Średniowieczny skarbiec kościoła klasztornego w Trzemesznie
Mediaeval Treasury of the Convent Church in Trzemeszno

Summary/Abstract: Grażyna Regulska, Mediaeval Treasury of the Convent Church in Trzemeszno When in the late 19th century the Prussian conservator Julius Kohte was inventory-taking art monuments in Greater Poland, in the treasury of the former convent church of the Canons Regular in Trzemeszno, there were still tweleve precious pieces of mediaeval goldsmithery, and among them – three Romanesque chalices, which at least as of 1843 had been pointed to by researchers as particularly important, as well as nine works of Gothic and Late Gothic goldsmithery – five chalices, one ciborium, one cross-shaped reliquary, and two reliquaries of a different type. The church itself, at the time a parish one, was a sumptuous Late Baroque building, raised under Abbot Michał Kościesza Kosmowski (1761-1804) and at his instigation. It featured a three-nave and a three-span western part with a two-towered façade, an octagonal middle part, an ambulatory with a sumptuous dome and the confession of St Adalbert, as well as a three-span chancel with two towers on the sides, housing a sacristy from the north and the treasury from the south (Figs. 1, 2). In 1929, a new vestibule was created by the treasury, while immediately following the outbreak of WW II, Father Józef Sarniewicz, the Vicar at the time, collected the historic vessels and utensils to hide them under the church’s floor. Despite this, the majority of them were taken to the Poznań Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in 1941 or 1942, from where they were later transferred to Berlin in 1944 and deeper into the III Reich. The remaining elements of the rich furnishing of the Trzemeszno Church, transformed by the German occupation troops into a warehouse of clothes of the Wehrmacht youth, burnt down in January 1945. It was relatively soon, namely in September 1946, that all the three Romanesque pieces from the Trzemeszno treasury, namely the chalice called St Adalbert’s and two chalices colled Dąbrówka’s, wife of Duke Mieszko I, returned to Poland, and since 1958 they have been preserved in Gniezno, initially at the Cathedral, currently at the local Archdiocesan Museum. However, from among a much more numerous group of the Trzemeszno Gothic and Late Gothic pieces only one – a chalice from the donation of King Casimir the Great has been recovered following WW II; since 1965 it has been part of the State Art Collection at Kraków’s Wawel. The first of the three Romanesque pieces of the Trzemeszno treasury, called St Adalbert’s chalice also in newer literature, is not a homogenous work (Figs. 2-4). Its oldest and undoubtedly the most beautiful part can be found in the cylindrical cup of reddish-brownish agate with pale grey, beige, cream, and greenish veining. The vessel, ranked among the more luxurious court pieces of precious stones, which started appearing in Western Europe in the late 10th century together with Byzantine Princess Theophanu, wife of Emperor Otto II, according to Piotr Skubiszewski may have reached Poland already in 1000 as one of the precious gifts presented to Boleslaus the Brave by Emperor Otto during the Congress of Gniezno. Another hypothesis had it that it was the gift of Queen Richeza, niece of Emperor Otto III and wife of Mieszko II, reaching Poland after 1025, while the tradition associating it with St Adalbert and the Trzemeszno Church of Canons Regular was shifted to the 4th quarter of the 12th century, when after the circular golden foot and a flattened golden node had been added, it became the cup of a mass chalice. The foot features sixteen recesses dividing it into sixteen fields, decorated with an engraved foliage scroll along the edge and the same number of palmette motifs. The node ist decorated with effigies of a young man in a short tunic, a lion, and two birds. In the early 16th century, the fixing of the agate cup was altered, and at the bottom where some cracks had appeared, it was inserted in a small casing of gilded silver, decorated with two astragal lines, crowned with a cast leaf lace. Currently this little cup-casing does not exist, since during the conservation of the chalice in 1960, it was removed and replaced with a new golden one. Two further of the Trzemeszno examples of Romanesque goldsmithery, in the past referred to as Dąbrówka’s chalices, are pieces dated in the most recent literature to the 4th quarter of the 12th century, and in order to distinguish between the two, the first of them, slightly bigger, is described as the nielloed one, while the second as the repoussé or royal one. The first of the chalices, preserved until today