. 152–3, 160–1; Kowalewicz, ‘Poezja polsko-łacińska XV wieku’, in Sztuka i ideologia XV wieku, ed. P. Skubiszewski (Warsaw, 1978), p. 237. M. Szczepańska, ‘Muzyczne opracowanie tekstów Stanisława Ciołka’, Roczniki Historyczne 23 (1957), 177–82; Michałowska, Średniowiecze, pp. 685, 687, 689; K. Morawska, Średniowiecze, vol. 2: 1320–1500 (Warsaw, 1998), pp. 240–1, 252–4. Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, ms. III 8054, f. 174v–5r; Gansiniec, ‘Liryka Stanisława Ciołka’, pp. 166–9; Kowalewicz, ‘Twórczość liryczna Stanisława Ciołka’, pp. 152–53; Szczepańska, ‘Muzyczne opracowanie tekstów’, pp. 177–82; Michałowska, Średniowiecze, pp. 686–9; Morawska, Średniowiecze, 2:240–1, 260–1; M. Perz, ‘O muzyce w Polsce na przełomie XIV i XV wieku’, in Polska około roku 1400. Państwo, społeczeństwo, kultura, ed. W. Fałkowski (Warsaw, 2001), pp. 186–7. Gansiniec, ‘Liryka Stanisława Ciołka’, pp. 168–9; Kowalewicz, ‘Twórczość liryczna Stanisława Ciołka’, pp. 161–2. Adami Porcarii Epitaphium Zavissi Nigri et Hedvigis Wladislai Jagellonis filiae, ed. C. Weyssenhoff, Bibliotheca Latina medii et recentioris aevi 2 (Warsaw, 1961), pp. 37–40; Michałowska, Średniowiecze, pp. 658, 692–7; Kowalewicz, ‘Poezja polsko-łacińska XV wieku’, p. 236. Adami Porcarii Epitaphium, pp. 29–32; Ioannis Dlugossii Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae, liber undecimus 1413–1430, p. 239; C. Weyssenhoff, ‘Praefatio’, in Adami Porcarii Epitaphium, pp. 7–14; B. Możejko, Ród Świnków na pograniczu polsko-krzyżackim w średniowieczu (Gdańsk, 1998), pp. 217–21. C. Weyssenhoff, ‘Praefatio’, pp. 9–10; Kowalewicz, ‘Poezja polsko-łacińska XV wieku’, p. 236; J. Nowak-Dłużewski, Okolicznościowa poezja polityczna w Polsce. Średniowiecze (Warsaw, 1963), p. 71. Metrica, 1:75. Sułkowska-Kurasiowa, Dokumenty, pp. 261–2; Możejko, Ród Świnków, pp. 217–23; M. Czyżak, Kapituła katedralna w Gnieźnie w świetle metryki z lat 1408–1448 (Poznań, 2003), p. 312. Adami Porcarii Epitaphium, pp. 37–40; C. Weyssenhoff, ‘Praefatio’, pp. 12–21; Nowak-Dłużewski, Okolicznościowa poezja, p. 71. Grzegorz z Sanoka, Epitafium Jagiełły, ed. C. Ochał-Pirożyńska, Eos 51 (1961), 327–45. Liber promotionum, pp. 28, 32; I. Zarębski, ‘Grzegorz z Sanoka’, Polski Słownik Biograficzny, 9:86–9. Grzegorz z Sanoka, Epitafium Jagiełły, pp. 327–45; Nowak-Dłużewski, Okolicznościowa poezja, pp. 71–2.

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99 Z. Kowalska, Stanisław Ciołek (+1437), podkanclerzy królewski, biskup poznański, poeta dworski (Kraków, 1993), pp. 25–54. 100 Kowalska, Stanisław Ciołek, pp. 21–5. 101 T. Tyc, Z dziejów kultury w Polsce średniowiecznej (Poznań, 1924), pp. 50– 3, 69–70; Gansiniec, ‘Liryka Stanisława Ciołka’, pp. 158–64; Kowalewicz, ‘Twórczość liryczna Stanisława Ciołka’, pp. 155–6, Kowalska, Stanisław Ciołek, pp. 138–9; Michałowska, Średniowiecze, pp. 680–5; Morawska, Średniowiecze, 2:240–1, 252–4; Perz, ‘O muzyce’, pp. 186–7. 102 Kowalewicz, ‘Twórczość liryczna Stanisława Ciołka’, pp. 155–6. 103 Nowak-Dłużewski, Okolicznościowa poezja, pp. 61–2; Kowalska, Stanisław Ciołek, pp. 63–71. 104 Kowalska, Stanisław Ciołek, pp. 138–9; Morawska, Średniowiecze, 2:252–4. 105 Codex epistolaris saeculi decimi quinti, ed. A. Sokołowski and J. Szujski, vol. 1, pt. 1 (Kraków, 1876), no. 53, pp. 47–53; Tyc, Z dziejów kultury, pp. 35–41; Nowak-Dłużewski, Okolicznościowa poezja, pp. 56–61; Kowalska, Stanisław Ciołek, pp. 135–7. 106 Codex epistolaris saeculi decimi quinti, vol. 1, pt. 1, no. 53, pp. 47–53; NowakDłużewski, Okolicznościowa poezja, p. 61; Kowalska, Stanisław Ciołek, p. 136. 107 Ioannis Dlugossii Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae, liber decimus 1370–1405, ed. D. Turkowska and S. Perzanowski (Warsaw, 1985), p. 232; J. Łoś, ‘Biblioteka polska królowej Jadwigi’, Przewodnik Bibliograficzny 6 (1926), 257–8; E. Potkowski, Książka rękopiśmienna w kulturze Polski średniowiecznej (Warsaw, 1984), pp. 201–2. 108 Rachunki królewskie z lat 1393–1395 i 1412. Rachunki podrzęctwa krakowskiego. Rachunki stacji nowosądeckiej, ed. H. Wajs (Warsaw, 1993), p. 44; M. Kowalczyk, ‘Odnowienie Uniwersytetu Krakowskiego w świetle mów Bartłomieja z Jasła’, Małopolskie Studia Historyczne 6 (1964), fasc. 3–4, p. 24; B. Miodońska, Małopolskie malarstwo książkowe 1320–1540 (Warsaw, 1993), p. 58. 109 E. Potkowski, ‘Katedralisi na dworze królowej Jadwigi’, Miscellanea HistoricoArchivistica 1 (1985), 225–41; B. Miodońska, Małopolskie malarstwo książkowe, pp. 57–9. 110 Henricus Bitterfeld de Brega OP, Tractatus de vita contemplativa et activa, ed. B. Mazur, L. Seńko and R. Tatarzyński, intro. C. Marciniak (Warsaw, 2003), pp. 3–179. 111 Gębarowicz, Psałterz floriański, pp. 86–112. 112 Henricus Bitterfeld de Brega OP, Tractatus, pp. 3–6. 113 M. Gębarowicz, Psałterz floriański, pp. 115–16. 114 Biblioteka Narodowa w Warszawie, ms. III 8002; Psałterz floriański, ed. L. Bernacki (Lwów, 1939); Gębarowicz, Psałterz floriański, pp. 148–222; E. Śnieżyńska-Stolot, Tajemnice dekoracji Psałterza floriańskiego. Z dziejów średniowiecznej koncepcji uniwersum (Warsaw, 1992), pp. 7–15. 115 Gębarowicz, Psałterz floriański, pp. 148–222; K. Łatak, Kanonicy regularni laterańscy na Kazimierzu w Krakowie do końca XVI wieku (Ełk, 1999), pp. 250–1. 116 Śnieżyńska-Stolot, Tajemnice, pp. 88–9. 117 Gębarowicz, Psałterz floriański, pp. 194–5.

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Notes 275 13 Between conciliar thought and mystical theology 1 This paper reflects my first acquaintance with Professor Paul Knoll, who presided as session chair when an earlier version was presented at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 15 July 1999. I owe thanks to Dr. Matthias Kaup of Constance for help in outlining the basic structure of the text. 2 For the current state of scholarship, see especially J. Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża i Uniwersytet Krakowski w okresie soboru bazylejskiego, 2 vols. (Kraków, 1900); D. Mertens, Iacob Carthusiensis. Untersuchungen zur Rezeption der Werke des Kartäusers James of Paradyż (1381–1465). Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 50 and Studien zur Germania Sacra 13 (Göttingen, 1976); S. Porębski, Jakub z Paradyża. Poglądy i teksty (Warsaw, 1994); J. Stoś, Mistrz Jakub z Paradyża i devotio moderna (Warsaw, 1997); T. Wünsch, Konziliarismus und Polen. Personen, Politik und Programme aus Polen zur Verfassungsfrage der Kirche in der Zeit der mittelalterlichen Reformkonzilien (Paderborn, 1998), especially pp. 82–4. New texts from James’s Erfurt period are now presented in Jakub z Paradyża, Sermones de sanctis etc., ed. S. Porębski; De sanctificatione sabbati circa molendina etc., ed. J. Stoś, Textus et studia historiam theologiae in Polonia excultae spectantia 29 (Warsaw, 2004). 3 For his biography see the review article by D. Mertens, ‘Jakob von Paradies’, in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, vol. 4 (1983), pp. 478–87. On his doctorate (1432), see now also K. Ożóg, Uczeni w monarchii Jadwigi Andegaweńskiej i Władysława Jagiełły (1384–1434) (Kraków, 2004), p. 60. It should be remembered that James had already emerged as a theologian earlier – roughly speaking, at the discussion between the members of the University of Kraków and the Hussite representatives from Prague which took place in Kraków in 1431; see Ożóg, Uczeni, p. 305. 4 See especially Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża, 1:82–153. 5 Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża, 1:154–440. 6 The affinity with the devotio moderna movement has been recently and persuasively discussed by Stoś, Mistrz Jakub z Paradyża, especially pp. 66– 105. A new basis for the discussion of this issue has now been offered through the work of W. Bielak, Devotio moderna w polskich traktatach duszpasterskich powstałych do połowy XV wieku (Lublin, 2002). 7 See especially Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża, 2:61–163. 8 L. Meier, Die Werke des Erfurter Kartäusers Jakob von Jüterbog in ihrer handschriftlichen Überlieferung (Münster, 1955). 9 S. Dobrzanowski, ‘Jakub z Paradyża’, Słownik Polskich Teologów, vol. 2 (1982), pp. 109–19. 10 See also Stoś, Mistrz Jakub z Paradyża, especially pp. 40–65. 11 See Porębski, Jakub z Paradyża, pp. 46–53; Wünsch, Konziliarismus und Polen, pp. 363–8. 12 Concerning the conciliarism of James of Paradyż, see most recently Wünsch, Konziliarismus und Polen, passim. In addition to the Determinatio Basiliensis (edited by Henryk Anzulewicz, in Polskie traktaty koncyliarystyczne z połowy XV wieku, Textus et Studia historiam theologiae in Polonia excultae spectantia 23 [Warsaw, 1987], pp. 83–115), one should take into consideration the influence of the University of Kraków on the common report: Thomas of Strzempin, ‘Determinatio Basiliensis seu Tractatus communis universitatis Cracoviensis

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13 14

15

16 17 18

19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

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(ca. 1440–1)’, ed. W. Bucichowski, in Polskie traktaty koncyliarystyczne z połowy XV wieku, Textus et studia historiam theologiae in Polonia excultae spectantia 23 (Warsaw 1987), pp. 167–230 (now in a corrected edition by Z. Włodek, in Scripta manent. Textus ad theologiam spectantes in Universitate Cracoviensi saeculo XV conscripti [Kraków, 2000], pp. 229–92). See James of Paradyż, De statu et officio ecclesiasticarum personarum (1448), in J.M.F. Lydius, M. Wesseli Gansfortii . . . Opera omnia (Amsterdam, 1617), pp. 33–62. See James of Paradyż, Avisamentum ad papam pro reformatione ecclesiae (1449), in Wybór tekstów dotyczących reformy kościoła, ed. S. Porębski, Textus et studia historiam theologiae in Polonia excultae spectantia 6 (Warsaw, 1978), pp. 9–17. See James of Paradyż, De septem statibus ecclesiae (1449), ed. Porębski (Textus et studia 6, 1978), pp.19–47, as well as James of Paradyż, Speculum aureum institutionum ad beneficia ecclesiastica et sacramenta (1455), Hs. ÖNB Wien, Sign. 4225, fol. 76r–88v (and others); a partial edition in Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża, 2:252–7. On the use of medical metaphor, see especially James of Paradyż, De septem statibus ecclesiae, pp. 35–8. Hints are to be found in the relevant chapters of Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża, 2:1–60, pp. 87–115; see also Stoś, Mistrz Jakub z Paradyża, pp. 40–4. There would be four if one also included the anonymously-transmitted synodal sermon Spiritus veritatis (BJ 173, fol. 86v–90r), regarding which a case for James of Paradyż’s authorship could likewise be made. I thank Professor Roman Zawadzki of Kraków for his confirmation regarding this conjecture. On the ‘transitional period’ of 1441–2, see Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża, 2:1–60. On the genre itself, see the collection of M. Kowalczyk, Krakowskie mowy uniwersyteckie z pierwszej połowy XV wieku (Wrocław, 1970). See H. Rüthing, ‘Die Kartäuser und die spätmittelalterlichen Ordensreformen’, in Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. K. Elm, Berliner Historische Studien 14 (Berlin, 1989), pp. 35–58 (with additional literature). James of Paradyż, Sermo 1441 in octava Stanislai in Lancicia in sinodo, BJ 173 fol. 90rb–4rb (Fraternitatem diligite). Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum medii aevi latinorum qui in bibliotheca Jagellonica Cracoviae asservantur, vol. 1, ed. Z. Włodek et al. (Wrocław, 1980) (hereafter Catalogus BJ), pp. 164–86. Ibid, p. 170. See Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża, 2:22–5, 177. See Elgot, Codex epist. 2 (1891), no. 282–3. See T. Wünsch, ‘Minister, executor, caput civile. Der Papst im Kirchenverständnis der Konziliaristen’, in Geist, Gesellschaft, Kirche im 13.–16. Jh., ed. F. Šmahel, Colloquia mediaevalia Pragensia 1 (Prague, 1999), pp. 53–79. See Elgot, Codex epist. 2 (1891), no. 282. James of Paradyż, Sermo 1441 in Cracovia in missa Universitatis, BJ 173 fol. 144vb–8vb (Spiritu ambulate). See Catalogus BJ, p. 172; Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża, 2:45–9. Catalogus BJ, p. 172. James of Paradyż, (Sermo) 1442 in Pyotrkow in sinodo, BJ 173 fol. 148vb–52rb (Subiecti estote).

