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Nasza Przeszłość

Vol. 96 (2001): Our Past

Articles

The foundation and donation activities of Duke Kazimierz Konradowic for the Cistercians in Greater Poland, Kujawy and Pomerania

  • Gerard Kucharski
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52204/np.2001.96.447-492  [Google Scholar]
Published: 2001-12-30

Abstract

We know of the foundations and donations of Prince Kazimierz Konradowiec for the benefit of the Cistercians in Wielkopolska, Kujawy, and Pomerania from a handful of extant documents. To Ląd Abbey, he made donations on three occasions; most of them were relatively small gifts. The Abbey received its first donation from the Prince in 1241. It comprised two villages, Głowiejewo and Wrąbczyn, together with immunities; in return, he took the village of Koszanów. In 1250, he gave the Abbey permission to found a town chartered on German Law at a place called Kościół (later it was to become the town of Lądek). The following year (1251), he endorsed a (false) charter allegedly issued by Kazimierz the Just, his grandfather, in 1150 for the abbatial villages Kłobia and Choceń. As far as Byszewo convent is concerned, of which Kazimierz was a co-founder (together with his chancellor Mikołaj), none of its assets was as important as the one dated 25 July 1250. It included Byszewo and other villages donated by Mikołaj and a very broad charter of economic immunities. Kazimierz’s next donation took place between 1250 and 1267 (possibly 1257); the document listed two villages, Trzęsacz and Włóki, as well as a charter of immunities. The Prince’s donation to the Cistercians of Szpetal included twelve abbatial villages plus some immunities the exact nature of which is not known. That endowment is dated (most probably) to 1259. Since at that time the convent looked as if it would go under, the present of a dozen villages may have been intended as a lifeline and an incentive to rebuild. The Cistercian Abbey at Oliwa received from Kazimierz in 1252 an exemption from all land and sea taxes imposed by the state. Kazimierz Konradowiec’s foundations and donations to the Cistercians in Wielkopolska, Kujawy, and Pomerania look like the carrying out of a deliberate and well-organized plan aimed at strengthening his position both in Poland and abroad. The impulse to endow the Cistercians of Byszewo, Szpetal, Ląd, and Oliwa with so many donations sprang from a range of motives — religious, social, political, civilizational — of which it would be very hard to point out the dominant one. Most probably their balance changed from case to case. Yet it seems plausible that as the political situation in the territories controlled by Kazimierz changed, political considerations played an increasing role in his decisions which so consistently benefited the Cistercian Order.

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