together with a paten that belonged with it from the beginning, is a silver and partially gilded piece, decorated with engraved and nielloed figural representations and majuscules additionally filled with nielloed explanatory inscriptions almost on the entire surface. A different technique of repoussage is used only for figural representations on the flattened node of the vessel and enclosed within two astragal lines of the vessel’s node (Figs. 7-14). The lower and a fairly broad section of its circular foot is taken by the personifications of the eight Blessings of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount within rich architectural framings and with an inscription explaining that everyone who wishes to achieve the supreme joy [Heaven] should follow virtues and have affection for them. The upper part of the foot features personifications of four Cardinal Virtues in a much more modest architectural framing, while on the node there are personifications of four Rivers of Paradise in oval medallions of foliage scroll and in the bottom part of the deep cup – symbols of four Evangelists with an inscription explaining that these four praise the great deeds of Christ with one voice. The upper part of the cup is decorated with six scenes from the Old and New Testament: Moses and the Burning Bush and Annunciation, Moses with Aaron’s rod budding and the Nativity, the Baptism of Jesus and the Last Supper, with the inscription explaining that they are sings of the dignity of Virgin Mary, while Christ is washed with the water of the Jordan River to wash away our sins. The circular recess in the middle of the paten is filled with the scene of the Crucifixion and personifications of the victorious Ecclesia and the defeated Synagogue, the Sun and the Moon with the inscription explaining that life triumphs over death, while this [Christ], who is mere sweetness, drinks vinegar, and that not a man but a powerless worm defeats the armed. The border features nine Old Testament scenes anticipating Jesus’ death on the cross and the institution of the Eucharist: Abraham’s sacrifice, Melchizedek offering bread and wine, Jacob’s Dream, Moses with the copper serpent, Moses’ miracle in the desert, Joshua and Caleb returning from Canaan, miracle with Gideon’s fleece, Gideon’s sacrifice, and Elijahs’ first miracle on behalf of the widow in Zarephtath, together with the inscription explaining that the scriptures [of both Testaments] proclaim what the figures signified, in the fulfilled signs they reveal the brightness of God’s tree, and those who preceded Jesus, are His harbingers. In earlier literature the nielloed chalice of Trzemeszno and its paten were most often attributed to one of the goldsmithery workshops in Meuse Valley or Lower Saxony from within the circle of the artistic patronage of Duke Henry the Lion, and associated with a similarly decorated chalice and paten from the Wilten Norbertine Abbey on the outskirts of Innsbruck (Figs. 15-17) dated to ca 1180-1190. Piotr Skubiszewski demonstrated, however, that such a refined, and at the same time thoughtfully composed iconographic programme which can be found in the Wilten monuments and the Trzemeszno chalice and paten could not have been created without a theological or exegetical reflection conducted first of all at the Prüfening Benedictine Abbey near Regensburg. Of particular importance for the artists of those meaningful decorations must have been the anonymous treatise Dialogus de laudibus sanctae Crucis from ca 1170-1180 and its cycle of full-page typological miniatures which presented the history told in the Old Testament as a coherent uninterrupted sequence of events leading to the most important moment in the history of mankind, namely the Crucifixion. According to Piotr Skubiszewski, it is from the same southern German monastic centre that the author of the programme concept of the other Trzemeszno piece must have come from. The second of the mass chalices, previously called as that of Dąbrówka’s, is also a silver and partially gilded vessel, though slightly smaller and for some unidentified reasons missing a paten. Its decoration is almost entirely composed of repoussé figural presentations as well as majuscule niello filled explanatory inscriptions (Figs. 18-22). In this case, the programme contains twelve carefully selected and composed Old Testament episodes from the Book of Samuel and that of Kings. The circular foot features the following: Samuel is offered to God and Samuel bids farewell to Saul, Samuel anoints young David and David fights Goliath, Mickal helps David to escape and David receives shew-bread from Ahimelech. The deep cup is decorated with the following: Joab gives