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Notes 277 32 See Fijałek, Mistrz Jakób z Paradyża, 2:53–6. 33 See most recently H.J. Sieben, ‘Dtn. 17,8–13 als Beitrag des Alten Testaments zur Theologie des Konzils’, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 18 (1986), 1–8. 34 Codex epist. 2 (1891), no. 283. 35 Codex epist. 1.1 (1876), no. 118. 36 See U. Proch, ‘Die Unionskonzilien von Lyon (1274) und Florenz (1438– 1445)’, in Geschichte der Konzilien. Vom Nicaenum bis zum Vaticanum II, ed. G. Alberigo (Düsseldorf, 1993), pp. 292–329, at 323. 37 See here, among others, A. Kneer, Die Entstehung der konziliaren Theorie. Zur Geschichte des Schismas und der kirchenpolitischen Schriftsteller Konrad von Gelnhausen (gest. 1390) und Heinrich von Langenstein (gest. 1397) (Rome, 1893); G. Kreuzer, Heinrich von Langenstein. Studien zur Biographie und zu den Schismatraktaten unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Epistola pacis und der Epistola concilii pacis, Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiet der Geschichte NF 6 (Paderborn, 1987). Recently, see F. Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300–1870 (Oxford, 2003), especially pp. 20ff. 38 See T. Hohmann and G. Kreuzer, ‘Heinrich von Langenstein’, in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, vol. 3 (1981), col. 771 (with additional literature). 39 See here, among others, J.B. Morrall, Gerson and the Great Schism (Manchester, 1960); L.B. Pascoe, Jean Gerson: Principles of Church Reform, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 7 (Leiden, 1973); Pascoe, ‘Jean Gerson: mysticism, conciliarism, and reform’, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 6 (1974), 135–53; Z. Kałuża, ‘Le chancelier Gerson et Jerôme de Prague’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 51 (1984), 81–126; D. Taber, ‘The theologian and the schism: a study of the political thought of Jean Gerson (1363–1429)’ (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1985); C. Burger, Aedificatio, Fructus, Utilitas. Johannes Gerson als Professor der Theologie und Kanzler der Universität Paris, Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 70 (Tübingen, 1986). 40 See H. Kraume, ‘Gerson, Johannes’, in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, vol. 2 (1980), col. 1272 (with additional literature). Regarding Gerson’s influences upon James of Paradyż, see Porębski, Jakub z Paradyża, and Stoś, Mistrz Jakub z Paradyża. 41 See here, among others, Wünsch, Konziliarismus und Polen, especially sections 3.2.3 (on the theory of representation) and 3.3.1 (on the new application of the plenitudo potestatis). 42 On the subject of ethics in James’s mystical writings, see Porębski, Jakub z Paradyża, pp. 63–6; J. Misiurek, Historia i teologia polskiej duchowości katolickiej, vol. 1: W. X–XVIII (Lublin, 1994), pp. 38–41. 43 James of Paradyż, De triplici genere hominum, in Stoś, Mistrz Jakub z Paradyża, pp. 114–76. On the contents, see the same work, passim. 44 See James of Paradyż, De triplici genere hominum, ch. 8, in Stoś, Mistrz Jakub z Paradyża, p. 138. 45 James of Paradyż, De theologia mystica, in Opuscula inedita, ed. S. Porębski, Textus et studia historiam theologiae in Polonia excultae spectantia 5 (Warsaw, 1978), pp. 251–312. On the classification in terms of the history of ideas, see above all (apart from Porębski’s introductory remarks) K. Górski, ‘“Teologia mistyczna” Jakuba z Paradyża’, Roczniki Filozoficzne 27 (1979), 217–30.

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46 James of Paradyż, De malis huius saeculi, ed. S. Porębski (Textus et studia 6, 1976), pp. 106–273. On the contents, see the editor’s introductory remarks, and, further, B. Geremek, ‘Geografia i apokalipsa. Pojęcie Europy u Jakuba z Paradyża’, in Mente et litteris. O kulturze i społeczeństwie wieków średnich, ed. H. Chłopocka and B. Kürbis (Poznań, 1984), pp. 253–61. 47 See James of Paradyż, De malis huius saeculi, p. 111. 48 James of Paradyż, De bona voluntate, in Porębski, Jakub z Paradyża, pp. 139– 97. See the introduction to this edition, pp. 136ff. 49 James of Paradyż, De cogitationibus et earum qualitate, ed. Porębski (Textus et studia 5, 1978), pp. 144–74. On the contents, see S. Porębski, ‘Contribution à l’étude de Jacques de Paradyż’, Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum 21 (1975), 115–43, at 115–20. 50 About him, see recently J. Nikodem, Zbigniew Oleśnicki w historiografii polskiej (Kraków, 2001); M. Koczerska, Zbigniew Oleśnicki i kościół krakowski w czasach jego pontyfikatu 1423–1455 (Warsaw, 2004). 14 ‘Good king Polish Ladislas . . .’ 1 The theft of the crown by Queen Elizabeth’s lady-in-waiting and the childcoronation is well documented by the lady’s Denkwürdigkeiten; see The Memoirs of Helene Kottaner, 1439–40, trans. M.B. Williamson (Woodbridge, 1998). She does not mention that all other regalia (see below) were missing at that coronation, although she very thoroughly lists the legal conditions of a valid crowning: the right crown, the right place (Alba Regia) and the right coronator (the archbishop of Esztergom). 2 The general history of these years is now summarised in P. Engel, The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526, trans. P. Pálosfalvi, English ed. A. Ayton (London, 2001), pp. 278–97; see also Engel, ‘János Hunyadi: the decisive years of his career, 1440–1444’, in From Hunyadi to Rákóczi: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary, ed. J.M. Bak and B.K. Király (Boulder, CO, 1982), pp. 103–24. 3 In Werbőczy’s Tripartitum of 1514–17, the authoritative summary of medieval Hungarian law, pt. 2, titles 13–34 list the decrees, charters and donations of the two rulers among invalid documents. See S. Werbőczy, The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary: A Work in Three Parts – Tripartitum opus iuris consuetudinarii inclyti regni Hungariae, in Decreta Regni Mediaevalis Hungariae [‘The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary’] [henceforth DRMH], ed. J.M. Bak, P. Banyó and M. Rady (Idyllwild, CA, and Budapest, 2005), vol. 5, p. 257. 4 Ladislas Posthumus died young and childless in 1458, and was followed by Hunyadi’s son, Matthias (1458–90). The Habsburg succession to the Hungarian (and Czech) throne was based essentially on the treaties of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; see J.M. Bak, Königtum und Stände in Ungarn im 14.–16. Jahrhundert, Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des östlichen Europa 6 (Wiesbaden, 1973), pp. 68–9 (with other literature). 5 The original is in the Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych, Warsaw; photocopy in the Hungarian State Archives, Budapest, Df. 98.438; last printed (based on the latter) in Bak, Königtum, pp. 141–3. 6 On these, see É. Kovács and Z. Lovag, The Hungarian Crown and Other Regalia (Budapest, 1980). It is not clear whether these were not in the same casket from

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Notes 279

7 8

9

10 11

12 13

14 15 16

17 18 19

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which the Kottanerin stole the crown, or were merely too much to be smuggled out easily and hence remained in the castle of Visegrád. See J.M. Bak, ‘Hungary and crusading in the fifteenth century’, in Crusading in the Fifteenth Century: Message and Impact, ed. N. Housley (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 116–27. The term regnicola (literally, ‘inhabitant of the realm’) was used, at least from the mid-fifteenth century onwards, for the politically enfranchised nobility. In the DRMH, we translated it as ‘gentleman of the realm’. It seems that the last time this word was intended to include lesser freemen and peasants was in a document relating to the 1437 uprising in Transylvania. Alas, we know nothing about this reliquary, but it could have been similar to those of Saint Ladislas from the late fourteenth century, of which one is now in the cathedral treasury of Győr (for an image, see at ), and the other, uncrowned, from Trenčín (later Esztergom) is in the Hungarian National Museum, for which see at . On this see Bak, Königtum, pp. 17–20. On crowns and reliquaries, see P.E. Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen und Staatsymbolik. Beiträge zu ihrer Geschichte vom dritten bis zum sechzehnten Jahrhundert, Schriften der MGH 13.3, vol. 3 (Stuttgart, 1956), pp. 872–83, 886–95; K. Otawsky, Die Sankt Wenzelskrone im Prager Domschatz und die Frage der Kunstauffasung am Hofe Karls IV, Europäische Hochschulschriften 28.142 (Bern, 1992), pp. 25–68. None of the crowns discussed in these studies seem ever to have been used for an inauguration. See E.H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, NJ, 1957), pp. 420–31. His words about the scandalum that emerged among the Hungarians because of the ‘wrong’ crown clearly imply disapproval of the disregard for the learned, canon-legal and papal sanctions, in contrast to ‘magical’ beliefs in the Holy Crown (quasi in ea sit ius regium constitutus); see Bak, Königtum, p. 21, and for greater detail, J. Deér, Die heilige Krone Ungarns, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Denkschriften 91 (Graz and Vienna, 1966), pp. 220–4. See L. Péter, ‘The Holy Crown of Hungary: visible and invisible’, Slavonic and East European Review 81 (2003), 448–80. DRMH, 2:89–93. Ibid, 2:21–3 (Sigismund), 81–7 (Albert, without the Golden Bull); see also A. Kubinyi, ‘Die Wahlkapitulationen Wladislaws II. in Ungarn (1490)’, in Herrschaftsverträge, Wahlkapitulationen, Fundamentalgesetze, ed. R. Vierhaus (Göttingen, 1977), pp. 140–62. For which see 1 September 1290, DRMH, 1:42–5. 5 August 1298: ibid, 1:46–51. The date of this undated decree has been convincingly established by scholars based on internal evidence: ibid, p. 114. E.g. by its first editor, M.G. Kovachich, Supplementum ad vestigia comitiorum . . . (Pest, 1789–1801), 1:144–5, then challenged by G. Bartal, Commentariorum ad historiam Hungariae . . . libri XV (Pozsony, 1847), pp. 208–10. For additional literature, see F. Dőry, Gy. Bónis and V. Bácskai, Decreta regni Hungariae: Gesetze und Verodnungen Ungarns, 1301–1457 (Budapest, 1976), pp. 387–8. Printed as ‘Compilatio c. 1300’, DRMH, 1:71–5 (also in Decreta, as above, pp. 389–96).

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21 Originally written for a Festschrift, it is now more easily accessible as P. Engel, ‘Az “1300 körüli” tanácsi határozat keletkezéséhez’, in Engel, Honor, vár, ispánság. Válogatott tanulmányok, ed. E. Csukovits (Budapest, 2003), pp. 638– 48. 22 Actually, while preparing DRMH, vol. 1, we had some doubts ourselves, but bowed to the expertise of the late Gy. Bónis. It is conspicuous in our annotations (DRMH, 1:134–8) that we went to considerable lengths to explain away the inconsistencies. 23 See J.M. Bak, ‘Hungary: crown and estates’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 7: C. 1415–c. 1500, ed. C. Allmand (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 707– 26. This aspect of the booklet’s content has been extensively discussed in the relevant literature. It was, indeed, issued during the short-lived ‘corporatist episode’ (as József Gerics called it) of the late thirteenth century. 24 Alas, the untimely death of my friend Engel in 2003 (see the commemorative words in my review of his Realm of St Stephen, English Historical Review 119 [2004], 127–8) precludes asking him these questions, to which he may have had some clever replies. 25 Engel risked suggesting (in passing) that John Vitéz of Zredna (ca. 1400–72), a humanist, a supporter of the Hunyadi family and by that time a member of the chancery, may have been the compiler. Why not? 26 The laws of the first three centuries of the kingdom rarely survived in medieval copies, most of them (almost all those issued between 1000 and 1222) only in sixteenth-century codices; see DRMH, 1:lvi–lvii. Still, the opening words of the Compilatio do not fit well with Engel’s proposition about a decision of the council. 27 See Gy. Bónis, Középkori jogunk elemei (Budapest, 1972), pp. 143–287. 28 Magyar Népzene Tára, vol. 1: Gyermekjátékok, ed. G. Kerényi (Budapest, 1951), no. 428, p. 801. Some 30 variants (with only a few hinting at the Polish king) are listed and discussed in A. Kiss, ‘A Lengyel-László játékok’, in Emlékkönyv Kodály Zoltán 70. születésnapjára, ed. B. Szabolcsi and D. Bartha (Budapest, 1953), pp. 373ff. 29 See Z. Kodály, Chöre für Kinder- und Frauenstimmen (13th ed., Budapest, 2005), pp. 140–7. 30 See, for example, the ballad of ‘Kőműves Kelemenné’, in N.A.M. Leader, Hungarian Classical Ballads and Their Folklore (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 19– 44. 31 For guidance in this field, I am indebted to Professor Emeritus Tamás Hofer. 32 The editor of the Magyar Népzene Tára suggests that the ‘Polish Ladislas’ may refer to Saint Ladislas, who indeed grew up in Poland (and, according to the author of the Gesta principum Polonorum, ‘had almost become a Pole in his ways and life’ [bk. 2, ch. 27]), but there is no evidence that he would have been called ‘a Pole’ in Hungary (except in one mention by an anonymous monk, see Kiss, ‘A Lengyel-László játékok’, p. 375); see above all I. Mészáros, ‘Népi gyermekjátékaink “Lengyel” László királya’, Ethnográfia – Népélet 74 (1963), 272–8. 33 It may be interesting to note that a Slovak (and a similar Ruthenian) ‘bridgeplay’ begins with the line Poslala nás královná (‘The queen sent us [to build a bridge]’), which it has been suggested refers to Queen Elizabeth of Luxemburg – the opponent of Władysław I! – whose faithful captain in Upper Hungary, Jiskra, kept most of what is now Slovakia on the Habsburg side. Thus researchers

