Cracow, the royal capital of ancient Poland: its history and antiquities/The Gothic Age
THE GOTHIC AGE
IN the vast plains of Little Poland, now laid waste by the first Mongolian invasion, the whole civilization of the country was annihilated, the soil left fallow, the cities burnt down and depopulated. The only means to raise the country economically was the introduction of foreign capital and foreign hands for work. German colonization, on a large scale, was begun; lords both temporal and spiritual vied with each other in founding German settlements. The consequence of this important fact was the substitution of money payments for the old system of bartering or exchange. Thus, the old Polish law, with services due to the landlord and tributes paid in natural products, became more and more oppressive, and among both landowners and peasants the tendency prevailed to establish farm rents instead. This dissolution of the old legal relations also led to a somewhat more independent political position of the people at large. Still greater freedom is henceforth enjoyed by the towns, in which tradesmen and artisans settle in large numbers.
By way of Breslau, the Magdeburg municipal law was introduced to Cracow. The second half of the thirteenth century became the era of privileges.
Boleslaus the Modest signed, together with his mother Grzymislawa and his wife Cunegund, the foundation charter of the city of Cracow, at the assembly of Kopernia, on the fifth of June, 1257. By virtue of this charter the burgesses Getko (i.e.) Gideon) Stilwojt, Jacob, sometime justice at Neisse (in Silesia), and Ditmar Wolk, founded a new settlement and were granted large benefits to that end, such as complete administrative autonomy in municipal matters, independent jurisdiction under Magdeburg law—with the provision that final appeals were to be made to Magdeburg itself—and the right of legislation; the sphere of action of the municipal administration being, of course, limited to the territory and the inhabitants of the town.
The charter of 1257 does not, in fact, determine the limits of the town, but from the oldest book of city records preserved, which opens with the year 1301, we see that this new foundation, in its outline, was identical with the city proper of to-day as surrounded by the belt of municipal parks (called "Plantations") that have replaced the old walls of the fortress. The founders brought an experienced land surveyor along with them, and he marked out the symmetrical boundary lines of
6. THE TOWN HALL TOWER.
the enormous market-place and the traces of the streets which were to run into it. In doing so, no account was taken of the way leading past the old parish (now Dominicans') church, nor of that past St. John's and St. Mark's: only the prolongation of Castle Street (running into the lower castle buildings, with St. Andrew's Church) was considered. On the large new square almost unequalled of its kind—a separate site was marked out for the new church of our Lady, which was to become the parish church of the town.
To the freedom of the city everybody was admitted who could either produce his baptismal certificate (litteræ genealogiæ) or prove, by witnesses, his being of legitimate descent and Roman Catholic faith. The newly received citizen had to take an oath, which in later times he did by putting his fingers on the picture of the crucified Christ (illustration 7) in the Book of Privileges (Codex picturatus of B. Behem, early sixteenth century). Whoever migrated to another town was obliged to resign his freedom of Cracow. Being the residence of both king and bishop, Cracow also comprised within its walls the whole nobility that held Court and State offices; they mostly had their own domiciles in the city. Nobility and clergy were not subject to the municipal law, nor did they pay any town rates.
The murdered bishop Stanislas had been solemnly canonized four years before the grant of this foundation charter; the short reign of a Bohemian king (1300-1305) promoted the worship of St. Wenceslaus; accordingly, both these Saints became the Patrons of both Cathedral and City.
Prince Leszek the Black (1279-1288), who favoured the Germans, drew walls and trenches round the city and granted to its products an exemption from duty over the whole realm. Immediately after his death the citizens of Cracow are already playing an important part in politics, by helping to establish the Duke of Breslau, Henry IV, and to depose and expel Ladislaus Lokietek[1]), who, when the citizens treacherously opened their doors to the Silesian prince, took refuge in the Franciscan Convent and thence fled over the town wall. Henry, however, died soon (1290); after a short reign of the Duke of Great Poland, Przemyslaw II (who was crowned King of Poland by consent of Pope Bonifacius VIII, but murdered by the Brandenburgers in the very same year, 1296), and the five years' government of the Bohemian King, Wenceslaus, the indefatigable pretender Ladislaus Lokietek, having gathered the chivalry of Little Poland round the national standard, succeeded in getting hold of the Polish territory. Still the burgesses of the cities,
