EN
The article deals with the upbringing and education of girls in convent pension schools in Cracow, which fulfilled the role of schools and dormitories. The paper takes into consideration the time span between the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries and the beginning of the 19th century. It has been determined by the changes in the organisation of convent schools, which took place after the Council of Trent and the third partition. The article makes use of accessible studies and source materials gath-ered in the archives of Cracow convents, the national Archive in Cracow, the Jagiel-lonian University Archives and the Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in Cracow. Cracow in the 17th and 18 th century constituted a centre of women’s convent life – it had the largest number of convents of all the cities of the Polish Republic and the highest number of nuns. Schools were run by nuns in several convents, only the Carmelite sisters did not teach girls. The institution constituted especially for the purpose of bringing up and educating girls was the Presentation Order. Schools were located in convents behind the enclosure, teaching was executed by nuns called the matrons of secular maidens and since the half of the 18th century also by secular women teachers. All schools attached most importance to religious education and character for-mation of girls. Education consisted in teaching reading, writing, arithmetic and the so called women’s tasks, whose scope depended on the kind of convent. Since the 1680s French language was also taught in the Visitation Convent. In most convent schools in the second half of the 18th century changes were made in teaching programmes, which were adapted to the changing social needs. Wards were girls of bourgeois and noble origin. The residence at pension school was payable, although several poor girls were admitted free of charge. Convent pension schools were in those times the only educa-tional institutions for girls.