dr hab. Wojciech Mrozowicz, prof. UWr

Uniwersytet Wrocławski

VIII KONGRES MEDIEWISTÓW POLSKICH - GNIEZNO 2025

Coordinator

30. Sub cuius potestatem? Silesian monks - books - texts - ideas

List of papers

30. Sub cuius potestatem? Silesian monks - books - texts - ideas

Secular power and monastic life from the perspective of a monk from Sagan

Complaints of monks against representatives of secular authority in medieval writings can be encountered quite often. However, they are rarely accompanied by a reflection on the shaping of relations between monks and their environment, in particular with those in power. Meanwhile, this issue, in one of his works preserved in manuscript form, was taken up by Ludolf, abbot of the Sagan monastery of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. The paper will characterize this original work, written around 1412. In it, Ludolf even compares monks to martyrs. According to him, the divine origin of the monks was supposed to make them survive through the centuries despite various oppositions and persecutions from “kings, chiefs, princes, knights, vassals.” Ludolph showing them quotes an otherwise well-known poem De miseria monachorum (Abbas Portensis...).

16. Pulpit and power

Non maior a minore, sed minor a maiore. Relations between secular and ecclesiastical authority in a sermon by Ludolph of Sagan

One of the unpublished sermons of the abbot of the monastery of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine in Sagan, Ludolph (d. 1422), from a series based on the words of Mt 16:19 (“Quodcumque ligaveris super terram”) is part of the ecclesiological discourse of the era of the deep crisis of the Church caused by the Great Western Schism. The sermon is a voice in the polemic against Churchmen who, in their criticism, belittle the Church's position in the world and equate or subordinate it to the Empire. The paper will present argumentation appearing in the sermon for the superiority of spiritual over secular power, including, among other, an interpretation of the idea of the primacy of the pope or theory of translatio imperii. Ludolf uses arguments taken from the Bible, the provisions of canon law and references to knowledge of historical events and figures.