Testament Jana Aleksandra Dąbskiego, dworzanina biskupa krakowskiego w Bodzentynie (1639)
The Last Will of Jan Aleksander Dąbski, Courtier to the Bishop of Kraków in Bodzentyn (1639)

Summary/Abstract: The article presents a last will and testament that the otherwise unknown nobleman, Jan Aleksander Dąbski, dictated in 1639 in Bodzentyn, the town of the bishops of Kraków in Lesser Poland. The wills of the nobility became widespread much later than those of the burgesses and the clergy in the Kingdom of Poland. They appeared in greater numbers as late as the 1630s. The testator came from the relatively indigent nobility of the Duchy of Siewierz, owned by the bishops of Kraków. The source suggests that he was a servant at the bishop’s castle in Bodzentyn. This will and testament is one of the very few accounts that shed light on the relations at the court of the Bishop of Kraków in early modern times. This source deserves attention, however, primarily because of its elaborate introduction outlining the author’s religious views. They go well beyond mere catechetical rudiments of the faith. The testator emphasizes the fear of the Divine Majesty, but also God’s mercy as an answer to the frailty of human nature. He calls on the Saviour to come surrounded by angels and conquer his enemies. He firmly believes that salvation can only be obtained through total devotion to the Cross, through the intercession of Mary and the Guardian Angel. At least some of these truths of faith were similarly formulated in sermons preached at the nearby Benedictine monastery of the Holy Cross in the 15th century. It is, therefore, likely that this is the aforementioned medieval inspiration of religious attitudes formed by sermons or through confession in Bodzentyn in the 17th century.

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