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Notes 281 have dated that version in the same decade as the one on the Polish Ladislas, and probably remembering the confrontation’s other side; cf. J. Melich, ‘Adalékok a magyarországi hídjátékokról’, Ethnográfia – Népélet 50 (1939), 90–111, at 96–7, also with extensive references to early, eighteenth-century, records of the Slavic text. Alas, there are also Hungarian versions referring to ‘a queen’, so this little historical speculation stands on weak foundations. Still – è ben trovato. 15 University studies and trivialised pursuits 1 Paul Knoll has, throughout his distinguished career as teacher, writer and lecturer, continued to bring up salient issues regarding university education and the structure of the university in Central Europe; hence the topic of this contribution to a volume of essays in his honour. Amos Funkenstein, in his Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century (Princeton, NJ, 1996), states that both connections and separations between areas of learning may be the aspect that is least comprehensible to another educational civilisation, separated by geography or time. He notes (p. 6) that: the barriers separating various scientific disciplines were fundamental to the peripatetic program of systematic knowledge. Within the Aristotelian and Scholastic tradition, it was forbidden to transplant methods and models from one area of knowledge to another, because it would lead to a category-mistake. This point is particularly important for an understanding of what textbooks and anthologies within disciplines were to accomplish, and of what one could expect from them – often not what is expected of textbooks used today in contemporary university education. 2 One reads, as well, general statements such as the following: A university must be judged by its studies, and successive chapters show that Oxford has always thought of itself as a teaching university with a responsibility to instruct its undergraduates in accepted doctrines rather than speculative opinion. (The Illustrated History of Oxford University, ed. J. Prest [Oxford, 1993], p. vii) 3 See W.J. Courtenay, Parisian Scholars in the Early Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1999), p. xi, noting further that: Once the early stages of development had taken place, the institutional structure of each university was thought to be set, and descriptions of those structures were presumably as applicable to the late fourteenth century as they were to the early thirteenth. Courtenay contests this view (rightly, I believe), arguing that change in emphasis and in curricula was of much importance, although that change is difficult to track. 4 See The Illustrated History of Oxford University, p. 226, caption to a caricature of Sir Hugh Allen, Heather Professor of Music from 1918 to 1946: Enjoyed a special reputation as the energetic and authoritarian conductor of the Bach Choir, regarding his performing duties as professor as more important than [his] musicological research work.

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5 Chalcidius’s translation of Plato’s Timaeus makes this equivalence clear, including as he does both seen and unseen materia-substancia within the term silva. Chalcidius’s copious commentary notes how important this translation of silva for the Greek hyle was. See Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, ed. J.H. Waszink, Plato latinus 4, ed. R. Klibansky (London and Leiden, 1975), pp. 61.6, 145.4, 259.5, 286.14, 325.22; hyle-silva does not refer particularly or exclusively to ‘stuff’ that can be seen, heard, noticed, described and moulded in some way, but is, more importantly, invisible yet substantial materia-substancia. See also the translator’s commentary, pp. lxxvii–lxxxiv, and N. van Deusen, ‘In and out of a Latin forest: the Timaeus Latinus, its concept of silva, and music as a discipline in the Middle Ages’, Musica Disciplina (forthcoming). 6 In fact, the description of the biblical scriptures as a ‘thicket’ is a topos. 7 Augustine, De musica, bk. 1, ch. 1, on the special exemplary capacities of music: ‘Sonorum certar dimensiones observare non ad grammaticam spectat, sed ad musicam.’ Augustine, writing from the standpoint that grammar and music both use the material of sound, states that ‘dimensions’ that are certain and clear are related to modus and tempus, since music employs sound together with time. Within modus resides significance (figura) or rather, diverse significances: ‘praeter id quod significatio diverso est, nihil tibi videtur sonus distari.’ In the second chapter, then, Augustine poses the question that would become the standard opening question of those treatises that dealt with the discipline of music as an analogical discipline: ‘Musica quid sit, modulari quid sit.’ Augustine continues: [M]usica est scientia bene modulandi . . . si mihi liqueret quid sit ipsa modulatio . . . sed quid video modulari a modo esse dictum, cum in omnibus benefactis modus servandus sit, et multa etiam in canendo ac saltando quamvis delectent. See N. van Deusen, articles on Augustine’s De musica, on his De rhetorica, and on ‘Music, rhythm’ in Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. A.D. Fitzgerald OSA (Grand Rapids, MI, 1999). 8 De musica, bk. 1, ch. 4: Scientia cur in musica definitione ponitur . . . nam et numerosus est et suavissimus ille cantus, et, nisi fallor, tempori congruit . . . qui sensu quodam ducti bene canunt, hoc est numerose id faciunt ac suaviter, quamvis interrogati de ipsis numeris, vel de intervallis acutarum graviumque vocem . . . See also Patrologiae cursus completus . . . series latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–65), vol. 32. Rhetoric also brings training, practice and experience together with principle, but does not involve the diversity of sounds that ‘stroke the ear’, that is to say, are delectable. See Quintilian, Art of Rhetoric, trans. H.E. Butler, 4 vols. (Cambridge, MA, repr. 1958), bk. 6, 2 (II, pp. 423ff.). 9 Chalcidius, Timaeus, p. xxi (editor’s introduction): ‘[Q]uia, ut Plato exposuit in 32 c 6-8, silvam continet omnem, ut nihil extra eum relictum sit. . .’; see Aristotle, Metaphysics, bk. 1. 10 In this context, the term differentia is, and will continue to be, very significant; cf. Timaeus, preface, p. xxii: ‘silvam, altera individuam substantiam idem esse dicit quod animam incorporalem, dividuam idem quod animam stirpeam’ (cc. 29–31); differentia: ‘De differentiis inter singulas animas existentibus’ (cc. 208–11); interval: intervalla (p. xxii); discretion of time: ‘interpretans de

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Notes 283 aevi temporisque discretione agit’ (p. xxiii [cc. 105–7]). The great, unlimited, inchoate silva can be differentiated into individual figurae, that is to say, figuratis; cf. Aristotle, Metaphysica, A4, 985b14. See also Quintilian, x.iii.l7: Diversum est huic eorum vitium, qui primo decurrere per materiam stilo quam velocissimo volunt et sequentis calorem atque impetum ex tempore scribunt; hanc sylvam vocant. Repetunt deinde et componunt quae effuderant; sed verba emendantur et numeri, manet in rebus temere congestis quae fuit levitas. Protinus ergo adhibere curam rectius erit atque ab initio sic opus ducere, ut caelandum, non ex integro fabricandum sit. (emphasis added) Apparently unaware of the importance of the Latin silva, the translator of the Loeb edition renders silva as ‘rough copy’. Here an important equivalence has been established, namely silva = natura = substancia = materia. 11 Magni Aurelii Cassiodori, Expositio psalmorum, 2 vols., ed. M. Adriaen, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 97–8 (Turnhout, 1958), who writes in his preface ‘[U]t et claritas litterae senioribus oculis se pulchrius aperiret . . .’ (p. 4), and goes on to give scores of litterae-figurae throughout his commentaries on the Psalms, legitimising this collection of figurae by stating (p. 20): In libris quippe quos appellavit de modis locutionum diversa schemata saecularium litterarum inveniri probavit in litteris sacris; alios autem proprios modos in divinis eloquiis esse declaravit, quos grammatici sive rhetores nullatenus attigerunt. Further, an instrument is also a figura; instrumentum can be considered as another translation for the Greek schema (p. 11, quoting Jerome): Psalterium est, ut Hieronymus ait, in modum ∆ deltae litterae formati ligni sonora concavitas, obesum ventrum in superioribus habens, ubi chordarum fila religata disciplinabiliter plectro percussa, suavissimam dicuntur reddere cantilenam. A Psalm is also a music instrument: ‘(Quid sit psalmus.) Psalmus est, cum ex ipso solo instrumento musico, id est psalterio, modulatio quaedam dulcis et canora profunditur’ (p. 12). ‘Suaveness’ as well as dulcis, used here, constitute important, obviously related, qualifications. Cassiodorus has, furthermore, much to say about music as a discipline. Cantus, pleasing the ears, instructs the mind: Cantus, qui aures oblectat et animas instruit . . . Quam mirabilis autem ex ipsis profluit suavitas ad canendum. Dulcisonum organum humanis vocibus aemulantur, tubarum sonitus grandiloquis clamoribus reddunt, vocalem citharam viventium chordarum permixtione componunt, et quidquid ante instrumentis musicis videbatur agi, nunc probatur per rationales substantias explicari. (p. 5) 12 See N. van Deusen, ‘Grosseteste’s concept of Figura and its application to music notation’, in van Deusen, Theology and Music at the Early University: The Case of Robert Grosseteste and Anonymous, vol. 4 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 76–98. Cf. also R.W. Hunt, ‘Manuscripts containing the indexing symbols of Robert Grosseteste’, Bodleian Library Record, 4:241–55, and M.A. and R.H. Rouse,

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13

14 15 16

17

18

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‘The development of research tools in the thirteenth century’, in Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts in Manuscripts (Notre Dame, IN, 1991), pp. 232ff. Cf. Roger Bacon on figurae within measure, especially of duration, limits of quantity, time as instant, as indicated by a point or line: ‘ut ab instanti fit tempus, et a puncto fit linea. Sed ordinaliter fit tempus ab aevo, id est post aevum quia aevum est mensura priori tempore.’ Measure itself exists before time. See S.H. Thomson, ‘An unnoticed treatise by Roger Bacon on time and motion’, Isis 27 (1937), 219–29; N. van Deusen, ‘Roger Bacon on music’, in Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays, ed. J. Hackett (Leiden, 1997), pp. 223–41. Quintilian as well as Cassiodorus classify them, singly, and in comparison to one another. Again, it is necessary here to point to the equivalence established by Chalcidius between silva as seen and unseen, discussed above. Cf. van Deusen, ‘Roger Bacon on music’, especially pp. 224–7. We bring the discussion to its medieval exemplification, to be seen in Paris (National Library, fonds latin, ms 1118), as a series of figurae, illustrating the principle of figura itself as well as figurae in modis, that is, figurae that indicate and communicate ways of moving as well as of understanding. The series begins with the ‘kingly figura’. Notice that throughout the series, motion is accentuated by means of the figurae of music instruments, colours, gestures, all coming together in the last of this series, in which dance movement, too, comes to the fore. The figurae appear to contain, as well as to communicate, internal, emotional substance, in terms of facial expressions, of limp, hanging, red hands, and of instruments. It is important to keep in mind that instruments were also designated as figurae in the Middle Ages. All these illustrations are given here, since each separately makes the point of what a figura consisted of, as well as all together as the medieval topos of varied and diverse figurae or charactere variarae. Cf. K.A. Schmidt, Geschichte der Erziehung, vol. 14 (Stuttgart, 1902), translated and quoted in A History of the University in Europe, vol. 2: Universities in Early Modern Europe, ed. H. de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 175, 341. If one reviews other significant, more recent, histories of education and the early university, such as R. Martin OP, ‘Travaux récents à la faculté des arts aux XIIIe–XIVe siècles’, Revue d’histoire ecclesiastique 31 (1935), 359–68, and especially H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. F.M. Powicke and A.B. Emden, 3 vols. (2nd ed., Oxford, 1936), the result is the same: as a discipline, music is ignored, trivialised and misunderstood. See also G. Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York, 1968); Manuels, programmes de cours et techniques d’enseignment dans les universités médiévales, ed. J. Hamesse (Louvain, 1994). P. Glorieux, Répertoire des maîtres en théologie de Paris au XIIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1933), drawing upon P. Féret, La Faculté de théologie de Paris et ses docteurs les plus célèbres. Moyen-Age, 4 vols. (Paris, 1894–7), gives useful biographical details for many masters at the early university of Paris who, though considered by Glorieux to be masters of theology, wrote treatises on music. A History of the University in Europe, vol. 1: Universities in the Middle Ages, ed. H. de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge, 1992) pp. 343ff. It is significant that not one of the chapter authors, or members of the editorial board, has shown

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Notes 285 published interest in music, let alone advanced a career in musicology. This is also true of the Cambridge History of the Middle Ages: all the contributors write, predictably, and as they should, from their own disciplinary point of view. Since music is neither their priority nor expertise, it is simply ignored, or mentioned in passing with bland, insubstantial statements from the secondary literature. For example, North, in the three paragraphs concerning music within his contribution to volume 1 of A History of the University in Europe, writes that Boethius was important, that music treatises began with the monochord, and that the plan of music study was obscure at Oxford. There is very little here to remain in the mind in terms of a pungent, shaped concept of why one would continue to offer degrees in music, for example in Salamanca, well into the fifteenth century. 19 See the index of A History of the University in Europe, vol. 2, listing ‘music’ at pp. 9, 169, 175, 323 (no mention of music here), 383 (also no mention of music), 341, 352, 466, 506, 522 – compared with 31 substantial entries for mathematics, five additional entries for arithmetic, seven for mathematicians, and one discussion of the teaching of mathematics. 16 Toward a new cultural history of East Central Europe? 1 The pleasantly alliterative conjunction of these words may have made, and nearly did make, a good title for this book, but that would have been to trespass on a very different (and superb) book concerning our part of Europe: T. DaCosta Kaufman, Court, Cloister, and City: The Art and Culture of Central Europe, 1450–1800 (Chicago, 1995). 2 Pp. 234 (n. 28), 252 (n. 29), 268 (n. 3), 275 (n. 1), 281 (n. 1). 3 For the notion of ‘resonance’, we are indebted to T.N. Bisson, ‘On not eating Polish bread in vain: resonance and conjuncture in the Deeds of the Princes of Poland (1109–1113)’, Viator 29 (1998), 275–89. 4 Although as an afterthought, and surely with much irony, Banaszkiewicz notes the resonances of the eleventh-century image of good rulership as recently as in the 2005 Polish presidential campaign: p. 253, n. 44. 5 For Poland, this moment is crisply datable at 1220, 1222 or 1225, with the activities of Saint Hyacinth Odrowąż and the founding group of Dominicans; see J. Kłoczowski, ‘Dominicans in the Polish province in the Middle Ages’, in The Christian Community of Medieval Poland: Anthologies, ed. Kłoczowski, Polish Historical Library 2 (Wrocław, 1981), pp. 73–118, at 73–6. 6 Because not all the articles can be grouped in this way, we did not wish to separate such groups more formally, as titled parts of the book. 7 Pp. 162–4, 167–9, 173–5. 8 P. 73. 9 Pp. 66, 74, 76, 79. 10 Pp. 66–77, 80. 11 Pp. 64, 66, 73, 75, 77. 12 Pp. 26–7, 61, 104–5, 110–13, 141, 147–8, 150–1, 153, 155, 158, 184, 263 (n. 24), 275 (n. 3). 13 P. 225, n. 39. 14 P. 84, n. 15. 15 P. 22. 16 Pp. 157–8, 160.