David the Ammonite crown and David proclaims Solomon king, Elijah raises the son of the widow of Zarephtath and Elijah ascends to Heaven in a chariot of fire, Elisha clears the Jericho spring with salt and Elisha recovers the axe from the Jordan; all these together with the inscription explaining that both the anointment of the kings [of Israel] and the mystic actions of the prophets [of the Old Testament], to all those, who [through baptism] have put on Christ, are the signs of Salvation. On the flattened node of the chalices framed with two astragal lines there is a vine runner with large nielloed fruit clusters symbolizing the Saviour’s Blood, while Piotr Skubiszewski suspected the circular recess of its lost paten to have featured the Crucifixion scene. The whole was meant to display an equal contribution of the Old Testament kings and prophets to preparing the redemptive Sacrifice of the New Testament, and proves that the author of the iconographic programme was keen on the idea of the balance between the secular power and the moral authority of priesthood proclaimed in the 2nd half of the 12th century by monastic Church reformers, mainly, however, Canons Regular headed by Hugh of St Victor and Gerhorh of Reichersberg. The earliest, and at the same time the only Trzemeszno piece of Gothic and Late Gothic goldsmithery which safely arrived in Poland after WW II, is a silver and gilded chalice from the gift of King Casimir the Great. Executed in 1351, it consists of a circular foot planted on a little pedestal, a short cylindrical stem with a flattened node, and a relatively deep, though smooth cup. On the foot edge it features a majuscule founding inscription, and above it repoussé whirling and elongated leaves of an unidentified plant and three four-leaf medallions with engraved busts of the Man of Sorrows, Our Lady, and St Adalbert, set against dark-blue transparent enamel. The decoration of the chalice’s stem is made up of friezes cast of semicircular arcades. Along the circumference, the node features six oval protuberances with the engraved busts of Christ, Our Lady, and four Evangelists against a similar dark-blue enamel and six cast small rosettes, while on the top and below, there are repoussé whirling oak twigs with leaves and acorns, as well as repoussé petals with openwork tracery motifs (Figs. 23-25). The described chalice, chronologically the first of those preserved goldsmithery donations of Casimir the Great for the churches in the Kingdom, was generally attributed to a workshop active in Kuyavia or Greater Poland. Today, however, more and more often its affiliation with the Kraków goldsmithery circles has been emphasized. The second of this Trzemeszno group of works was, just as the first one, a silver and gilded mass chalice, yet executed already in 1414 (Figs. 2, 28). It featured a six-lobed foot and one of the fields bore an engraved effigy of its founder – kneeling Provost Andrzej with his hands folded in prayer and the Poraj coat of arms which undoubtedly referred to the half-figure filling in the adjacent field, namely St Adalbert (Figs. 29, 30), since Provost Andrzej (1407/08-1435) himself did not come from a noble family. The four remaining fields of the chalice foot were engraved with half-figures of Christ in tomb with the Instruments of the Passion, Our Lady with Child, St Stanislaus, and St John the Baptist, while the hexagonal stem was decorated with minuscule inscriptions against dark-blue enamel. The same dark-blue enamel was used to fill in the background of the minuscule inscription of six rhomboid protuberances of the flattened node. The cup was contained within a small casing with an engraved glory (?) and cast lace of large leaves, featuring above it founding inscriptions in minuscule (Figs. 32-35). The chalice donated by Provost Andrzej was most likely executed by a goldsmith active in Poznań, possibly even the same one, who made a similar piece in 1427 which had been preserved to WW II in the Poznań Ursuline Nunnery (Fig. 36). It was also within the Poznań goldsmithery circles that three more Trzemeszno chalices were made, among them those dated back to around 1500 and the early 16th-century: – the chalice featuring the Crucifixion Group on the foot (Figs. 2, 37), the chalice donated by the Parish Priest Maciej of łecko and a Late Gothic ciborium, of which the only thing know is that, made of gilded silver, it was repoussage-decorated. Moreover, the Trzemeszno cross-shaped reliquary is also attributed to the Poznań goldsmithery. The object in question is a silver and gilded reliquary from about 1491, already by Julius Kohte identified as the donation of Abbot Jan Wronowski (1481-1504). The piece, similarly