Old polish Christmas carols by contemplative nuns (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries)

• Authors: Jolanta Gwioździk
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

Old Polish Christmas carols in the contemplative female orders of Benedictine nuns, Poor Clares and Carmelite nuns were written and functioned at the junction of traditions - Polish and European, lay and religious, noble and elite, monastic and folk - and also in the Polish borderlands, which exhibited great diversification in terms of nationalities, religious denominations and cultures. The numerous versions of carols confirm not only their popularity, but also the fact that they functioned in specific environments, with the mutual influence of various motives, particularly noticeable in this genre, which was susceptible to all sorts of interference. The singing of carols, including those types which were characteristic of the monastic environment, such as lullabies, religious carols, songs of the nativity and of adoration and New Year carols, was a traditional part of Christmas celebrations. Performed both as part of the liturgy and outside it, they constituted a sort of a paratheatrical spectacle, characteristic of the Baroque mentality and of the spirituality of a specific order.

Keywords

PL

Christmas carols; contemplative orders; Benedictine nuns; Carmelite nuns; Poor Clares; Republic of Poland; seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology
• Year: 2012
• Issue: 11
• Pages: 169-186

Dates

published

2018-10-17

Contributors

author

Jolanta Gwioździk

• is a graduate of the University of Silesia (Library Science and Scientific Information, 1985) and the Textological and Editorial College of the University of Warsaw’s Institute of Literary Research (1990). She has a PhD in bibliology (University of Wroclaw, 2000). She lectures at the University of Silesia’s Institute of Library Science and Scientific Information. Her interests range from the history of books and libraries, especially monastic collections, to the traditional and digital cataloguing of historical collections and editing. The author and editor of eight books and dozens of scholarly articles, the results of her studies have been presented at numerous conferences in Poland and abroad, and she has led and participated in several research projects. She is chair of the Polish Bibliological Association, a member of the Historical and Literary Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Katowice Branch) and editor-in-chief of the periodical Bibliotheca Nostra. Śląski Kwartalnik Naukowy.