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17 The plea is made throughout van Deusen’s article, culminating at the end (pp. 190–1). 18 P. Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton, NJ, 2001), which Banaszkiewicz cites in its French version, published two years later; citations of Buc at pp. 231 (n. 1), 236 (n. 46). 19 Pp. 50–1, 54, 58–9, 232 (nn. 10–11). 20 N. Berend, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in Medieval Hungary, c. 1000–c. 1300 (Cambridge, 2001); Berend, ‘Hungary, “The Gate of Christendom”’, in Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices, ed. D. Abulafia and N. Berend (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 195–216. 21 Pp. 177–8; P. Knoll, ‘Poland as Antemurale Christianitatis in the late Middle Ages’, Catholic Historical Review 60 (1974), 381–401. 22 Knoll, ‘Economic and political institutions on the Polish–German frontier in the Middle Ages: action, reaction, interaction’, in Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. R. Bartlett and A. MacKay (Oxford, 1989), pp. 151–74, at 155–8. 23 Knoll, ‘Polish–German frontier’, pp. 151–3, 155–8, 160–4; ‘National consciousness in medieval Poland’, Ethnic Groups 10 (1993), 65–84, at 67–71. 24 Knoll, ‘Casimir the Great and the University of Cracow’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, n.s., 16 (1968), 232–49, at 244. 25 Knoll, ‘The urban development of medieval Poland, with particular reference to Kraków’, in The Urban Society of Eastern Europe in Premodern Times, ed. B. Krekić (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1987), pp. 63–136. 26 P. 131. 27 Pp. 132–5, 138, 140–2, 144. 28 Pp. 90–2; see T. Jurek, Obce rycerstwo na Śląsku do połowy XIV wieku (2nd ed., Poznań, 1998), and the review by P. Górecki, Speculum 76 (2001), 1059–62. 29 P. Górecki, ‘“Tworzenie Europy” Roberta Bartletta w kontekście anglosaskich badań historycznych nad początkami i kształtowaniem się Europy’, in R. Bartlett, Tworzenie Europy. Podbój, kolonizacja i przemiany kulturowe, 950– 1350, trans. G. Waluga (Poznań, 2003), pp. 505–15, at 514. 30 Knoll, ‘Literary production at the University of Cracow in the fifteenth century’, in The Development of Literate Mentalities in East Central Europe, ed. A. Adamska and M. Mostert, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 9 (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 217–46, at 217, n. 2; J.W. Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000–1500 (Seattle, WA, 1994), pp. vii–xvi; T. Garton Ash, ‘Does Central Europe exist?’, New York Review of Books, vol. 33, no. 15 (1986), 45–53. 31 J. Henning, ‘Ways of life in Eastern and Western Europe during the early Middle Ages: which way was “normal”?’, in East Central and Eastern Europe in the Early Middle Ages, ed. F. Curta (Ann Arbor, MI, 2005), pp. 41–59, at 41, 48 (n. 1). 32 Among the recent works which, while fully immersed in general medieval historiography, inquire into particular places within East Central Europe on terms specific to those places, we would note S.C. Rowell, Lithuania Ascending: A Pagan Empire within East-Central Europe, 1295–1345 (Cambridge, 1994), and L. Wolverton, Hastening toward Prague: Power and Society in the Medieval Czech Lands (Philadelphia, PA, 2001).

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Notes 287 33 East-Central Europe in Transition: From the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century, ed. A. Mączak, H. Samsonowicz and P. Burke (Cambridge and Paris, 1985); on that legacy and its impact, see P. Górecki, ‘Poland: to the 18th century’, in Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, ed. K. Boyd, 2 vols. (London, 1999), 2:929–34, at 930; and on its inter-war dimensions, J. Topolski, O nowy model historii. Jan Rutkowski (1886–1949) (Warsaw, 1986). 34 We would like to note, with sadness, the death in 2003 of the collection’s other Polish editor, Antoni Mączak, himself very much a member of that extraordinary group and generation of scholars. 35 Pp. 21–2, 100, 220 (n. 6), 250 (n. 1); J.L. Abu-Lughod, Before the European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350 (New York, 1989). 36 Pp. 100, 250 (nn. 2–3); M. Małowist, Wschód a Zachód Europy w XIII–XVI wieku. Konfrontacja struktur społeczno-gospodarczych (Warsaw, 1973). For Małowist’s contributions in English, French and German, see the bibliography in Mączak, Samsonowicz and Burke, East-Central Europe, pp. 193–4. 37 Pp. 21–2, 25. 38 The idea being adopted here is Robert Bartlett’s portrayal of medieval Europe’s essential core as Frankish Europe: Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350 (Princeton, NJ, 1993). 39 Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. R. Bartlett and A. MacKay (Oxford, 1989). 40 Pp. 218–19, n. 103; J. Kłoczowski, Europa słowiańska w XIV–XV wieku (Warsaw, 1984); and, among an enormous output in which he has used the presence of monks and nuns as a criterion of that convergence, see Kłoczowski, ‘Cystersi w Europie Środkowowschodniej wieków średnich’, in Cystersi w społeczeństwie Europy Środkowej, ed. A.M. Wyrwa and J. Dobosz (Poznań, 2000), pp. 27–53. 41 Pp. 21, 220 (n. 6). 42 Pp. 83, 242 (n. 8). 43 P. 71, a clear allusion to Kłoczowski, Młodsza Europa. Europa ŚrodkowoWschodnia w kręgu cywilizacji chrześcijańskiej średniowiecza (Warsaw, 1998), on which see p. 16.

Notes.indd 287

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Index

Aachen 55 Abraham, W. 244, 268 Abulafia, D. 219, 286 Abu-Lughod, J.L. 207, 220, 250–1, 287 Adalbert (saint) 157, 220 Adam of Bremen 27, 220 Adamska, A. 215, 286 Adriatic Sea 94, 99, 103, 106, 109, 113–14, 196 Africa 27, 207 Alan of Lille 188 Alba Regia 278 Albert the Bear 32 Albert the Great 67, 72, 80 Albert of Habsburg (king of Hungary) 176, 178, 279 Albrecht III (duke of Austria) 104 Alexander IV (pope) 238 Alps 25, 102, 263 Althoff, G. 201, 231 Ambrose of Milan 159, 168, 170, 172 Amman, H. 102, 252 Andrew II (king of Hungary) 48, 180 Andrew III (king of Hungary) 180 Andrew of Verola 131, 133, 137 Angevins, Angevin dynasty 128, 178–9, 181 animals 23, 36–7, 43–4, 47, 95, 158, 165; cattle 23, 25, 35, 47, 124; horses 23, 27, 61, 235 Anne of Cilli (queen of Poland) 116, 148–50, 160 Antwerp 107, 257 aqueducts 94–5, 97–9, 248

Index.indd 288

Arabs 22, 24, 26, 118, 220 archaeology 28, 31–4, 36–40, 117, 120–3, 207–8, 221, 223, 225, 227, 263 Aristotle 13, 67–70, 80, 151, 204, 281–3 Arnald of Caussinh 144–5 Árpáds, Árpádian dynasty 128, 177, 180–1 arts (curriculum) 13, 64, 67–72, 80, 151, 153, 155, 157–8, 198; see also learning Asia 21, 23–4, 101–3, 113, 198, 210, 214, 255 Askanians, Askanian dynasty 32 Astronomy 13, 154, 188, 190; astrology, astrologers 147, 153–6 Asztalos, M. 236–7 Atlantic (ocean) 121–2 Augustine of Hippo 67, 164–8, 170, 172, 175, 185–6, 188–9, 191 Austria 102, 104–5, 108, 113, 179, 251, 253–4 Avars 44, 221 Avignon 14, 126, 131, 133, 146, 196, 206; papacy 6, 11–12, 125, 130, 134, 137–8, 142, 144–6, 195, 199, 201, 203, 208, 211 Bak, J.M. 193–5, 198–202, 209, 216, 230, 278–80 Balabanov, T. 223, 225 Balkans 94, 99 Baltic Sea 22–4, 26, 120–3, 136; region 23–4, 100–1, 115, 118, 122, 136, 196; commerce 24, 115

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Index 289 Banaszkiewicz, J. 193–6, 200–1, 209, 232, 285–6 banks, bankers, banking 91, 102, 112–13, 260; Frescobaldi bank 102 baptism 44–5, 84–7, 116, 124, 244 Barbour, J. 234–5 Barcelona 70, 75, 204 Barford, P.M. 222, 227 Bartholomew of Jasło 13, 157, 159 Bartlett, R.J. 17, 209–10, 213–14, 219, 227–8, 230, 286–7 Basel, Council of 14–15, 149–51, 162–4, 166, 168, 171–5, 194, 203, 261 Bastian, F. 102, 252, 257 Bavaria 101–2, 108; Bavarians 23 Béla IV (king of Hungary) 46, 48 Benedict XII (pope) 133–6, 138, 141–2, 145 Benedict Hesse 13, 154–5, 168 Benson, R.L. 213–14 Berend, N. 194–5, 199–202, 207–8, 210, 219, 229–30, 286 Bernard of Clairvaux 159, 165–8, 170, 175 Bernhard, J.W. 4 Berschin, W. 232–4 Bethlehem Chapel 148, 151 Białostocki, J. 207 Bible 42–4, 46, 48–9, 67–8, 71, 73, 82, 153, 159–60, 164–5, 168–70, 172, 185–6, 238, 282–3; Jewish scripture 46 Bieniak, J. 216, 265–6 Biliński, W. 268–9 Billacois, F. 228, 230 biogram, biography 7, 9, 11–13, 50, 57, 63, 158, 174, 195, 203–4, 233, 284 Birka 27, 121 Birkenmajer, L.A. 271–2 Bisson, T.N. 3, 214–15, 234, 285 Black Death 100, 250 Black Sea 22, 26, 103, 253 Bogucka, M. 17, 207, 250 Bohemia 1, 27, 30, 32, 70–1, 74, 101, 103–5, 113, 119, 128–9, 133–4, 139, 141–3, 150–1, 153, 155, 179–80, 196, 208, 223, 252–3, 257, 263, 278; kingdom of 101, 103–4, 129, 179–80, 252, 278

Index.indd 289

Bolesław I the Brave (duke and king of Poland) 10, 18, 58–60 Bolesław III the Wrymouth (duke of Poland) 58 Bologna 12, 66, 75–7, 132, 147; university of 12, 76–7, 147 Bonaventura (saint) 67, 80, 170 Boniface VIII (pope) 128 Boniface IX (pope) 149, 245 Bónis, Gy. 182, 230, 279–80 books 11–13, 62, 84, 88–90, 92–3, 118, 156, 177, 180–2, 240, 242–5, 254, 262, 280; court books 84–5, 88–93, 243, 245; manuscripts 118, 154, 157, 163, 240; booklet (libellus) 177, 180–2, 245, 280 Borkowska, U. 267–8, 270 Boshof, E. 232–3, 255 Bothnia (gulf) 120–1, 123–4 boundary 6, 47, 57, 76, 102, 129, 136–7, 177, 202 Boyce, G. 1, 213 Bozen/Bolzano 102, 252 Brabant 23, 100 Brandenburg 32, 156 Braudel, F. 220, 250 Brenner, R. 207 Brown, E.A.R. 3, 8, 214 Brown, W.C. 213–14, 228 Bruges 22, 106, 109 Brussels 111, 259 Brzeg 78, 114, 159 Buc, P. 200–1, 231, 236, 286 Buczek, K. 30, 221 Buda 107, 152, 203; Budapest 9 Bug (river) 24, 26 Buko, A. 222–3 Bulgaria 28, 32–5, 44, 223; rulers of 32, 34, 44 Burns, R.I. 4, 214 Byzantium 21–2, 26, 28, 43–4, 100, 210, 258 Cambridge, university of 64, 66, 73, 75, 77, 190, 196, 239 camera (papal office) 126–8, 131, 133, 144–5; camerarius (papal official) 126, 144

