Subtitle:

Contacts of the Poles and Lithuanians with the Holy See during the Pontificate of Nicholas V (1447–55)

Publisher:

IH PAN

Place of publishing:

Warszawa

Description:

Wydanie I. ; 339 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm. ; Bibliography (pages 324-332). Index. ; Summary in English.

Abstract:

The purpose of the present study is to discuss the influence of the Holy See on the society of the Jagiellonian monarchy during the pontificate of Pope Nicholas V (1447–55). There are included the answers to the following research questions: In what way did the Poles and Lithuanians make contacts with the Papacy; who and for what purpose turned to the Apostolic See; and what impact did papal favours have on the lives of individuals? The research into the late-medieval Papacy has had a long tradition in Poland. It has focused, however, mainly on political and institutional questions. The central postulate of the present study is a comprehensive look at the contacts of the Poles and Lithuanians with the Roman Curia, with particular emphasis put on matters dealt with by private persons. The problem is vital since ca 90 per cent of privileges granted by the Holy See were issued to individual applicants. The study is written based on all source materials testifying to the contacts of Poles and Lithuanians with the Holy See. Due to the abundance and diversity of the source documents preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Archive, the subject matter had to be limited in time. The eight-year-long pontificate of Pope Nicholas V is short enough to make it possible to analyse all contacts with the Papacy (over 2,000 references have been preserved from this period, testifying to 795 matters settled by the Holy See for the Poles and Lithuanians). At the same time, the period is long enough to observe certain regular tendencies and to draw general conclusions. An analysis of the number of documents sent to Rome, and also of the effectiveness of their use revealed that although there was a large number of requests sent to the Holy See from the territory of the Jagiellonian monarchy, due to the costs, the procedure was often not completed, and the document was not dispatched. This is especially evident in the case of Church benefices, as over a half of the applicants settled only for a supplication signed by the Pope. The number of privileges that actually allowed the supplicants to receive the benefices granted by the Pope was even smaller. It follows that although requests for benefice grants were numerous, they often did not have a direct impact on the careers of Poles and Lithuanians. It was different in the case of clergymen’s graces and matters dealt with at the Apostolic Penitentiary. Although the requests for this type of privileges were less frequent, the supplicants took care that the documents were dispatched in these cases. Undoubtedly, the life of the supplicants, especially those present on the Tiber, was also influenced by the possibility to observe the papal bureaucratic machine and communing with the humanistic culture flourishing in Rome at that time.

Detailed Resource Type:

Book

Resource Identifier:

oai:rcin.org.pl:245367 ; 978-83-65880-84-0

Source:

IH PAN, call no. II.15270 ; IH PAN, call no. II.15269 Podr. ; click here to follow the link

Language:

pol

Language of abstract:

eng

Rights:

Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license

Terms of use:

Copyright-protected material. [CC BY-ND 4.0] May be used within the scope specified in Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license, full text available at: ; -

Digitizing institution:

Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Original in:

Library of the Institute of History PAS

Projects co-financed by:

-

Access:

Open