W europejskiej wspólnocie cysterskiej

In The European Cistercian Community. The Participation of the Cistercians from the Historical Polish Lands in the General Chapters in Cîteaux (12^th-18^th c.)

The aim of the presented study is to examine the problem of participation of the Cistercians from the historical Polish lands in the whole period of the existence of the General Chapter (12^th-18^th). The recognition to what extent they were engaged in the activities of the General Chapter might be helpful in better understanding and evaluation of the functioning of the Cistercian Order. The establishment of when and how often Cistercians from Polish land took part in the General Chapter extends our knowledge of the contacts of the Cistercians from the lands situated to the east of the Oder River with the culture and inhabitants of the countries they met on the way to Cîteaux.

Anna Galar analysed all the Cistercian male abbeys founded in the Polish (altogether twenty-seven communities). She has used normative texts, financial sources, monastic historiographic sources, modern treaties on the government in the Cistercian order, Polish and Silesian acts of the provincial chapters, abbot’s correspondence and reports from journeys to Cîteaux of the Polish and Silesian delegates. The study of various traces of the influence of the journeys of the grey monks to Cîteaux on the transfer of ideas within Europe should result in better understanding of the genesis of numerous economic, artistic and intellectual ventures undertaken in the Polish lands of the past centuries.