Tomasz Graff
Romanica Cracoviensia, Numero speciale (3), Tom 23 (2023), s. 321 - 332
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.23.034.18874The author analyses the career and academic work of those distinguished professors at the University of Krakow who studied in Padua in the age of first elective monarchs (from the 1570s to ca. mid-17th century). One of the key questions in the article is to what extent the Paduan stage of education influenced the university career and intellectual culture of the Polish academics. More broadly, the author tries to indicate future research prospects of the studies on the implications of the University of Krakow professors’ Paduan background.
Tomasz Graff
Studia Historica Gedanensia, Tom 12 (2021)/2, 2021, s. 192 - 209
https://doi.org/10.4467/23916001HG.21.011.14993Epidemics in the history of Wadowice in the pre-partition period. A study of a town in Małopolska
This article aims to analyze the traces of the pestilence in Wadowice in Małopolska up to 1772, when the town became part of the Austrian partition. Hitherto this topic has only been mentioned in the literature. Thanks to a use of sources from the period, and, above all, archives in, for example, the Archiwum Parafialnym Bazyliki Ofiarowania Najświętszej Marii Panny w Wadowicach and in the Archiwum Kurii Metropolitalnej w Krakowie, the author has discovered traces of the appearance of large-scale epidemics in Wadowice in 1585, 1601, 1652–1653, and probably in 1737, 1752, and 1758. In the Wadowice records of deaths (Liber Mortuorum), it has been possible to identify entries that would indicate the appearance of at least local epidemics in the period 1730–1772. In addition, a hitherto unknown note by the local pastor from 1756 has been found, which provides information about epidemics in the town in the XVIIth century and of their avoidance at the time of pestilence raging over large areas of the Polish Commonwealth and beyond its borders between 1708 and 1709. This source, published as an annex to the article, also shows the approaches of the inhabitants of Wadowice to the plague, which were typical of the period, and included: dedicating the town to the Mother of God, and the conviction that the misfortunes falling on the town, such as epidemics or fires, were a punishment for sins. The article ends with a recommendation in the future to carry out comparative research that makes it possible to compare the results from Wadowice with those from other towns in the western part of Małopolska.
Tomasz Graff
Prace Historyczne, Numer 133, 2006, s. 31 - 41
Career, Social Background and Education of the Episcopate in the Lvov (until 1412 – the Halicz) Archdiocese in the First Half of the 15th Century
The author of the article tries to characterize the episcopate of the Halicz archdiocese which was subsequently transformed into the Lvov archdiocese, at the time when the capital had been transferred from Halicz to Lvov. The author focuses particularly on the church and lay careers of the members of the episcopate – before they were promoted to the post of bishop, presenting their social background and educational status.
The results of the author’s findings seem to point out that the analysed church dignitaries did not belong to the most important bishops in the Polish-Lithuanian state in the first half of the 15th c. The majority were much more inferior compared to the Gniezno ordinaries. In point of fact, it was only the metropolitan bishop of Przemyśl and the bishop of Chełm Jan Biskupiec who played a more significant role at the king’s court. In the period under discussion, the bishoprics which the majority of the bishops took over were rather poorly endowed; they were often devoid of cathedrals and the chapter houses either did not exist, or else existed in a very rudimentary condition. Hence, some of the bishops in fact did not reside in their own dioceses and only acted as suffragan bishops side by side the ordinaries of the oldest Polish cathedrals.
Before attaining the bishoprics, many of the bishops had been members of different orders and were but rarely heads of cathedral chapter houses. With the exception of the Lvov (Halicz) metropolitans and the Przemyśl bishops, before being consecrated the majority of the bishops did not possess any significant benefices or else did not possess them at all. Not more than 43% of the bishops were of noble origin. In turn, only about 30% of the bishops had a university education. Moreover, none of the above-mentioned were promoted to another bishopric once they had obtained their cathedral. The only exception here was the archbishop of Halicz Mikołaj Trąba who was transferred to Gniezno and in this way became the head of the Church in Poland.
Tomasz Graff
Prace Historyczne, Numer 141 (2), 2014, s. 511 - 529
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844069PH.14.024.2752Tomasz Graff
Studia Środkowoeuropejskie i Bałkanistyczne, Tom XXX, 2021, s. 13 - 28
https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.21.003.13796This research paper discusses the evolution of the attitude of Stefan Bathory (1576–1586), king of Poland, towards the University of Krakow. Being aware of the university’s obsolete structures and its functioning, the king planned to create an elite royal college, in which foreign scholars, especially Italians, were to provide education. Due to the failure of his plan, Batory changed his attitude towards the University, and became its important patron and benefactor. At the same time, however, he also contributed to the establishment of the Jesuit Vilnius University (1578/1579). The author analyses the monarch’s relations with the Krakow Alma Mater over ten years of his reign, trying to explain the circumstances and motives of his conduct towards Krakow’s university elites.