The Gothic Cathedral in Cracow and the European Architecture Around the Year 1300

The turn of the thirteenth century was a difficult period in the history of late medieval Europe, marked by political instability, endless wars, and all possible disasters. Yet it saw an extraordinarily abundant flowering of Gothic architecture, marked by constant stylistic transformations that gave rise to a new phenomenon in European architecture – the late Gothic.

This book is devoted to an edifice that perfectly represents these complex transformations: the Gothic cathedral in Cracow (1320–1364). Although situated on the periphery of the Latin world of the era, it is one of the most stylistically advanced buildings that can be counted as examples of “architecture around 1300”, displaying most of the artistic phenomena that distinguish this period in the history of medieval art. Moreover, this church served as the coronation site and necropolis of the kings of Poland, and the national shrine of the patron saint of the Kingdom, Saint Stanislaus, which situates it alongside such sacred places as those in Reims, Saint-Denis, Westminster, Aachen or Prague.

This new study shows the Cracow cathedral in the broad context of the epoch-making stylistic transformations occurring in Gothic architecture around the years 1270–1350, and presents this interregional phenomenon in a completely new manner, taking into account many buildings in Poland and Central Europe, usually overlooked in such studies. In addition to the history of style, the book focuses on the interface of politics, functional and liturgical considerations, and requirements of ceremony and display as determinants of the form and function of a work of architecture.

Preface*
Introduction*

I. The Cracow Cathedral in the Years 1300–1320**
I.1. Historical Background
I.2. The Unfinished Ambulatory Choir
I.3. The Unfinished Single-Nave Choir
I.4. The Extension to the Vicar Tower

II. Construction of the Gothic Cathedral in Cracow From the year 1320
II.1. Stage One: the Choir*
II.2. Stage Two: Transformations in the Transept Area*/**
II.3. Stage Three: the Nave*
II.4. Medieval and Early-Modern Transformations*
II.5. Renovation of the Cathedral in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century*

III. A New Cathedral on the Wawel Hill as an Architectural Task
III.1. Cracow Cathedral Among Medieval Episcopal Churches in Poland*
III.2. The Choir of the Wrocław cathedral, Cistercian Architecture and the Cracow Cathedral**
III.3. The Rood Screen in the cathedral*
III.4. Romanesque Remains in the Gothic Cathedral: Cost-Cutting or a Tribute to the Past?**
III.4.1. Remnants of Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Structures*
III.4.2. Incorporating Elements of Earlier Structures into Newly Built Churches: Political Historicism in Medieval European Architecture?*
III.3.3. An Ideological Message of the “Testimonies of the Past” in the Cracow Cathedral

IV. Architectural Framework for the Liturgy and Cult of the Relics. Functions of the Cracow Cathedral
IV.1. Cult of St Stanislaus and the Sacral Topography of the Cathedral**
IV.2. St Stanislaus in the Iconosphere of the Cathedral and the Reconstituted Kingdom of Poland**
IV.3. The Cathedral as an Episcopal and Royal Necropolis*

V. The Architecture of Western and Central Europe Around the Year 1300 – Stylistic Trends, Networks of Interconnections, Research Problems*
V.1. The Condition of French Architecture After 1270. Between Stagnation and Innovation
V.2. The Pathways to Late Gothic in the Architecture in the Countries of the Empire North of the Alps from the Late Thirteenth Century Onwards
V.3. The Impact of Upper Rhineland on the Architecture of Polish Lands from the Late Thirteenth Century Onwards

VI. Sources of the Style of the Gothic Cathedral in Cracow*
VI.1. The Construction System
VI.2. The Ambulatory and the Chapel of St. Margaret
VI.3. Arcades and Vaulting Shafts in the Choir
VI.4. The Composition Scheme of the Choir Interior and the Blind Tracery Panels
VI.5. The Triradial Vault in the Altar Bay
VI.6. The Style of the Cathedral’s Choir – Conclusions
VI.7. Updating the Style: Design Modifications in the Nave

VII. The Cracow Cathedral’s Architectural Legacy
VII.1. The Basilican Churches in Cracow*
VII.2. The “Royal” Churches in Lesser Poland*/**
VII.3. The Cracow Cathedral and the Architecture in Central Europe in the Mid-Fourteenth Century*

Conclusion*

Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Topographical Names
List of Illustrations

* Chapters by Jakub Adamski
** Chapters by Piotr Pajor