17th-century Prayer Books of Cistercian Nuns in the Collection of the Parish Library of St Bartholomew and St Hedwig in Trzebnica

Wrocławski Przegląd Teologiczny 28 (2020) 2, 265–283 Wrocław Theological Review Anna Sutowicz Poland ORCID: 0000-0001-9202-3186 Seventeenth-century Prayer Books of Cistercian Nuns in the Collection of the Parish Library of St Bartholomew and St Hedwig in Trzebnica 1 Siedemnastowieczne modlitewniki cysterek w zbiorach Biblioteki Parafii św. Bartłomieja i św. Jadwigi w Trzebnicy Abstract: Part of a collection held by Cistercian nuns was deposited in the Library of Trzebnica Parish. Among other works there are three manuscript prayer books dated to the 17th century. Spiritual Meditations, dedicated to Katarzyna Rajska by Cistercian monk Kasper of Przemęt, is composed of several parts. Among them, the most interesting are Eucharistic ponderings and a treatise on the preparation for a holy death. The work Instruction of Spiritual Exercise is unsigned, nor do we know its owner. The main body of this manuscript consists of 40 meditations focused on the reform of religious life. The last exemplar in the collection belonged to Abbess Krystyna Pawłowska and was the gift of a Carmelite nun, Agnieszka of Jesus the Lamb. Its author, Bonawentura Frezer, a Discalced Carmelite, is a known seventeenth-century preacher and writer of mystical literature. His Protestations and various acts constitute a collection of mystical monologues on the presence of God. All of these manuscripts were made as an aid for the personal prayers of the Trzebnica nuns and had been long in use. The texts form appropriate research material for historians of religious spirituality in the Baroque period. Keywords: Cistercian nuns, Trzebnica, modern prayer books, Kasper of Przemęt, Bonawentura Frezer Abstr akt: Część dawnej kolekcji mniszek cysterskich została zdeponowana w Bibliotece Parafii Trzebnickiej. Są między innymi trzy rękopisy modlitewne pochodzące 1 I wish to express my gratitude to the rector of the St Bartholomew and St Hedwig Parish, priest-dean Jerzy Olszówka SDS, for the possibility to work with the library resource deposited in the Trzebnica Parish. DOI: 10.34839/wpt.2020.28.2.265-283 © Papieski Wydział Teologiczny we Wrocławiu 266 Anna Sutowicz z XVII wieku. Rozmyślania duchowne, dedykowane Katarzynie Rajskiej przez cysterskiego mnicha Kaspera z Przemętu, składają się z kilku części. Wśród nich najciekawszą stanowią rozważania eucharystyczne i traktat o przygotowaniu do świętej śmierci. Praca Nauka o ćwiczeniu ducha nie została podpisana, nie daje się ustalić także jej właściciel. Główna część tego manuskryptu składa się z czterdziestu medytacji skoncentrowanych na reformie życia zakonnego. Ostatni przykład z tej kolekcji należał do ksieni Krystyny Pawłowskiej i był darem karmelitanki bosej Agnieszki Jezusa Baranka. Jej autor, Bonawentura Frezer karmelita bosy, był znanym w XVII wieku kaznodzieją i twórcą literatury mistycznej. Jego Protestacje i akty różne stanowią zbiór mistycznych monologów w obecności Boga. Wszystkie te rękopisy przygotowano jako pomoc do osobistej modlitwy cysterek i jako takie noszą ślady długotrwałego użytkowania. Teksty te stanowią zatem właściwy materiał badawczy dla historyków duchowości religijnej w okresie baroku. Słowa kluczowe: cysterki trzebnickie, nowożytne modlitewniki, Kasper z Przemętu, Bonawentura Frezer Introduction T he convent of Cistercian nuns in Trzebnica holds a special place in historiography. Nearly as soon as its secularisation process concluded, the convent became an object of interest for researchers, mostly due to the significant role it played in the history of the region. The research, however, pays relatively little attention to the issues of operating the convent in the modern era. Wars and conflicts overwhelming the lands surrounding Trzebnica since the beginning of the 17th century made the monastic community search for new relations with various religious centres where the nuns were seeking refuge when in danger and where they could draw patterns for creating domestic relations and building external authority. Some of the fruits of those relations in the field of religious renewal are already being studied. Historians of art have reviewed artefacts of the material culture gathered by the Cistercian nuns at Trzebnica during the second half of the 17th century when their community was in full bloom and the Saint Hedwig sanctuary had again become an important religious centre in Silesia.2 Also, historians of literature took interest in the modern cultural 2 R. Kaczmarek, J. Witkowski, Kaplica św. Jadwigi w Trzebnicy. Wyposażenie i funkcjonowanie od XIII do XVIIII wieku, [in:] Cysterki w dziejach i kulturze ziem polskich, dawnej Rzeczypospolitej i Europy Środkowej, A.M. Wyrwa, A. Kiełbasa, J. Swastek (eds.), Poznań 2004, pp. 345–368. Further bibliography listed there. The work by a perennial custodian of the Trzebnica sanctuary, priest Antoni Kiełbasa, Mecenat polskich ksień cysterek w Trzebnicy, Trzebnica 2010, is of a popularising character. Seventeenth-century Prayer Books of Cistercian Nuns in the Collection… 267 heritage of the convent, thus revealing fascinating details of the bibliophilic passion of the Cistercian nuns.3 At the time, the researchers’ attention focused on the collection of manuscripts held by the Trzebnica nuns, and its modern polonica in particular. The manuscripts had belonged to individual nuns, serving them in religious exercise and daily meditation. Among those who pioneered research in this area are Mieczysław Walter,4 Helena Szwejkowsk,5 and Stanisław Pietraszko.6 The results of their explorations were included in the works of the prominent expert on monastic spirituality, Karol Górski. He also authored the edition of several selected fragments of the manuscript codices written down by Kasper of Przemęt and offered a few to the Trzebnica nuns during his stay in Silesia.7 The interruption of this research on the modern religious culture of this eminent female monastic centre in both the ecclesiastic and laic environment must be treated as a significant challenge in the era of the development of research methods on history. Nowadays, these allow for an interdisciplinary approach to numerous issues concerning cultural and social orders. By sharing corresponding outcomes of the research conducted by historians, historians of art or literature, or drawing from sociology or theological science research methods, allows us to elaborate the more comprehensive context of the creation of the Trzebnica convent, which became such a pertinent place in Silesian circles of Sarmatian culture in the second half of the 17th century. This article presents an update on part of the post-Cistercian library collection from Trzebnica, submitted to the operation of the Cassation Commission in 1810. The largest portion of the collection was deposited in the Central 3 4 5 6 7 J. Gwioździk, Kultura pisma i książki w żeńskich klasztorach dawnej Rzeczpospolitej XVI– XVIII w., Katowice 2015. M. Walter, Śląskie polonica (...truncated)