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290

Index

Carinthia 104, 106 Casimir the Great (king of Poland) 5–6, 10–12, 14, 19, 131–6, 140–2, 144–6, 148–9, 199, 202–3 Casimir Jagiellończyk (king of Poland– Lithuania) 156–7, 173 Cassiodorus 166, 186–8, 283–4 castle 11, 23, 61, 111, 117, 121, 132, 141, 148, 154, 183, 259, 279; see also Wawel Hill Central European University 9, 216 centres 21–22, 24, 26–8, 31–6, 38–9, 100, 109, 114, 123, 196–8, 206, 211, 222, 225, 238, 263; urban 22, 24, 28, 114, 123, 263; commercial 28, 109, 197–8; of consumption 31, 33, 35; of production 34, 109; of power 31–2, 34, 38, 222, 225; ‘central places’ 35– 6, 38, 196, 225; see also theory Chalcidius 186–8, 282, 284 Charles IV (king of Bohemia, emperor) 3, 9, 104, 109–10, 179 Charles of Anjou 178–9 Charles the Great/Charlemagne (emperor) 21, 26, 54–7, 234 Charles Robert (king of Hungary) 134, 143 Champagne 23–4; fairs of 24 chancery (papal) 127, 131; (royal) 147, 153, 156, 280 charters 31, 47–8, 119, 176–7, 179–81, 278; see also privileges Chełmno 119, 136–8; diocese 137–8 China 27, 100 Chłopocka, H. 244, 266, 277 Christendom 10, 13, 23, 43–4, 66–7, 69, 79–80, 123–4, 128 Christians 43–6, 82–4, 89–90, 93, 165, 198–200, 208, 230, 242, 244–5 Christianisation 21, 24, 33, 46, 160; see also conversion church (building) 27–8, 47, 52, 55, 61, 85, 95–6, 167, 191, 227 Church Fathers 159, 166–7 Ćirkowić, S. 248–9 citizens, townspeople 25, 90, 95, 105, 113–14, 144, 198, 203, 211 city 6–7, 11, 13–14, 20, 22–7, 69, 75,

Index.indd 290

78, 84, 94–9, 101, 103, 105–6, 113, 117, 119, 123, 130, 141, 150–1, 158, 192–205, 207, 209–12, 222–3, 242, 244, 248, 255, 262; ‘Asiatic’ 25; authorities 95–9, 110, 117, 262; city-state 99, 105; see also town Clement V (pope) 125, 130, 141 Clement VI (pope) 126, 142, 144 cloth 23–5, 34, 103, 108, 111, 259; production of 34, 108; see also wool coin 27, 84, 89, 95–8, 107–12, 116, 119, 133, 135, 144–5, 224, 245–6, 248–9, 252, 256, 258–9; ducat 107–8, 110, 112, 248–9, 258–9; mark 89, 109– 11, 116, 119, 133, 135, 245–6, 252, 258–9; florin 84, 110–12, 144–5, 258–9; groat 95, 108, 110, 112, 258– 9; hyperperon 95–8, 249, 258 collector (papal official) 126–41, 143–6, 196, 203, 208, 211 collectory (papal administrative unit) 126–30, 144–6 college, collegium 66, 79, 81, 148, 190 Collins, R. 54, 232–3 Cologne 66, 75, 77 commerce 20–9, 34, 101–2, 105, 109, 111, 113, 120–1, 123, 198, 200, 207 Communism 38, 227 conciliarism 14–15, 151, 161–71, 173–5, 195, 203, 275 confession 65; confessors 147–53, 159–60 conflict (legal, political) 14, 47, 79, 85, 87–9, 91, 97, 108, 130–42, 145, 172, 184, 198, 202, 211 Conrad II (king of Germany, emperor) 50, 52–5, 57–9, 62–3 Constance 14–15, 201, 203, 206, 275; Council of 14–15, 174 Constantine Porphyrogenitus 25, 220 Constantinople 20, 40 consumption (economic) 28, 31–2, 34–35, 37–8, 40, 111, 117, 119–22, 124, 196, 261 contrata/natio (mendicant administrative unit) 69–70, 238 conversion 46, 82–3, 88, 92, 151, 160, 244

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Index 291 coronation 48, 53, 147, 176–81, 209, 232, 278; decree 180 Cosmas of Prague 61, 234–5 council, ecclesiastical 14–15, 162, 164–7, 169, 171–3, 245; royal 147, 181, 280; see Basel, Constance, Fourth Lateran Council, Florence, Pavia, reform, synod, Vienne court (as a political milieu), in general 191–3, 197, 200–2, 204–5, 209; royal 3, 6, 11, 14, 30, 51, 116–17, 123–4, 135, 138, 140, 142, 147–60, 178, 194–5, 199, 201, 203– 4; queen’s 147, 150, 152, 158–60; ducal 30, 194; episcopal 14, 194; papal (curia) 126, 129–30, 132–3, 135, 145, 173, 201, 203, 211, 242 court (judicial), in general 46–7, 188; royal 47, 54, 57–9, 181–2, 201; episcopal (consistory) 84–5, 86–90, 92–3, 199, 201, 208, 244, 246–7; ducal 61; urban 26, 87; noble 84, 89, 93; papal 130–1, 134–6 Courtenay, W.J. 184, 281 crafts, craft production 20, 28, 30, 34–5, 107, 256; craft workshops 28, 34–5 craftspeople 30, 32, 35, 87–8, 95 credit 84, 91, 106–7, 110–14, 143–4, 198, 203, 247, 259–60 Croatia 97, 178, 204 crown 53, 55, 128–9, 136, 176–7, 179–80, 200–1, 209, 278–9; of Saint Wenceslas 128, 179; of Saint Stephen/Holy Crown 176–7, 179– 80, 200, 279 crusade 10, 44, 144, 176, 178, 194; Varna crusade 10, 176, 194 Cuiavia 128, 132, 203 Cumans 45–6, 48, 208, 210, 229 Curta, F. 19, 193–6, 198, 202, 207–8, 210, 219, 222–3, 226, 286 Czech Republic 35; Czechoslovakia 1 Czechs (people) 155–6, 160 Dalmatia 98 Dante Aligheri 60–1, 234–5 Danube (river) 22, 26 Davies, W. 228, 230

Index.indd 291

d’Alatri, M. 237–8 de Ridder-Symoens, H. 236, 284 Dean, R. 1, 213 debt 89, 91, 105–7, 110–13, 144–5, 203, 247, 255, 259 demand (economic) 22, 30, 32, 101, 103, 107–8, 123–4, 153, 196, 198, 211, 257 Denmark 74, 76; Danes 27 Derwich, M. 268–9 Dimitrov, Ia. 223–4 diplomacy 11, 14, 99, 127, 132–4, 136, 142, 147, 156, 199, 202–3, 211; ambassador 142 Dnieper (river) 22 documents 48, 106, 113, 134, 142, 145, 150, 152, 154, 163, 167, 176–8, 180, 201, 246, 254, 278; see also charters, letters, privileges Dominic (saint) 65 Dominicans, Dominican Order 64–80, 148, 151, 159, 194–6, 199, 203, 208–9, 211, 236–41, 285; general chapter 67–8, 70–2, 74–6, 78–9, 237, 239–41; legislation 65, 73–4, 237, 239, 241; see also province, school, studium Donat, P. 34, 224 Doncheva-Petkova, L. 224, 227 Dorpat 24 Dubrovnik 94–5, 97–9, 196, 203, 211, 248; Republic of 98–9 dukes, duchies 9, 17, 19, 30, 43, 61, 100, 104, 118, 128–9, 131, 136–7, 139– 40, 142, 150, 194–6; Piast dukes 9, 19, 128–9, 131, 139–40, 194–5; Lithuanian dukes 43, 116, 118, 150; Silesian duchies 137, 139, 142 Dvornik, F. 4 dynasty 6, 12, 32, 58, 63, 128, 137–8, 142, 156, 176–7; see also Angevins, Árpáds, Askanians, Habsburg, Jagiellons, Luxemburg, Piasts, Přemyslids, Salians, Wittelsbach Egypt 100, 257 Einhard 55–7, 232–4 Elbląg 24, 119

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292

Index

Elizabeth of Luxemburg (queen of Hungary) 176, 178, 278, 280 Elizabeth of Pilica/Granowska (queen of Poland–Lithuania) 148, 158–9 Elizabeth Łokietkówna (queen of Hungary) 134, 145 Elm, K. 237, 276 empire, Roman 20–1, 29, 55–7, 193–4, 207, 210; Carolingian 28, 39; medieval (Germany and Bohemia) 77, 102, 105–6, 139, 173, 233; see also Byzantium Enea Silvio Piccolomini 150 Engel, P. 17, 181, 278, 280 Enghoff, I.B. 263–4 England 3–4, 31, 55, 71, 74–5, 77, 118, 180, 238, 240 entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship 102–3, 108, 112, 114, 197; see also partnership Erfurt 34, 80, 161–3, 167, 173–5, 195–6, 204, 275; university of 80 estates (manors) 26, 30–1, 33–7, 39–40, 116, 119, 208, 221, 223, 257 Esztergom 279; church of 47; archbishop of 278 ethnicity, ethnic difference 82, 141, 195, 199–203, 208 Ettel, P. 224, 226 Eugene IV (pope) 173 Europe 1, 3–5, 7–8, 12, 16–19, 21–3, 25–7, 30–2, 34–5, 39–40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 64, 66, 71, 79–80, 100–2, 106–7, 109–11, 113–14, 117–23, 128–30, 134, 143, 182, 192–4, 196, 198–9, 204–12, 222, 225, 227, 230, 236, 250, 281, 286–7; East Central 1, 4–5, 7–9, 12, 16–19, 30–1, 35, 102, 119–20, 123, 169, 192–4, 196, 204–10, 212, 222, 236, 287; Central 30, 34, 100–1, 106, 110–11, 113–14, 118, 128–30, 134, 143, 182, 199, 205, 222, 281; Eastern 4, 16–17, 21, 25–6, 32, 34, 39–40, 101, 117–8, 120, 122, 194, 199, 205, 207–8, 210, 225, 227; Western 12, 23, 30, 32, 34, 39, 100–1, 106–7, 109, 205, 207, 227; northern 22, 25, 117, 120, 123;

Index.indd 292

‘younger’ 16, 71, 211; ‘new’ 23, 210; Frankish 287 exchange 21–4, 27, 35, 101, 110, 113, 194, 197, 208; mediums of 27; bills of 105, 113; see also trade export 23, 26, 108–9, 119, 124 Fajkmajer, K. 254, 260 Fałkowski, W. 267, 273 Felix V (pope) 164, 173 Ferdinand of Habsburg (king of Hungary) 178 Fijałek, J. 164, 167, 169, 241–2, 269, 271–2, 275–7 Finnic peoples 120 fish 24, 26, 116–24, 196, 251, 261–4; bream 120–3; brined 118, 121; cod 117, 119–22, 261, 263; dried 116–17, 119, 120–3, 196, 261, 263–4; eel 116, 118, 120, 261; fresh 118, 122, 262; herring 24, 26, 117, 119–20, 261, 263; pike 117–23, 261, 264; preserved 118, 262; salmon 117–18, 120–1; salted 116, 118–19, 261; stockfish 117, 119–22, 261; strekfusz 116–24, 261–3; sturgeon 117–18, 122; see also meat fisheries 118–19, 122, 124, 264; fishermen 119–20 Flanders 22–3, 100, 198, 227, 253 Florence 12, 69, 75, 102, 105, 108, 173; university of 12; Council of 173 food, foodstuffs 23, 28, 32, 36, 57, 94, 99, 103, 117, 123, 223, 261; fruit 26, 103, 108, 117; honey 23–4, 27; meat 23, 25, 36, 116–8, 123–4; whale/porpoise meat 117; see also fish, salt, spices forest 23–4, 108, 114; forest economy 108, 114 fortifications 30, 32, 36–8, 98, 225, 264 Fouracre, P. 228, 230 Fourth Lateran Council 211, 245 France 3–4, 23, 71, 77, 101, 118, 129, 143, 180, 204 Francis de Molinio (papal delegate) 130 Franciscans, Franciscan Order 65, 74, 80–1, 241

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Index 293 Franconia 108 Frederick I (margrave of Brandenburg) 156 Frederick Hohenzollern 156 Freed, J.B. 4 Fried, J. 231, 235 frontier 3, 6, 17–19, 101, 124, 128, 177, 201, 205–6, 210–11, 263, 267; of Europe 3, 17, 205, 209–11; of Poland 6, 18, 267; Polish-German 18–19; GermanCzech 101; of Hungary 177, 201; of Bohemia 263; see also boundary Fügedi, E. 17, 207 fur 23–4, 27, 102–3, 106, 108, 114, 252 Gabriel de Fabriano 129, 139 Galhard of Carces 131–5, 138, 140–2, 144, 203 Galich–Vladimir 144 Gallus the Anonymous 9, 58–60, 194, 200, 234–5, 280 Gansiniec, R. 273–4 Gąsiorowski, A. 244, 246–7, 270 Gawęda, S. 267, 272 Gawlas, S. 250–1 Gdańsk 24, 119, 122, 130–1, 138, 203, 220, 261 Geary, P.J. 4, 214, 231 Gębarowicz, M. 157, 159, 268, 272–4 Gediminas (grand duke of Lithuania) 43 Genoa 103, 241, 253 Gentile (cardinal, papal legate) 179–80 Georgiev, P. 223–4 Geremek, B. 17, 278 Gerard (provincial of Poland) 72, 238 Gerhard of Augsburg 57, 234 Germans 24, 79, 140–1, 182, 245, 267 Germany 4, 8, 25, 31, 71, 76–7, 84, 101– 3, 109, 129, 161, 173, 198, 205–6, 239, 253, 264; German princes 173; see also Austria, Bavaria, Franconia, Thuringia Gerward (bishop of Cuiavia) 7, 131, 203 Gieysztor, A. 8, 17, 216, 221, 237, 265, 272 Gniezno 26, 241; archiocese of 83, 85, 136, 138–9, 163, 203, 208, 241, 243;

