13th century Mongol attacks on Cistercian monasteries Lesser Poland and Silesia in the light of the resolutions of the General Chapter of the Cistercian Order

Abstract

The statute books of the General Chapter of the Cistercian Order are one o f the sources which can add new facts to our knowledge of the 13th century Mongol raids on the Cistercian convents in Poland. The Cistercian records refer chiefly to Mongol attacks at convents in Małopolska and Silesia. In the past information from that quarter was used in monographic histories of indi­vidual convents or in the context of general historiography o f the Cistercian Order in the 13th century. Although the statutes provided a convenient source of reliable factual material, they were hardly subjected to a thorough critical analysis. This article attempts to deal with this very issue, ie. the presentation of 13th century Mongol raids on Cistercian convents in the statute books of the General Chapter of the order.Among the hundreds of statutes from the period 1207-1297 thirty-one refer to the Polish Cistercian convents, and only five to the problem of the Mongol inroads. The earliest of the records on that subject comes from the year 1241 and mentions the convents of Mogiła and Henryków (Canivez I, p. 237, para 39). The remaining four entries come from the period 1259-163 (Canivez I, p. 449,4; Canivez I, p. 476,3; Canivez I, p. 481,31; Canivez II, p. 12,11). They show the Mongol invasion in an entirely new light, eg. the reso­lution of 1259 is an eloquent testimony of the horror of the Cistercian abbots of Poland at the news of a renewed Mongol attack. The last entry, dated 1263, recounts in a similar tone the ravages inflicted by the Mongols. Two entries, both dated 1261, are extraordinarily important: they seek to interpret the in­vasions of the Mongol nomads within the broad perspective of Cistercian spirituality and liturgy. Of the statutes of the General Chapter concerned with the Mongol ques­tion none are as important than those that address the inroads of 1259-1260. In the past that section of the statute books was given only marginal attention; it was the earlier phase of the conflict (1236-1242) which attracted most interest. In fact, however, the position formulated by the General Chapter in 1259-1260 is more important for our study of the Cistercian-Mongol relationship than any of the earlier statements. The problem requires further studies that have to take into account both papal documents and additional Cistercian sources.