O Wojach Chrystusowych, czyli rycerzach i świętych (na przykładzie literatury staroserbskiej)
On Warriors of Christ, or, Knights and Saints (Based on Old Serbian Literature)

Author(s): Izabela Lis-Wielgosz
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Studies of Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Warrior of Christ; knight; saint; martyr; canonical virtues; Old Serbian literature; Middle Ages
Summary/Abstract: The article shows several realizations of the paraenetic model of a Warrior of Christ, embodying the two basic ideals of man in medieval culture – a knight and a saint. Based on the example of Old Serbian literature, the author proposes a specific typology of images shaped by Eastern Christian tradition and its characteristic ideals of man. She discusses particular examples of profiles and the conduct of the eponymous Warriors of Christ. She also explores how the creation of these characters was dependent on a convention or literary genre and demonstrates that it was closely related to an area, its culture and written language. In con clusion, she points to the similarities and differences between the works produced in the Christian East and West. She looks at the most important types of writing in the Middle Ages – hagiography, hymnography and historiography. Based on this material, she discusses the most popular and broadly propagated in the Middle Ages moral conduct and habitual qualities of the mind and spirit embodied by a ruler portrayed as a knight and saint, and oftentimes a martyr. In drawing the cultural portrait of a ruler as a knight and saint, sheindicates a set of canonical virtues of that culture, including theological (faith, hope andlove), cardinal (prudence, justice, moderation and valour) and heroic virtues (piety, ascetism,humility, devotion and sainthood).

• Details
• Contents