Index.indd 293

archbishop of 129, 132–3, 136, 211, 257 Göckenjan, H. 228–9 Godman, P. 232–3 Goerlitz, T. 257, 259 Golden Bull of 1222, 48, 180, 279 Goldingen 119 Górecki, P. 193, 211, 213–14, 219, 222, 228, 250, 286–7 Gorski, A. 9, 213 Górski, K. 268, 277 grain 23, 36, 38, 103, 122, 124; barley 38; farro 38; rice 103; rye 38; spelt 38; wheat 36, 38 grammar 67–8, 282 Gratian (canonist) 82, 166 Graus, F. 8, 222 Great Bulgar 22 Great Poland 25, 70, 84, 90, 100, 245 ‘Great Migrations,’ 20 Greece 71, 74; Greeks 22, 26–8 Gregory of Sanok 13, 158, 273 Gregory the Great 60, 164–7, 170 Gresham, T. 190 Grodecki, R. 30, 221 Gromnicki, T. 265–7 Gruber, H.G. 242, 244 Grünhagen, C. 104, 109, 253–5, 258 Grunwald/Tannenberg 8, 119, 158 Guido (papal legate) 83, 211, 242 Habsburg dynasty 176, 178, 182, 278, 280 Hageneier, L. 232–3 Hajnik, I. 229–30 Halecki, O. 4 Hansa 24, 26–7 Harrison Thomson, S. 1, 3, 9, 213 Hart, H.L.A. 16, 218 Haskins, C.H. 2 Hedwig (Poznań woman) 84–8, 243 Hedwig (duchess and queen of Poland) 132 Hedwig (princess of Poland– Lithuania) 156–8 Hedwig of Anjou (queen of Poland) 5, 7, 12, 116, 147–51, 154, 156–7, 159–60, 177, 204

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294

Index

Heinrich, D. 261, 264 Henning, J. 32–4, 223–4, 227, 286 Henry III (emperor) 62 Henry of Głogów (duke of Silesia) 139 Henry of Langenstein 173–4 Henry of Moravia 238 Henry Bitterfeld 159, 239–40, 274 herbs, herbal economy 97, 114, 257 heresy 42, 155, 242 Herman of Przeworsk 154–5 hides (leather) 23–4, 27 Hinnebusch, W.A. 236–40 historiography 1–4, 15–17, 30–3, 39, 83, 93, 101, 109, 133, 161, 192–3, 199, 204–7, 211–14, 227, 231, 236, 256, 280, 286–7; medieval 2–3, 205–6, 286; North American 2–4, 16–17, 205–7, 212, 214; British 3, 17, 205; Polish 3, 30, 32–3, 39, 83, 161, 206–7, 212, 227; Czech 30, 32–3, 39; German 3, 31, 161, 256; Hungarian 207, 280; and Marxism 39, 206–7, 227 hoards, hoarding 38, 111 Hoffmann, A. 105, 110, 254 Hoffmann, R.C. 17, 193, 195–6, 203, 219, 261, 265 Hołubowicz, W. 251–2 Holy Land 71, 74, 76, 82 Housley, N. 267, 279 Hugh of St.-Victor 172 humanism 12, 119, 157–8, 163 Humbert of Romans 72, 238 Hungarians 182, 209, 229, 279 Hungary 12, 27, 30, 32, 37, 43–9, 71, 101, 105, 109, 111, 117, 128, 130, 133–5, 141, 143, 146, 152, 176–82, 199–200, 202, 204, 206, 208–9, 258–9, 278–80; as a concept (antemurale Christianitatis) 178, 202; kingdom of 45, 47, 105, 109, 146, 152, 176–9, 278–80; Hungarian Republic 180 Hunt, R. 1, 213 hunting 21, 28, 116 Hunyadi (family) 181, 280 Hussites 150, 153, 155–6, 169, 240, 275 Hyacinth Odrowąż (saint) 285

Index.indd 294

Iberian Peninsula 4, 44 Ibrahim ibn-Ya’qub 26–7, 220–1 Iceland 117, 120 import 94, 101, 103–4, 107–9, 114, 121, 123, 251, 253, 257–8 India 100, 257 indulgence (papal) 149 industry 24, 34–6, 39–40, 109 Innocent III (pope) 166 Innocent V (pope) 67 Innocent VI (pope) 144 Inowrocław 134–5, 201 investment 25, 27, 111 Isidore of Seville 20, 219 Italians 101, 106, 114, 160 Italy 4, 23, 27, 68, 71, 76, 100–4, 108, 150, 154, 158, 209, 251–2 Jagiellonian Library/Biblioteka Jagiellońska 154, 163 Jagiellons, Jagiellon dynasty 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 19, 84, 117, 147, 176, 199, 202 James (papal legate) 48 James of Paradyż/Jüterbog 13, 15, 161– 75, 195, 199, 204, 275–8 János Hunyadi (regent of Hungary) 176, 278 Jarosław of Bogoria (archbishop of Gniezno) 132–3 Jean Gerson 173–4, 277 Jeremić, R. 248, 250 Jerome (saint) 170 Jerusalem 44, 257; Latin Kingdom of 44 Jews 27, 43–6, 49, 82–5, 87–90, 92–3, 198–200, 202–3, 208, 210, 229–30, 242–7; discrimination against 46, 83, 88, 92, 244; Jewish scripture 46 Jochna (Jewish woman from Poznań) 88–92, 204, 244–5, 247–8 Jodok (margrave of Moravia) 104–5 Jogaila 5; see Władysław Jagiełło Johann Banke (Wrocław merchant and wholesaler) 108, 111–13, 259–60 John (Jewish man from Poznań) 84, 86–8, 243–4 John XXII (pope) 125, 129, 131, 133, 136–9, 143, 145 John XXIII (antipope) 79

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Index 295 John of Luxemburg (king of Bohemia) 129, 134, 139, 141–2 John of Segovia 149, 169 John Agnus (bishop of Maastricht) 55 John Długosz 7–8, 12, 15, 150, 152–3, 156–8 John Elgot 13, 152–3, 163–5, 168–9, 173, 276 John Radlica (bishop of Kraków) 148–9 John Štěkna 148–9, 151 John Sylwan/John-Jerome 149–51 John Szapolyai (king of Hungary) 178 John Vitéz of Zredna 181, 280 Jonsson, L. 121, 264 Judenburg 103, 105 judge 47, 54, 56–60, 131, 135–6, 181; papal 131, 135–6, 181; see also officialis Jurek, T. 193, 195, 198–204, 208–9, 211, 248, 270, 286 Kaczmarczyk, K. 244, 266 Kamień 137–8, 267 Karlburg 34, 36, 39–40 Kehn, W. 251–2, 255 Keller, H. 62, 231, 235 Kestutis (duke of Lithuania) 43 Khazars 22 Kielar, P. 78, 238, 240–1, 268 Kiev 10, 22, 26, 28, 30, 101, 203–4, 208, 251 kings 6, 14, 26, 30–1, 41, 44–9, 51–60, 62–3, 79, 104–5, 116, 124–5, 129–30, 132–6, 139–45, 147, 151–3, 155–6, 158–60, 164, 173, 175–83, 193–4, 196, 199–202, 209, 232–5, 278, 284; of Poland 26, 58, 79, 129–30, 132–6, 139, 141–2, 144–5, 147, 152, 164, 173, 175, 182, 202, 235, 280; of Poland–Lithuania 116, 160, 164, 173, 175, 182; of Hungary 45–9, 105, 133–4, 143, 152, 176–82, 200, 202, 209, 278; of Germany 51, 62–3, 233–4; of Bohemia 104–5, 129, 133–4, 139–43; Frankish 54–7; of France 125, 143, 180; of England 180 kingdom 5–7, 10, 18, 45, 47, 56, 58, 79,

Index.indd 295

84, 101, 103–5, 109, 114, 127, 129, 137, 141, 143, 145–7, 155, 158, 160, 177–9, 195, 205, 252–3, 267, 279–80; see also Bohemia, Hungary, Poland Kiss, I. 207 Kłoczowski, J. 8, 16–17, 194–6, 198–9, 203, 208–11, 214, 216, 218–19, 236–41, 268, 270, 285, 287 Knoll, P.W. 1–13, 15–19, 192–3, 202–6, 211–13, 215–16, 234, 252, 268, 275, 281, 286 Koczy, L. 242, 247–8, 257 Königsberg 118–19 Kopiński, K. 260–1 Kovács, L. 226, 228 Kowalczyk, M. 154, 268, 271–2, 274, 276 Kowalewicz, H. 157, 273–4 Koziol, G. 201 Kozłowska-Budkowa, Z. 240–1, 271 Kraków 7, 10–14, 16, 19, 73–4, 77–9, 84, 103, 114, 116–8, 123–4, 128, 132–3, 136, 138–40, 142, 144, 147–52, 154, 156–8, 160–5, 167–9, 173, 175, 195– 6, 198, 201, 203–4, 209, 236, 238, 240–1, 245, 253, 275–6; university of 7, 10–15, 19, 77–9, 147–54, 156–8, 160–1, 163–4, 167–9, 173, 175, 196, 203, 205, 240–1, 275; foundation/ renewal of 11, 19, 147–9, 158, 160, 240; bishop of 11, 14, 136, 148, 157, 163–4, 175; see also Wawel Hill Krekić, B. 193–8, 201, 203, 211, 215, 250, 286 Kristó, Gy. 31, 222 Krzemieńska, B. 221–3 Kučera, M. 221, 225 Kuczyński, S.K. 216, 221 Kula, W. 17, 207 Kuraś, S. 246, 265, 269–70 Kürbis, B. 17, 216, 278 Kurnatowska, Z. 222, 225 Kuske, B. 256–7 Kutná Hora 109–10, 258 Ladislas IV (king of Hungary) 47–8 Ladislas of Habsburg/Posthumus (king of Hungary) 176, 180, 278

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296

Index

Lane, F. 250, 252, 257–8 language 27, 44, 66, 68, 87, 114, 117–8, 120, 153, 159–60, 174, 186–8, 190, 205, 229, 232, 248, 256, 261, 281–3; Croatian 248; Czech, 153; English 66, 205, 229; Frankish 27; German 87, 120, 160, 174, 205, 256; Greek 27, 186–7, 282–3; Italian 114; Latin 27, 68, 118, 160, 186, 188, 283; Polish 117, 153, 159–60, 261; Slavic 27, 281 law, 13, 15, 19, 42–3, 45, 47, 52, 57, 59, 64, 82, 85–9, 92, 100, 117, 127, 130, 133, 135–6, 140, 151, 153, 156, 162– 3, 166, 173, 178–82, 187–8, 195, 198–9, 208, 211, 228, 230, 241, 245, 250, 278–80; canon 13, 15, 82–3, 87–9, 92, 127, 140, 151–3, 156, 162– 3, 166, 179, 198–9, 208, 211, 228, 241, 245, 279; Roman 13, 42, 198–9; Jewish 82; German 100, 250; Hungarian 278, 280; legislation 47, 73, 82–3, 86, 94, 117, 162, 178, 180–1, 184, 198, 237, 239, 241, 245, 278–9; learning in 88, 135, 163, 178, 182, 187–8; litigation 43–4, 46, 97, 108, 110, 138, 140, 142, 198–9, 201, 229, 245–6; legal process/ procedure 42–3, 56, 59, 85–6, 89– 90, 127, 130, 135–6, 181, 199, 201; see also judge, ordeal Lea, H.C. 2 learning, education 6–8, 10–15, 19, 64–6, 80, 88, 90, 132, 135, 148–9, 151–4, 156–8, 160, 178, 181–2, 184–91, 194–6, 198–200, 202, 204, 209, 237–8, 240–1, 281, 284–5; curriculum 65–8, 70, 72–3, 80, 156, 184, 188–9, 198–9, 209, 237, 281; trivium, 68; quadrivium 189; logic 67–70, 187–8; literacy 182, 188; see also arts, grammar, law, mathematics, medicine, music, philosophy, rhetoric, theory Leciejewicz, L. 219, 221 lectors 65–6, 68–9, 71–3, 75, 148, 237–8, 241 Łęczyca, synod of 163–4, 167

Index.indd 296

Leff, G. 237, 284 Legnica 114, 258 Leipzig 15 Leo V (Byzantine emperor) 44 Leo VI (Byzantine emperor) 43 Leopold (duke of Carinthia) 104 letters (documents) 56, 106, 128, 130–2, 135, 139–40, 149, 152, 159, 163, 169, 173, 233 Lewicki, T. 220–1 Lewis of Bavaria (emperor) 138 Lewis, A. 3, 205 Linz 105, 109 literature, literary production 14, 42, 50, 59–60, 157–9 Lithuania 10, 43, 84, 108, 116, 118, 144, 150, 158, 160; Lithuanian College 148; see also Samogitia Livonia 43 Loibl, R. 255, 258 Lombard, M. 219 Lombardy 71, 204 London 190 lordship 19, 36, 42, 52, 56, 58–9, 61, 181 Louis the German (king of the East Franks) 37, 226 Louis of Anjou/the Great (king of Hungary and Poland) 12, 43, 145, 180 Louis the Pious (emperor) 55–6, 233 Loveluck, C. 221, 224, 227 Lübeck 22, 24 Lubusz 138, 164 Lund 118, 121 Luxemburg dynasty 105, 128–9, 141–3, 176–8, 181, 280 Lwów 26, 103, 106, 152, 198, 253, 255; archdiocese of 152 Lyon, B. 1, 213 Macháček, J. 36, 225–6 MacKay, A. 17, 210, 213–14, 219, 286–7 Mączak, A. 207, 287 Magdeburg 79, 100 Main (river) 34 Mainz 51–3, 62–3, 173, 196; cathedral 51, 53, 62–3, 196 Makkai, L. 207 Makowiecki, D. 261, 264–5