7. TITLE-PAGE OF THE CODEX OF BALTHAZAR BEHEM.
being all Germans, were opposed to him, and towards the close of 1311 they even rose in a dangerous insurrection under the leadership of the mayor of Cracow, Albrecht, and called Bolko of Opole (Oppeln) to the throne. But this time the Silesian gave way to victorious Ladislaus, and the insurrection was cruelly suppressed by the prince, whose anger had been roused by the constantly seditious attitude of Cracow's citizens: the mayor Albrecht fled to Prague, the other leaders of the revolt were executed, their goods confiscated, the mayor's mansion-house changed into a fortress, Latin appointed to be used instead of German in the drafting of municipal documents, and even the privileges granted to the city were somewhat curtailed. The king's favour turned to the town of Sandec (now Sacz in Galicia), which began to rival Cracow. High customs duties were imposed upon the capital, hitherto exempt. Lokietek's successor, King Casimir the Great, in order to keep the unruly metropolis permanently in obedience, turned his favour to the old settlements round the Skalka and granted a charter (dated February 27, 1335) to the town after him called Casimiria (now Kazimierz, the Ghetto of Cracow); he enlarged this town by incorporating in it the small communities of Stradom and Rybaki; in 1340, he made it a present of the village of Bawol, and built a canal which gave the place a fortified position, the new town being now completely encircled by deep watercourses (as Skalka, its original centre, partly was by a bend of the Vistula). Casimir created another rival to Cracow by favouring a settlement formed round the church of St. Florian, to which he granted autonomy and Magdeburg law in 1366. Originally called Florencia, after its patron, it assumed, later on, its present name of Kleparz.
In spite of the disadvantages thus imposed upon it, the welfare of the town was constantly growing. Since Ladislaus Lokietek, Cracow had been the royal residence; here Poland's kings were crowned, here the bones of all members of the royal family were buried in the crypt of the Cathedral, and the royal insignia preserved in the treasury. Round the court nobles, knights, and prelates naturally gathered; ambassadors of foreign powers, on coming to it, visited the town; grand festivities were solemnized, tournaments held, and splendid banquets given. The king's aversion to the town gradually vanished, memories of old treason being lost in oblivion. A citizen of Cracow, Wirsing, even became the king's counsellor, and was appointed to an office hitherto reserved to knights—that of High Steward of Sandomiria; it was he who in 1364, when there was a great meeting of monarchs and princes at Cracow, occasioned by the wedding of the king's grand-daughter Elizabeth with the Emperor Charles IV, entertained all the monarchs then assembled with royal splendour at his own house and dismissed them with princely gifts. In 1352 the king borrowed from the rich aldermen of Cracow the sum of 60,000 groschen, Prague coinage; several years later, in 1358, a definite reconciliation between king and town took place. The king grants to the town the "great charter," conferring numerous benefits upon it, such as the revenue from the traders' and artisans' shops, from house rent, from the public scales, great and small, from the gold and silver smelting works; besides, the judiciary autonomy of the town was re-established, and all the suburbs, except Zwierzyniec, Czarna Wies, and Florencia, placed under the municipal jurisdiction. Staple-right was also granted to the town, even with the stipulation that the merchants of Sandec were not allowed to export their wares to Prussia by any other way than Cracow. In 1363 the town, in order to extend its territory, bought some of the royal possessions both within the city and without; in the same year it also gained the staple-right for wool.
Already in the Romanesque period Cracow had possessed some convent and parish schools. The Cathedral school, which was said to have existed on the Wawel ever since the reign of Boleslaus the Bold, served for the training of the clergy. Its teachers, called scholastici ("scholars"), were often promoted to the bishop's chair. Besides this, there were other schools: thus we know, e.g., that in the eleventh century there was a school attached to St. Giles' Church, in the twelfth, one connected with St. Michael's, and at its close, one at St. Florian's. In the beginning of the thirteenth century Bishop Ivo Odrowaz founded a school at Trinity Church; this, when in 1220 the parsonage was transferred to St. Mary's, also migrated there; till the sixteenth century it held the position of a secondary school. In the beginning of the fourteenth century this school even endeavoured to arrogate to itself the rights of a University: ordinances had to be issued against it, forbidding the seven Liberal Arts to be taught there, as this right was reserved to the Cathedral school. During the second half of the fourteenth century more and more schools were founded, which helped Cracow citizens to gain a higher education.