as a number of many of its contemporary examples of Greater Poland goldsmithery, consisted of a large eight-lobed foot, anchored in a small pedestal with an openwork tracery frieze, and an octagonal stem with a baldachin-node of crossing arches to form an ogee arch, typical of this circle. The fields on the foot were also enclosed within ogee arches and the broader ones of those were buckled. The arms of the cross itself had three-leaf endings and on the edges the cross was decorated with smaller cast fleurons, while with larger ones on the corners. On the obverse, at the point of the arms crossing, there was a cast figure of Christ on the engraved internal cross, and in the three-leaf endings there are cast, yet disproportionally small in relation to the occupied surface, symbols of four Evangelists with streamers, while in the crowning a cast figure of a pelican feeding the chicks with its own blood could be seen. On the obverse, the arms’ crossing point was filled with a circular glazed container with the relics of the Holy Cross (?), while the arms and their endings contained other glazed relics containers or gems (Figs. 2, 38, 39). What happened with the reliquary following WW II remains unknown. Moreover, the fate of two of the Trzemeszno reliquaries of St Adalbert is unknown. The first of them, erroneously defined by Julius Kohte as that for the hand of the saint martyr, commissioned by Abbot Andrzej Drzążyński (1504-1522), executed in 1507, was an elongated wooden chest with a four-sided body on a concave pedestal, and a barrel-schaped lid on hinges that were fixed with silver, partially gilded and engraved, sheet metal fittings (Figs. 44, 45). The front wall of the chest body featured St Augustine flanked by standing St Peter and St Paul, and before him there was Abbot Drzążyński, reliquary founder, kneeling with his Doliwa coat of arms, together with an unidentified knight accompanied by his son and an unidentified woman with her daughter. On the back wall there was an unidentified clergyman and an unidentified knight of the Ostrzew coat of arms kneeling before St Adalbert, who was standing beheaded with his Poraj coat of arms between St Leonard and St Giles. The lateral walls of the chest body featured paired saints: on the left there were St Nicholas and St Stanislaus, and on the right – St Wenceslaus and St Florian. The lid was decorated with tracery motifs and majuscule foundation inscription, which next to the founder and the exact date of the reliquary execution, also included the craftsman who made it: – the Poznań goldsmith Piot Gelhor I, active in 1495-1534. The second of the Trzemeszno reliquaries of St Adalbert was also a silver and partially gilded piece. Executed in 1533, it was in the shape of the right arm covered with a wide folded sleeve, and based on an octagonal pedestal with a moulded flange. The lower part of the forearm was decorated with a cast leaf lace and grape clusters, while on the inside there was a rectangular glazed relics container. The fingers formed a blessing gesture (Figs. 2, 47). The founder of the work was the Trzemeszno Abbot Wojciech of Brodnica (1522-1537), and it was executed by Bernard Gniewomir, a Poznań goldsmith who after 1517 moved his workshop to Gniezno. In 1978, one more, fourth reliquary from the early 16th century was associated with the church of the Trzemeszno Canons Regular. It is a copper and gilded piece donated by an unknown Marcin bearing the Poronia coat of arms, and following WW II preserved at the Archdiocesan Museum in Poznań. Shaped as an eight-leaf medallion, anchored in a hexagonal stem, partially reconstructed, it has a six-lobed foot with a moulded pedestal and a protruding flange. The foot fields are decorated with engraved tracery motifs, while the medallion edge features astragal line and corals. The obverse has a circular glazed container for relics, encircled with a spirally twisted wire with cast floral scroll featuring gems or corals, none of which has survived. Placed centrally on the obverse is Our Lady with Child in a glory, and to their right there is an engraved Poronia coat of arms with the founder’s name in majuscule, while on the left an engraved cross almost resembling a majuscule T with a whip and a bunch of rods (Figs. 48, 49) can be found. This reliquary may have been executed by the Poznań goldsmith who can be attributed two similar works, both unfortunately lost. The first of them was a silver and gilded medallion reliquary from the Parish Church in Bydgoszcz, and the second was a silver and possibly also gilded piece from a small wooden Parish Church from Tum near Łęczyca (Fig. 50).

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