The Architecture of the Pauline Monastery at Beszowa

• Authors: Grzęda Mateusz

Title variants

PL

Architektura klasztoru Paulinów w Beszowej

• Languages of publication: PL EN

Abstracts

EN

The Pauline monastery at Beszowa (a village located 60 km west from Sandomierz) was founded by Wojciech Jastrzębiec, bishop of Cracow and Chancellor of the Kmgdom of Poland, at the parish church of Sts Peter and Paul, on 6* February 1421. It was the fifth house of the order in Poland and the first which was obliged to maintain a parish. The Pauline order comes from Hungary, and its origins are closely related to the hermitic traditions, cultivated despite the changes that occurred in European spirituality in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The traditionalism of the order, which consisted in asceticism, daily work and prayer, was close to the rules of the Benedictines and Cistercians. The imposition by Wojciech Jastrzębiec of the new pastorał and educational duties on the Paulines of Beszowa marked a turning point which brought the Pauline monks closer to mendicant orders, and even more so, to the communities of canons. The architecture of Pauline monasteries in Hungary (e.g. the houses at Dedes, Szentpal and Talod), as well as in Croatia (Lepoglava, Kamensko) reflected the traditional character of the order which for the architecture of its monasteries had adopted a model close to those of the communities observing the rule of St Benedict. Hence, they formed complexes grouped around the traditional claustrum, that is, a rectangular cloister surrounded with other spaces, like the chapter house, refectory and some auxiliary rooms. In Poland, this "Benedictme" scheme was applied only in the monastery at Jasna Góra during its extension in the fifteenth century, whereas the monastery at Beszowa is an example of a reduced plan, without cloister, with only two wings arranged at a right angle to each other, joined by a raised covered walkway, supported on an arcade. Although in Cistercian (Sulejów, Wąchock) and mendicant (Dominicans in Sieradz) architecture there exist a few examples anticipating the two-wing model, it seems that throughout the whole Middle Ages such solutions were based on the traditional claustrum scheme, and this basie plan was reduced or modified

• Publisher: Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Institute of History of Art
• Journal: Modus. Prace z historii sztuki
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 10-11
• Pages: 29-55

Contributors

author

Grzęda Mateusz

• Instytut Historii Sztuki UJ