The year 1364, of the great Casimir's glorious reign the thirty-first, brought an event of the highest importance for civilization in town and country: the foundation of the first Polish University.
The University of Cracow is one of the oldest in Central Europe. The first German one was that of Prague, founded in 1348; this is succeeded by Cracow, and, in 1365, by Vienna. It was not granted, however, to the old king, to fit it out entirely. The erection of large University buildings in the town (now suburb) of Kazimierz was undertaken but never executed. The lectures on divinity and jurisprudence were given on the Wawel. For the philosophical faculty or "liberal arts"—a sort of connecting link between parish schools and universities—St. Mary's School in the smaller city square (the so-called Vendeta or "rag-fair") was appointed. After the death of the great king the University decayed, till in 1400 it was re-established by King Ladislaus Jagiello in pursuance of the will of his deceased wife, Hedwig.
On Casimir's death the son of his sister, King Lodowick of Hungary, succeeded to the throne of Poland (1370-1382). From the very first he extended great favour to the residential town, by opening all the commercial routes to it, and extending the privileges of staple-right. The reason for the king's thus soliciting the good-will of the citizens was that he wished to secure the throne of Poland for one of his daughters. When, at last, his younger daughter, Hedwig, had become Queen of Poland, this accession was followed by most important historical events connected with her person. For a time it seemed that Archduke William of Austria, who was betrothed to the young Queen, would become master of the Castle of Cracow, but the bond of hearts was torn by the force of politics; for prospects were looming of gaining, by a marriage of the Queen, a new large province for the kingdom and for Christianity—viz., heathen Lithuania. And the Queen, who was the idol of her people, did sacrifice her heart to the good of her subjects and kingdom: on February 15, 1386, the Lithuanian Prince Jagiello was baptized in Cracow Cathedral, and three days later he was married to Hedwig and crowned. Wawel became the seat of the Jagellonian idea. The Queen, before her death, made provision for the growth of the work which her grand-uncle had begun, by bequeathing to the University all her jewels. Ladislaus Jagiello, in fulfilment of this, her last will, renovated and completed the University, which has ever since, for half a thousand years now, borne witness to Polish civilization and intellectual activity. The original organization of the University had been imitated from that of Paris; it was a common place of residence both for professors and pupils. In its new form as refounded by Ladislaus Jagiello, the University was modelled on the Italian ones. The professors, being mostly clergymen, lived in common, in semi-monastic seclusion; the students lived in town—only later, colleges were founded, called bursæ, where part of them were lodged. The staff of professors had their dwellings in a complex of houses bought for the purpose, in the Jewish quarter (now St. Ann Street). This, through rebuildings in the course of the fifteenth and in the beginning of the sixteenth century, was united into one admirable Gothic structure, of which we shall yet have to speak.
Since this, its re-establishment, the University, now called Jagellonian, played a leading part in the progress of civilization, controlling and protecting all the schools of the realm; its scientific importance was recognized all over Europe. At the Councils of Constance and of Basle in the fifteenth century, where ecclesiastical problems of the utmost importance were decided on, it happened not unfrequently that the Magistri of Cracow spoke the word which turned the scale.
The opinion of the young Jagellonian school carried great authority with the powers of all Christendom in that period. The fame of some scholars spread far beyond the limit of their native country: Filelfo and Paul Vladimiri had taken a distinguished part in the Council of Constance; Jacobus a Paradiso, well known in Germany as a theologian, was one of the most ardent promoters of Church reorganization; Zaborowski and Elgot were famous decretists; so was Nicholas of Blonia, Sedziwoj Czechel (who was only active for a short time in the University), and later on, the excellent Latinist and theologian Gregorius of Sanok, a precursor of the classical Renascence. Some mention must also be made of the illustrious circle which gathered round that highly educated statesman and strenuous defender of the rights of the Church, Zbigniew Oleśnicki, Bishop of Cracow and cardinal; to this belonged, above all, the greatest historiographer of medieval Poland, John Dlugosz (1415-1480). Towards the end of the fifteenth century the University possessed a great theological authority in Johannes Sacranus, of Oswiecim, famous also for his knowledge of Cicero and for his oratorical powers; and a renowned scholar in history and medicine in Miechowita (d. 1523).
