Funkcja południowego traktu krużganka w opactwie świętokrzyskim. Z badań nad rozbudową klasztoru w XV w. .......... 157

THE FUNCTION OF THE SOUTHERN GALLERY OF THE CLOISTER AT THE ŚWIĘTOKRZYSKI ABBEY: FROM RESEARCH ON THE EXPANSION OF THE MONASTERY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

The Benedictine abbey on Mount Łysiec, founded in the twelfth century, was devastated by fire in 1777. The Gothic cloister, which was completed around 1460, fortunately survived the catastrophe without major damage. The church, consecrated in 1455, was less fortunate and had to be demolished and replaced after the fire. Large sections of the Gothic façade of the nave have been preserved in the northern perimeter wall of the current building, which is visible in the adjacent cloister. Excavation of this façade revealed that it conceals an even older structure – the wall of a Romanesque church, the lower parts covered in stucco and decorated with a kind of painted border. Above, on the first floor and in the attic of the monastery, two small windows of the medieval nave are visible, one Romanesque and one Gothic. The wall of the Gothic church, visible in the cloister, has two avant-corps with a stone bench running between them. Although this is not confi rmed by written sources, it seems obvious that it was used during rituals typical of the Benedictines, which were held in the cloister adjacent to the church. The first was the communal afternoon reading of pious texts followed by refl ection, known as lectio moralis, and the second was the ritual washing of the feet of the poor, called mandatum papuperum, which was also practised with the guests of the abbey. The furnishing of the cloister with a bench for rites important to the identity of the order was part of its reform programme in the fourteenth and fi fteenth centuries. Apart from its practical use, the bench served as visual manifestation of the monastery’s respect for the rule and old monastic traditions. Owing to the acquisition of a fragment of the Holy Cross, the abbey on Mount Łysiec became the most important Polish sanctuary in the fourteenth century. It was the destination of numerous pilgrimages, which were also undertaken by church and secular dignitaries, including Polish kings. Some of these visits likely included the monks washing the distinguished guests’ feet in the southern gallery.