Women's noble court in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Saxon times. Structure, people, culture, functions
New article by Urszula Kicinska
The article: “Every moment i looked for the grace of your ladyship’ – correspondence between Elżbieta Sieniawska née Lubomirska, wife of the castellan of Kraków, and Joanna Gołyńska, the prioress of the Jarosław benedictines, as an example of cliental relations in the Saxon era”– was published in the scholarly journal ‘Archiwa, Biblioteki i Muzea Kościelne’ (ABMK) (publishing house of the Institute of Church Archives, Libraries and Museums of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin).
In the old Poland, women were heavily involved in public activities, and one of its manifestations was the religious patronage they exercised, which was a very important part of building cliental ties. An excellent resource for tracing the relationship between a given patron and her clerical clientele are the begging letters, in which, beneath the layers of elaborate ceremonialism, the real goals and expectations of the two parties negotiating with each other were explained. Among these worthy collators was also Elżbieta Sieniawska, née Lubomirska (d. 1729), who, together with her husband Adam Mikołaj (d. 1726), contribut-ed many church foundations. Under the patronage of the castellan of Kraków was also the convent of the Benedictine nuns of Jarosław, in which the position of abbess at that time was held by Joanna Gołyńska (d. 1725). The analysed letters, which the said superior sent to her benefactress, display the issues of patronage relations between the collator and her clerical client, and matters concerning the daily functioning of the Jarosław convent. J. Gołyńska incessantly complained about not having enough money to support the monastery, as the times in which she lived increasingly plunged the establishment into debt and ruin. It is noteworthy that the proclamations directed by the Benedictine nun often did not meet with approval or even any reaction from E. Sieniawska, which casts a shadow over the collator activity of the Kraków castellan’s wife, for we now have proof that not every requester, or in this case religious client, could or would enjoy full support of Sieniawska, despite her duties as a patroness.