Naturalists, mathematicians, and astronomers of world-wide fame, such as Martin Król, Adalbert of Brudzewo, John of Glogów, attracted pupils from remote foreign countries. Another Cracow scholar, Martin Bylica, whose work was mostly done outside Poland, also exercised considerable influence on the progress of science. Finally, the Cracow school of naturalists produced the greatest astronomer of modern times, Nicholas Copernicus. Even till the late seventeenth century the University preserved its fame as a place where the mathematical sciences were particularly cultivated; in this period its fame was chiefly upheld by the astronomer and astrologer, Broscius.
Now let us return to the glorious reign of King Ladislaus Jagiello. The first political success achieved by the union of Poland with Lithuania (confirmed by an act signed in 1401) was a great victory won by both these powers, in 1410, over the Teutonic Knights of the Cross. In the famous battle of Tannenberg (or, as the Poles call it, of Grunwald) the Knights were utterly defeated, their banners captured and brought to Wawel Cathedral, which they adorned as trophies; the objects of art, that had been taken as spoils of war, were distributed among the treasuries of several churches.
The next sovereign of the Jagellonian line, Ladislaus, King of Poland and Hungary, who was slain in the battle of Varna against the Turks (1444), had no importance for the development
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8. FIFTEENTH-CENTURY EMBROIDERY, GIFT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
(Czartoryski Museum.)
of the town. But in the reign of his successor, Casimir IV, called Jagiellonczyk (the Jagellonian), 1447-1492, there are several important events to record. In 1454 the king married Elizabeth of Habsburg; this lady, in whose education no less a man than Æneas Silvius (afterwards Pope Pius II.) had a hand, was endowed with refined taste and culture, and showed it chiefly by promoting intimate relations between Cracow and Nuremberg, as well as other centres of German art; this may be seen by her presents and bequests to churches (illustration 8).
In 1465 the first book was printed at Cracow by the German printer, Günther Zayner; this was followed by the first Slavonic incunables (1491) from the Cracow press of Sweipolt Fiol, who combined the printer's trade with the embroiderer's. of Torun (Thorn), concluded in 1465, opened new routes to The peace commerce.
In spite of the proverbial saying, Civis Cracoviensis nobili par, the social position of the citizens of Cracow in their relation to the nobility was considerably lowered in the fifteenth century. The patricians, of course, remained on good terms with both the king and the nobles, and defended the rights and privileges of the city, but they looked down contemptuously on the "populace," and did not care at all for its struggles to obtain a firm legal standing in society. This, together with an event now to be narrated—insignificant as it otherwise appears—drew down on the patricians themselves, and the whole city, a fatal defeat. Thus it happened: in 1461 a city armourer, Clement, was late in furnishing a polished suit of armour which had been ordered by the noble lord Andrew Tenczynski, and would not be satisfied with the payment offered to him. High words passed between them, and Tenczynski laid violent hands on Clement. The injured armourer complained to the city authorities, but these thought it most prudent to indefinitely delay the consideration of the grievance. On this, Clement appealed to the common people to right him, and succeeded in stirring them up to sedition. The mob stormed Tenczynski's house, followed the magnate, who had fled, to the vestry of the Franciscan Church, killed him there, and cast the mutilated body out into the street. At the diet of Korczyn, Tenczynski's family took their revenge on the city: in spite of Queen Elizabeth's personal intercession, six of the most distinguished citizens were beheaded. The aversion of the nobles to the foreign element was constantly growing, and exerting itself more and more effectively. For a long time there was to be no agreement between these two classes, but the national assimilation of the townspeople made rapid progress from this time. About the middle of the sixteenth century by far the greatest number of the town's inhabitants are entirely Polish.
- ↑ Lokietek means "one ell high"—a nickname given to this prince on account of his small stature.