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Index 297 Maleczyński, K. 220, 234, 251–3, 255, 258 Małowist, M. 207, 250–1, 253, 258, 287 Manteuffel, T. 9, 16–17, 213, 216 Marienburg 118 market, markets 21–2, 24, 103, 106, 109, 111, 117, 119, 123–4, 225, 259, 263– 4; market square 111, 259; market economy 225 Markowski, M. 240, 268–72 marriage 45, 82–8, 92, 116, 147, 158–9, 195, 198–9, 204, 204, 229, 242–3, 246–7; mixed 83, 86–8; in facie ecclesiae 84–6, 242; per verba 85–6 Marsilio Ficino 186 Masovia 25–6, 70, 109, 124, 128, 257 master (magister) 68–9, 73–4, 77–8, 90, 148–9, 151–5, 157–8, 240, 244, 284; master-general 72, 78 mathematics 13, 187, 189, 285; arithmetic 187, 285; geometry 187, 190 Matthew (bishop of Cuiavia) 133 Matthew of Kraków 163, 240 Matthias Corvinus (king of Hungary) 178, 278 Mayer, T. 253–4, 258 measures 104, 107–9, 111, 187–8, 256, 259; of weight: 104, 107, 256, 259 (centner), 107–8, 256, 259 (pound) 108–9, 257, 259 (stone); of land surface 187–8 Medici (family) 105 medicine (commodity) 107–8, 257; (discipline) 118, 153–6, 190, 198, 276; see also physicians Mediterranean, region 22, 26, 94, 100, 102–3, 105, 196, 255; Sea 196 Meissen 136 Memel/Klaipeda 118 mendicants, mendicant orders 64–5, 67, 77–81, 236–7, 240; see also Dominicans, Franciscans merchandise 25, 27, 102, 106, 255–6, 259 merchants 22, 24–9, 43, 101, 103–11, 113–15, 117, 119–20, 197–8, 203, 208–9, 220, 251, 253, 255, 257–8; of Wrocław 101–11, 113–15, 198, 208,

Index.indd 297

255, 257; of Venice 101, 106, 111, 198, 208, 255; of Nuremberg 111, 114, 255, 257; of Regensburg 220, 251, 257; Czech 103, 113; German 24, 253; Hanseatic 26, 120; Thuringian 251; Austrian 251; of Passau 257; of Prague 113; Jewish 27; of Florence 108 metals 21, 23, 26–8, 34–5, 101, 109–11, 114, 144, 224, 252, 258–9; copper 109, 111, 258–9; gold 23, 26, 103, 107, 109–10, 144, 258; iron 35; lead 23, 27, 111, 259; silver 23, 27, 109–10, 252, 258; steel 35; tin 23, 26; metalwork 34– 5, 224; smelting 34–5 Michael Banke (Wrocław merchant) 105, 107, 111–12 Michałowska, T. 273–4 Mieszko I (duke of Poland) 18 mining 109, 258 minerals 21, 108–10; see also metals mints, minting 109, 114 mission 150 mobility (geographic) 22, 27–8; (social) 22 Mohammad 17 Modzelewski, K. 17, 30, 221–2 Mohács 178, 183; battle of 178 monasteries 39, 47, 49, 60, 62, 66–70, 72–4, 80–1, 95–8, 122, 148, 150–1, 161, 168–9, 173, 223, 233, 237–8, 240; Augustinian 77, 153, 160; Benedictine 47, 49, 77, 122, 148, 150, 223; Camaldolese 150; Carthusian 161–3, 174–5; Cistercian 148, 161, 163, 175; see also Dominicans, Franciscans, mendicants money 22, 27, 87, 105, 142–4, 245; see also coin Mongols 45, 101; Mongol empire 101; see also Tartars Montpellier 66, 69, 75, 147, 155 Morava (river) 36 Moravia 28, 30, 32, 35–6, 103–4, 129, 142, 221; Great Moravian State 28 Morawska, K. 273–4 Mornet, E. 265–6

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298

Index

Moscow 203 Mostert, M. 215, 286 Moździoch, S. 222, 225 Mulchahey, M.M. 236–7, 239 Munich 102, 252 music 157–8, 182–6, 188–91, 199, 212, 281–5 Muslims 21, 43–7, 49, 199, 208, 210; Islam, 21 Myśliwski, G. 193–8, 203, 207–11, 251, 253, 257–9 mystics, mysticism 159, 161–2, 167, 173–5 Naples 69, 76, 211 Netherlands 23, 25, 103 networks, of settlement 20–22, 195, 202; urban 22, 195–8, 203–4, 207–9; economic 25–8, 28, 117, 124, 195–6, 203, 207–9; of schools 66–7, 69–70, 72, 74, 76, 195–6, 199, 239 Neumark 145 Neva (river) 22 Nicholas III (pope) 48 Nicholas of Cusa 162, 174–5 Nicholas of Miličin 150–1 Nicholas of Tudeschi 174 Nicholas of Úljak/Ilok 176 Nicholas Copernicus 7, 10, 13 Nicholas Lasocki 13 Nicholas Młynek 88–90, 92, 204, 244–6 Nicholas Stobner 13 Nicholas Trąba (archbishop of Gniezno) 79, 83, 211 ‘nobility,’ nobles 19, 47, 149, 152, 154, 156, 176–81, 244–6, 279 nomads 21, 43–5 Normandy 204 North America 2–4, 8–9, 16, 185, 206–7, 212, 264–5 North Sea 23 Norway 27, 117, 119–20 Nosov, E.N. 226–7 Nottker the Stammerer 234 Novgorod 24, 38, 108, 198, 203–4 Nowak-Dłużewski, J. 273–4 Nuremberg 106, 111, 114, 198, 255, 257, 263

Index.indd 298

oath 42–9, 85, 87, 194, 199–201, 227–30; oath-taker 43, 49; oath-helpers 47, 230; Jewish 46, 229 Odra/Oder (river) 22, 103, 106, 251, 264 office, officials 7, 31, 54–5, 56–7, 59, 63, 89, 95, 97–9, 112–3, 116–7, 122, 125–8, 130–2, 135, 143, 146, 158, 161, 179, 200, 245, 259, 262, 280; see also camera, camerarius, chancery, collector, judge officialis (episcopal judge) 85–7, 89–90, 243–6 Olaus Magnus 118, 121–2, 124, 262, 264 Olgierd/Algirdas (grand prince of Lithuania) 158 Olomouc, diocese of 143 Omurtag (ruler of Bulgaria) 44 ordeal 42, 46–7, 49 Otto I the Great (emperor) 233 Ottomans, Ottoman Empire 99, 176–8 Oxford, university of 64, 66, 73, 75, 77, 196, 281, 285 Ożóg, K. 193, 195–6, 198–9, 203–4, 267–70, 275 Padua 12, 77, 147; university of 12, 147 ‘pagans,’ 33, 43–6, 144, 199, 242 palaces, palatial compounds 30, 32, 34–6, 39–40, 55, 117 Paris 15, 64–77, 80, 147, 154–5, 184–5, 196, 203, 206, 209, 211, 238–40, 284; university of 15, 64–8, 70–4, 76–7, 80, 147, 184–5, 238, 240, 284 partnership (commercial) 112–14, 258, 260–1 Passau 103, 106, 110, 255, 257 patricians 95–7, 99, 112 Patze, H. 231, 255 Pavia 14, 150, 154; Pavia-Siena, council of 150 peace 42, 44, 48, 101, 113, 131–6, 155; Peace of God 42; pax mongolica 101; truce 131–3 peasants 30, 32, 36, 39–40, 52, 58–9, 95, 180–1, 279 Pécs 12 Pereiaslavets 26, 220 perjury 42, 44, 47, 228

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Index 299 Peter of Auvergne 131, 137, 140 Peter Lombard 67–8 Peter Wysz (bishop of Kraków) 148–9, 157, 159 Peter’s Pence 129, 132, 136–42, 210–11 Pfeiffer, G. 254, 256 Philip (papal legate) 45, 48 Philip IV the Fair (king of France) 130 philosophy 13, 67–71, 148, 154, 169 physicians 118, 147, 153–5, 159 Piasts, Piast dynasty 5–7, 9–10, 14, 18–19, 31, 58, 128, 137, 139–40, 145, 194–6, 202, 211, 221, 225 Piotrków, synod of 163, 169 Pirenne, H. 21, 28, 220 Pisa 240 Piskorski, J.M. 214, 222 place names 30–2, 39–40 Plato 186, 188, 282 Pliska 32–5, 39–40, 223, 227 Plzeň 119 poetry 157–8 Pohansko 35–8, 40, 225 Polak, W. 9, 215 Poland 5–14, 16, 18–19, 25–6, 30–2, 58, 65, 70–2, 74, 76, 78–81, 83–4, 100–1, 103, 109, 114, 116–7, 121–4, 128–37, 139, 141–7, 149–50, 152, 154–6, 158, 161, 173–5, 178–9, 194–6, 202, 204, 206, 208, 211–12, 222–3, 225, 235, 241–2, 253, 257, 261, 263, 267, 280, 285; as a concept (Polonia) 137, 141, 195; kingdom of 5–7, 10–11, 18, 31, 58, 79, 84, 109, 114, 129, 137, 141, 143, 145–6, 150, 152, 155, 158, 160, 195, 205, 253, 267; see also Cuiavia, Great Poland, Masovia, Piasts, Pomerania, province, Silesia Poles 14, 116, 118, 121, 141, 157, 160, 176, 181, 211, 280; gens Polonica 157 Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America 9 Polotsk 43 Pomerania 70, 100, 128–31, 137–8, 251 Pomnichów 25–6, 220 pope, papacy 6, 11, 14, 45, 48, 54, 56, 64,

Index.indd 299

66–7, 75, 78, 106, 125–45, 149, 151, 162–7, 169, 171–4, 179, 195–6, 199, 201, 203, 208, 211, 251, 279; papal legates 45, 48, 83, 128, 130, 132, 179, 211; papal monarchy 162, 165– 6; see also Avignon, conciliarism, courts Porębski, S. 275–8 pottery 32–4, 36 Powicke, F.M. 236, 284 Poznań 26, 84, 87–92, 114, 158, 195, 198–201, 211, 242, 244, 246, 258; diocese of 158 Prague 3, 12, 26–7, 61, 66, 76–77, 79, 100, 104–6, 113, 141, 147–50, 155, 158–9, 196, 198, 203, 209, 239, 252, 263, 275; university of 12, 66, 74, 76–77, 79, 147–51, 153, 155, 158, 239; castle 61 Prato 238 preaching 65, 70, 151–2; preachers 147– 51, 153, 159–60 Premonstratensians 149–50 Přemyslids, Přemyslid dynasty 61, 128 Preslav 33, 40 Pribina (duke of Great Moravia) 37, 226 prices 96, 102, 107–8, 111, 257, 259; see also coin priests 53, 56, 81, 85, 171 privileges (documents) 45–6, 64, 66, 74–5, 78, 104, 109–10, 113, 127, 220 prosopography 204 Provence 68, 71 province (mendicant) 65–72, 74–6, 78– 80, 195–6, 211, 238–9; of Poland 65, 69–72, 74–6, 78–80, 195–6, 208, 211, 238–9; of Bohemia 70, 74, 76; of Hungary 71, 74, 76; of Germany 71, 239; of Lower Germany 79; of Saxony 79; in Italy 68–9, 71, 75–6; in France 68, 69, 71, 75 province (metropolitan diocese) 127–8, 164; see also Gniezno provincial (mendicant) 69, 71–2, 151, 203, 238 Pruckner, H. 254, 258 Prussia 12, 70, 103, 119, 121, 123–4, 155 Ptaśnik, J. 252, 254, 257, 261, 265

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300

Index

punishment 47, 55, 83, 95, 98, 127, 137, 139–40, 142, 155, 228, 247; ecclesiastical 127, 137, 139–40, 142, 144, 180; excommunication 90, 127, 144, 180 Pyrenees 25 queen 147, 149–60, 176–7, 179, 278, 280–1; see also court Quintilian 188, 282, 284 Quirini-Popławska, D. 250, 258 Qur’an (Koran) 44 Rady, M. 230, 278 Raffelstetten 23, 220 Rashdall, H. 236, 284 Raymund of Peñaforte 242 reform (ecclesiastical) 150, 161–3, 168– 71, 173–4, 195, 199 Regensburg 62, 101–3, 220, 251, 257 relics 43, 47, 49; reliquary 179, 279 rent 87, 90, 95, 110–11, 246 representation (textual) 54, 63, 200–1, 232 revenues 11, 28, 87, 125–6, 129–31, 136–45, 210–11, 267; see also Peter’s Pence, taxes rhetoric 13, 52–5, 59–61, 68, 161–2, 175, 188, 190, 211–12, 232, 282 Rhine (river) 23 Rhineland 24 Rhône (river) 125, 211 Riga 24, 130 ritual 44–6, 50, 52–3, 55, 57, 63, 85, 178, 180, 195–6, 200, 231–2, 234, 236 Riurik (prince of the Rus’) 38; Riurik’s Stonghold (Riurikovo Gorodishche) 38–40 Robert of Saint-Victor 82 Robert Bruce 234 Robert Grosseteste 185–8 Robert Sorbon 66 Roger Bacon 185–9, 284 Rome 69, 71, 76, 121, 172–3, 193–4, 203 Rowell, S.C. 228, 286 Rudolph IV (duke of Austria) 104 Rügen 22 Russia, the Rus’ 21, 24, 26–8, 30, 37,

