The medieval cult of St. Stanislaus beyond the borders of Poland (in Central Europe)
The cult of St. Stanislaus, Bishop of Krakow, had spread to some extent beyond Poland already in the Middle Ages. The article investigates the contexts in which the devotion to the newly canonized saint, who was gradually established as the patron saint of the Kingdom, appeared, especially in the neighbouring countries and in some isolated places further abroad, first in the period around the canonization in 1253, when the new saint and his relics stirred interest in the close regions, and also among rulers, who used its symbolic meaning. Various representations of the cult abroad – in liturgy, church dedications, preaching and hagiographic texts in circulation – are mapped and examined. The cult spread mainly through personal contacts and exchange, although it functioned mostly in limited space and time.
