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Vol. 83 (1995): Our Past

Articles

Jarosław-Kazimierz, the first unsuccessful Cistercian foundation in Upper Silesia

  • Antoni Barciak
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52204/np.1995.83.189-201  [Google Scholar]
Published: 1995-06-30

Abstract

The first Cistercian foundation in Upper Silesia, usually ignored by historians, was Jarosław near the border with Moravia. It was founded by Jarosław, Prince of Opole, before 1198. This place must have been uninhabited, because archaeologists found no traces of settlement before the turn of the 12th century. Prince Jarosław donated this place to the monks from Pforte on the Saale River, and then, when he became the bishop of Wrocław, he gave them a tithe from the entire area surrounded by the Stradunia and Rivers. Personnel. There are scant references to Jarosław's foundation in the sources. We don't even know what the situation was like in Jarosław in 1201, when its founder died. It can be assumed that the monks from Pforte did not manage to put down roots there. As soon as they learned about the death of their benefactor, they left the place. On the initiative of Bolesław I the Tall and his son Henry I, the Silesian princes, and with the consent of the General Chapter, the foundation was taken over by monks from the Lubiąż Abbey. They treated it as a land grant and showed no desire to build a new monastery there. In the second decade of the 13th century, the name Kazimierz appears for the first time, and soon replaces the former name Jarosław. The new name is undoubtedly associated with Prince Casimir of Opole, who made another attempt to establish a regular monastery in Jarosław. The plans, like those of his predecessors, failed: already in the 1420s the foundation faced a serious crisis. The reasons for the repeated failures should be sought in the difficult conditions prevailing on the site, the reluctance of the monks (at least at the early stage) to get involved in the development of the place, the wavering support of subsequent rulers (who seemed to give priority to the Premonstratensian foundation in Czarnowąsy near Opole, and finally the collapse of another Cistercian foundation, founded by a knight, in Woszczyce.

References

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