Index.indd 300

43–4, 101–2, 144, 198, 205, 220, 251, 257, 280; Ruthenians 116, 280; Galich–Vladimir Rus’ 144 Rutkowski, J. 207 Salians, Salian dynasty 51, 53, 63 salt 11, 23–5, 98, 114, 120, 251, 261; salt mine 11, 114; saltwater springs 24; salt-works 98 Salzburg 105, 114 Samogitia 151 Samsonowicz, H. 17, 111, 193–8, 200–1, 203, 207–10, 216, 220, 250–1, 253, 257, 259, 287 Sandomierz 31, 40, 159, 222 Saxony 79; Saxons 27 Scandinavia 23, 74, 76, 127 Schaer, F. 9, 215–16, 234 Scharer, A. 232–3 Scheibelreiter, G. 232–3 schism 14–15, 76, 165–6, 170–2, 175, 240; Great Schism 14–15, 76, 165, 240 Schleswig 122 Schmidt, K.A. 189, 284 Schmitt, J.C. 42, 228, 237 scholasticism 67–8, 71, 80, 237, 280 Scholz-Babisch, M. 108, 251, 256–7 schools 6, 11, 13, 64–70, 72–5, 80–1, 118, 148, 184, 189, 191, 196, 199, 209, 212, 236–41, 248; conventual 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 80–1, 148, 184, 237; grammar 68, 241; cathedral 81, 241; collegiate 81; school system 65–6, 72–5, 78, 189, 236; degrees in 66, 69, 73–4, 77–8, 148–56, 158, 161, 275, 285; see also lectors, studium, university Schulze, H.K. 51, 231 Scotland 155, 204 Seferović, R. 248–9 Seligo, A. 119, 262–3 Semmering Pass 103 Semmler, J. 232–3 Seńko, W. 216, 273–4 Serejski, M.H. 216, 272 sermon 149–53, 163–70, 172–3, 175, 276

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Index 301 ‘service settlements,’ 19, 30–5, 37, 39– 41, 193–5, 198, 202, 206, 208, 210, 221–3, 225, 227 servitude, unfreedom 30–2, 37, 40, 56; servants, servile population 27–8, 30–2, 57; slaves 23–5, 27, 30 settlement 19–21, 25, 31–3, 35–41, 44–5, 83, 221–5, 227; hierarchy of 35, 37, 40, 221, 227; rural 32–3, 37–9, 223; Kietze/Kietzesiedlungen 31–2, 223; see also ‘service settlements’ Seville 20 sex, sexual contact 83, 86, 88, 199, 208–9 ships 23, 25, 27, 94, 99; boats 94 Sicily 44, 76, 204 Sigismund of Luxemburg (king of Hungary and Bohemia) 105, 178, 180, 279 Silesia 70, 78, 100, 102–5, 108–9, 113–14, 119, 128–9, 137, 139–42, 195, 202, 238, 251–2, 257–8 Silvester/Lasota of Zdziechów 151–2, 156 Simon Grünau 119–20, 124, 263 Simonsfeld, H. 252–3, 255, 257, 259–60 Slavs 21, 23, 26–8, 30–1, 120, 223; Polabian/Elbe 21, 30; eastern 27–8; western 27; Balto-Slavs 120 Slovakia 101, 280 Šmahel, F. 240, 272, 276 Śnieżyńska-Stolot, E. 160, 274 Snorre Sturlason 221 Sophia of Holszany (queen of Poland–Lithuania) 148, 152–3, 155–8 Soviet bloc 2 Spain 4, 27, 71, 129 spices 23, 103, 106–8, 111, 114, 117, 256–7, 259; pepper 23, 103, 107, 111, 114, 117, 257, 259; saffron 23, 103, 107, 114, 256; ginger 23, 103, 107, 111 Spież, J.A. 236–7, 239, 270 Spitignev (duke of Bohemia) 61 Spurr, J. 227–8 Stalin, J. 2; Stalinism 207 Stanisław (bishop of Kraków, saint) 157–8

Index.indd 301

Stanisław of Skalbmierz/Skarbimierz 13, 148–9, 157 state, state-building 10, 14, 19, 21, 24, 28, 30–1, 41, 44, 53, 99, 105, 129–30, 137, 143–5, 156, 221–2; Carolingian 21, 28, 222; Great Moravian 28; Hungarian 30; Piast 31, 221; Slavic 28; citystate 99, 105; see also kingdom Stein, R. 259–60 Stein-Wilkeshuis, M. 228–9 steppe 23, 33, 44–5 Stephen I (king of Hungary, saint) 47, 177, 179, 200 Stephen V (king of Hungary) 48 Stephen Werbőczy 278 Stieda, W. 111, 254, 256, 259 Stockholm 121 Stoś, J. 275–7 Strzegom 105, 110 Strzelczyk, J. 31, 216, 222 students 68–9, 73, 75, 148, 184, 189, 240 studium 64–71, 73–9, 148, 195–6, 199, 208–9, 211, 236–41; studium generale 66, 73–9, 148, 151, 238–41; studium particulare 68, 73 Styria 105 Suchodolski, S. 17 Sudeto-Carpathian economic zone 101, 114–15, 117 Suetonius 56, 233 Sułkowska-Kuraś, I. 246, 265, 269–70, 273 supply (economic) 22, 102, 106, 108–9, 198, 253 Sviatoslav (prince of the Rus’) 26, 43 Švitrigaila (duke of Lithuania) 116, 155–6 Sweden 118, 121–3 Świdnica 114, 148 Switzerland 35, 108, 261 synod (ecclesiastical) 82–2, 162, 166, 173, 211, 276; see also Łęczyca, Piotrków Szczecin 24, 220, 264 Szczur, S. 193–6, 198–9, 201–3, 208–11, 265–7

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302

Index

Tadić, J. 248, 250 Tancred of Bologna 242 Tartars 45, 101, 229, 251; see also Mongols taxes, taxation 84, 128, 136, 143, 178 Tazbir, J. 207 Tęgowski, J. 266, 273 Teleżyński, W. 78, 240 Templars 130 Teutonic Order 6, 14, 26, 103, 114, 118–19, 122, 128–38, 155, 202–3, 211; grand master of 118–19, 132, 134, 137 textiles 23, 26, 94, 99, 103, 106–9, 112, 224, 248, 257; baldechin 107–8, 257; brocade 23, 26, 103, 108; cotton 107, 111; silk 103, 107, 112; production 94, 99, 109, 112, 248 Thegan (bishop of Trier) 55–6, 232–3 theology 13, 15, 64–5, 67–81, 148–51, 156, 161–4, 166–72, 174–5, 190, 198–9, 237–41, 275, 284; mystical 161, 174–5; moral 162, 166–7, 173–5, 199; devotio moderna 161, 167, 275: via moderna 240 theory 13, 162, 164–9, 172–8, 195–6, 198–9, 201–2, 209–10, 225, 232, 237, 277, 280; political 13, 162, 164, 172, 176–8, 195, 201–2, 209, 277, 280; of the corporation 165, 167, 178, 280; of representation 165, 172, 201, 277; ecclesiological 166, 169, 171; constitutional 199, 209; postmodern 201, 232; of urbanisation 196, 209–10; central place theory 196, 225; see also conciliarism Thomas of Strzempin 163, 167–8, 275–6 Thomas Aquinas 67, 72, 80, 148, 170, 174, 186, 237 throne 53, 55, 57–8, 128, 156, 159, 176–8, 278 Thuringia 251 tithe 126, 129, 141, 143–44, 267; papal 126, 129, 144; Vienne 143 Toch, M. 242, 244 Todi 64, 236

Index.indd 302

tolls 22–6, 101–5, 109–10, 183, 220, 253, 255 tools 36, 38, 44; axes 38; plows 38; scythes 38; sickles 38 Topolski, J. 207, 242, 287 topos, commonplace 43, 55, 233–4, 282, 284 Torah 44, 46 Torquemada 166, 171 Toruń 26, 103, 114, 122, 253, 258 Toulouse 12, 68–9, 75–6 town 6, 11, 18–21, 26–9, 63, 83–4, 90, 98, 100–2, 104–6, 108, 110–14, 123–4, 154, 178, 194–7, 204, 206–10, 254, 259, 263; geography of 11, 28, 111, 195, 203; expansion of 21, 194, 196, 207–8, 210; town council 104, 106, 111–14, 259; proto-town 20, 206; see also city trade 24–6, 84, 43, 94, 103–6, 108, 113, 117, 119–22, 124, 194, 196–8, 208, 255, 260, 263; long-distance 24–6, 124, 194, 197, 208; trade route 22–3, 25–6, 102–3, 105–6, 109, 252; trade war 105–6 Trajan (emperor) 60–2, 235 Transylvania 101, 179, 279 Trawkowski, S. 216, 272 treasurer (papal official) 132; treasury (royal) 143, 158 treaties 43–4, 105, 113, 132, 134–5, 178; peace treaty 132, 134–5 Tremp, E. 232–3 Třeštík, D. 17, 31, 221–3, 235 Trieste 251 Trillmich, W. 231–2 Tříška, J. 268–9 Truso 22, 25 Turin 252 Turkowska, D. 269, 274 Turks 100; see also Ottomans Tymieniecki, K. 221, 265 Ubbaiadh Allah ibn-Hurdadbeh 27, 221 Udalric (bishop of Augsburg) 57, 233 Ukraine 23 university 1–3, 7, 10–13, 15, 64–5, 69–70, 72–7, 79–81, 90, 147–55,

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Index 303 157–8, 160–1, 163–4, 167–9, 173, 175, 184–5, 189–90, 196, 199, 205, 209, 236–41, 275, 281, 284–5; North American 2–3, 185; of Erfurt 15, 80; of Leipzig 15; of Montpellier 147, 155; of Padua 12, 147; of Pécs 12; of Toulouse 12, 75; of Vienna 12, 15; and mendicants 64–5, 69–70, 72, 74–5, 77, 79–81, 236, 239; see also Bologna, Cambridge, Jagiellonian Library, Kraków, Oxford, Prague Uppsala 121–2 Urban V (pope) 144 Urbańczyk, P. 220, 222 usury 84, 89–91, 245 Václav II (king of Bohemia) 143 van Deusen, N. 193, 195–6, 198–9, 212, 282–4, 286 Vandals 157 Várad 46, 201 Varangians 21, 25–6, 28, 197, 208 Varna 10, 176, 194, 199 Vasilev, R. 223–4 Venetians 101, 114, 254 Venice 99–111, 113–15, 196–8, 203, 206–8, 210–11, 251, 253, 255, 259– 60; Republic of 100, 104–6, 109, 113–14; doge of 104, 106, 113, 259 Verdier, R. 227–8, 230 Verhaeghe, F. 224, 227 Verger, J. 64, 236–9 Verlhust, A. 224, 227 Verona 252 Vespasian (emperor) 56 Vienna 12, 15, 103, 109, 173, 198, 254, 258; university of 12, 15; Concordat of 173 Vienne 141, 143; Council of 141 Vikings 21–22, 24; see also Varangians villages 19, 30–1, 34–5, 38–40, 55, 98, 245; hamlets 39 Vilnius 148 Vincent Kot (archbishop of Gniezno) 164 Visegrád 134, 141, 279 Vistula (river) 22, 26, 122, 124, 128 Vitebsk 43

Index.indd 303

Volga (river) 22 Volkhov (river) 38 von Stromer, W. 105, 255–6 Vytautas (grand duke of Lithuania) 118, 150 Wajs, H. 246, 274 Wallerstein, I. 207, 210, 220 Wamba (Visigothic king) 55 war, warfare 2, 4, 28–31, 36–8, 40, 44, 60–2, 131, 144, 158, 176, 178, 207–8, 235, 287; warriors 36, 38, 208; army 60–1, 178, 235; weapons 26, 36–7, 43–4; Second World War 2, 4, 207, 287 Warsaw 9, 16, 26, 136, 201 water 22, 25, 33–4, 40, 44, 94–9, 119–20, 194, 196–8, 203, 211, 248, 263 Wawel Hill 11, 117, 135, 148, 151, 153–4, 159 wax 23–4, 27 Weber, M. 25 Wenceslas (king of Bohemia, saint) 179– 80 Wenceslas IV (king of Bohemia) 104 Wendt, H. 103, 106, 113, 251–7, 260–1 White, S.D. 3, 214 widows 52–3, 56, 59–60, 62, 88, 91, 152–3, 235, 247 Wielgus, S. 269, 271 Wieliczka 11 Willam, H.A. 262–3 William Durantis 162 wine 26, 101–2, 103–4, 106, 108, 251–2; vineyards 102 Wipo 51–9, 62–3, 200, 231–2, 235 Wittelsbach dynasty 138 Władysław II (king of Hungary) 178 Władysław the Short (duke and king of Poland) 10–11, 18, 128–31, 136, 145–6, 199, 202–3 Władysław Jagiełło (king of Poland– Lithuania) 5, 116, 118, 147–60, 204 Władysław Warneńczyk/Jagiellończyk (king of Poland–Lithuania and Hungary) 10, 152, 154, 156–7, 164, 176–7, 179–83, 199, 202, 280–1 Włocławek 137

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304

Index

Wolfram, H. 231–2 Wolin 22, 27 Wolny, J. 149–50, 152, 267–71 women 45, 52–3, 55–6, 58–62, 83–7, 90–3, 96–7, 116, 147–50, 152–60, 176–7, 179, 182, 199, 234–5, 242–4, 247–8, 278, 280–1 wool 107–8, 111, 259 workshops 33–5, 39; see also crafts world (as a historical subject) 5, 204, 206–7, 210–11 Wrocław 17, 73, 100–15, 119, 129, 137, 139–42, 153, 164, 195–8, 203, 207–8, 210, 251–7, 259, 263; duchy of 17, 112, 259; diocese of 137, 140–2; bishop of 139, 141, 164;

Index.indd 304

see also merchants Wünsch, T. 193–6, 198–9, 203–4, 275–7 Wyczański, A. 207 Wyrobisz, A. 207 Zalavár 37, 40, 226 Zarębski, I. 269, 273 Zawadzki, R.M. 268–9, 276 Zbigniew Oleśnicki (bishop of Kraków) 164, 173, 175 Zeiring 105, 113 Zlate Gory/Zuckmantel 109 Złoty Stok/Reichenstein 258 Zupko, R.E. 256, 259 Żytkowicz, L. 207

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