The Intellectual Culture in Late Mediaeval Poland

elective courses
general courses

The lecture devoted to the secular and spiritual culture of late medieval Poland, concerns the levels of culture and forms of its transmission. The lecture presents prime lines in the development and modernization of Polish culture in the 14th and 15th centuries, the main trends of the transformations, written and verbal communication, collective imagination and mentality.

The lecture provides overview of various cultural milieus and models of culture in Poland, in the second half of the 14th- and in the 15th century. The main goal is to present the principal lines of development in several domains of culture, in the broadest sense of the word: Changes of religious practices as well as of literature and visual arts, together with factors influencing them, will be discussed in detail. Furthermore, attention will be payed to the development of literacy skills, the growth of legal culture, changes of the religious life (religious knowledge), and art as well.

The course consists of four parts.

First of them is devoted to the subject of education, its levels and opportunities (from parochial schools to universities) in late medieval Poland.

Next, legal culture will be discussed, specially knowledge of law and legal procedures in different law systems.

The third part of the course will be untitled “Mentality”, so it will consider to the main cultural categories of time and spaces as well as to those of religious ideas, customs, traditions, systems of values, knowledge etc. Finally, the development of literature and fine arts will be discussed: works of religious and secular literature on their various levels, visual arts and architecture as well.

The Development of Literate Mentalities in East Central Europe, red. Anna Adamska, Marco Mostert, Turnhout 2004 (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 9)

Mänd Anu, Urban Carnival: Festive Culture in the Hanseatic Cities of Eastern Baltic, 1350-1550, Turnhout 2005

Tóth István György, Literacy and written culture in Early Modern Central Europe, Budapest 2000

Students should acquire basic knowledge of intellectual culture in late mediaeval Poland. They gain recognition of - environments and models of culture in late mediaeval Poland

- source material

- the basic terms (for example: "devotio moderna", "religion civiqu"e, Culm law, "wilkierz", "orty"l)

- teaching and school system

- Cracow University

- intellectual elite

- legal and political Culture

- urban literacy

- books and libraries

- gothic architecture, painting and sculpture in Poland

Students attendance, exam passed.