Tak zwana jałmużniczka królowej Jadwigi ze skarbca katedry krakowskiej – przyczynek do badań nad ikonografią i funkcją dzieła .......... 249

THE SO-CALLED ALMS PURSE OF QUEEN JADWIGA FROM THE CRACOW CATHEDRAL TREASURY: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF ITS ICONOGRAPHY AND FUNCTION

There are various artistic objects, both religious and secular, that have been more or less convincingly associated with the Polish Queen Jadwiga of Anjou (1373 or 1374–1399). Among them is a silk alms purse (aumônière), richly embroidered with gold thread and depicting narrative scenes. This little-studied object belongs to a broader group of mid-14th-century luxury purses known as aumônières sarrazinoises, preserved today in museum collections and church treasuries. Medieval alms purses have been examined for their artistic qualities and for the roles they played in practices and rituals ranging from almsgiving and weddings to diplomatic gift-giving, as well as for their presence in courtly culture.
This study discusses the purse from the Cracow cathedral as such an object, which may have arrived in the 14th century as a gift and was later – due to changing circumstances – repurposed as a reliquary (kalietka cum reliquis). What distinguishes the Cracow example from other, better-known alms purses is its enigmatic iconography, likely inspired by an unusual episode from the Tristan and Iseult romance.