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Among the relics of the earliest Christian cult in Poland a number of items from Ostrów Lednicki have a special meaning. They represent chronologically the oldest horizon of Christianity of the Roman Rite, which has survived until today. The items include a reliquary of the True Cross (a staurotheke), an ivory comb, a reliquary casket, clasps on liturgical books as well as a small knife, a small cross and a thurible. THE STAUROTHEKE |
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Among many kinds of reliquaries present in the Christian world, objects called staurothekes have a special meaning. They were intended for a unique relic, i.e. the wood of the True Cross. The collection of over one thousand staurothekes takes two basic forms: casket-type reliquaries dating back to the 4th c. and triptychs (from the middle of the 11th c.)
Staurothekes from workshops in Syria, Palestine, Armenia, Georgia, Kievan Rus’ and above all Constantinople, Venice and Western Europe were made of wood, silver sheets (gilded), golden and copper sheets (gilded, silver-plated), rock crystal and expensive gems. They usually had an elaborate iconographic and composition style, portraying mainly Christological scenes such as Annunciation, Birth, Crucifixion, Anastasis, Adoration of the Cross. They also present figures of saints and the Apostles, friezes with medallions, decorative motifs of plants and rosettes often with hierograms and Biblical quotations. The methods applied in the construction of stauothekes included engraving, niello, filigrees, granulation, cloisonné and gem incrustation.
The relics of the True Cross were originally kept in Jerusalem and Constantinople (1st fragmentation). Later the major part of the Cross, from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, got into the hands of Persians. Recovered by Emperor Heraclius it was then moved to Byzantium, where it was further fragmented. Numerous partial remains dispersed across Europe. We find most of them in Rome, however many parts were also collected by monarchs such as Visigoths, Longobards, Carolings, monarchs of Asturia, German emperors, Apards or Venetian doges. Many remains were offered as gifts by one monarch to another, e.g. a part of the True Cross was bestowed by Basil II upon Stephen I of Hungary. The staurotheke found at Ostrów Lednicki could have also been such a gift transferred from the Ottonian treasure vault to Mieszko I’s or Boleslaus the Brave’s court. It was a common practice in that period to use meaningful and artistically refined objects to commemorate special events such as a baptism or an official meeting.
The staurotheke from Lednica was made of a gilded bronze sheet set in jet (black amber). It was kept in a leather case presenting the scene of the Crucifixion. The lid had a cross-shaped gap through which followers could see a fragment of the True Cross wrapped in a cloth. The arms of the gap were flanked by miniature rosettes, on the right arm we can see the hierogram of God the Son (XC). The ornament on the edges resembles granulation. Three strips of the cloth have remained inside the reliquary up to this day. The structure of the fabric suggests a high quality manufacture.
The form of the staurotheke, i.e. the cut out cross-shaped element, which allowed a direct exposition of the relics, suggests Byzantine origins. In reliquaries produced in Western Europe the objects of cult remained hidden. The leather case also proves the Eastern provenance of the staurotheke. The way Christ is portrayed on the case is in compliance with a monophysic tradition (image in the impatibilis type) peculiar to the Syrian-Palestine and Byzantine art. Jesus shows no physical pain, wears long clothes, his divine nature dominates. The character of ornamentation on the reliquary’s edges also points to meso-Byzantine period of art.
The staurotheke was discovered near the smaller church in the stratifications from the period between the second half of the 10th c. to the first half of the 11th c. It is the most valuable and the oldest reliquary from the Piasts’ reign. It confirms a crucial role of the island in the earliest sacral Polish landscape and suggests that the Piast court highly esteemed such relics. Nevertheless, the association between the baptism of Mieszko or the visit of Emperor Otto III and the staurotheke is still only a tempting hypothesis. The reliquary from Lednica is the oldest among reliquaries found in Poland. The collection includes a staurotheke of Kraków, Łęczyca, Lublin, a świętokrzyska staurotheke and reliquaries from the royal treasury of the Jagiellonians.
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THE IVORY COMB |
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Similarly to the staurotheke, an ivory comb found on Lednica is a unique discovery. A rare form of the object, its material and ornaments suggest that this small comb performed a special function. It is the only relic of such kind found in Poland. Early dating (between the second half of the 10th c and the first half of the 11th c.) indicates that it was closely related to the earliest wave of Christianization in Poland. A spatial context of the discovery, a sacral part of the single-nave church, additionally confirms a special character of the comb, which was used by a priest to comb his hair as a preparation for the liturgy. Thus the discovery was classified as a liturgical utensil. This small-sized object was made of one piece of ivory. It is 8 cm long, 3.3 cm wide and up to 0.55 cm thick. A characteristic ornament of lions is visible on the upper edge. Both sides of the artefact are engraved, however the composition of each side varies. The reverse contains a central strip divided into segments with a four-armed rosette. The frames of the strip have additional corrugated incisions. The obverse also has a central strip, however it is filled with a magnificently composed plant-inspired motif. As it was mentioned before, this kind of a comb is a unique discovery in Poland. Liturgical ivory combs were found in Bohemia (none in Rus’) and Western Europe, particularly in Germany and France. They also appeared in the insular Anglo-Saxon area, Scandinavia and the southern part of Europe. The oldest specimens are most typically found in Northern Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt – from the 5th c. AD).
The analysis of how these objects dispersed indicates that combs produced in Alexandrian (or Syrian) workshops reached the south of Europe (Venice). Also Byzantine workshops started to make them early. In time (possibly simultaneously with the Church forming its structures) the production of combs was performed by Merovingian, Carolingian (Metz), and Ottonian (Cologne, Bamberg) workshops. Byzantine workshops continued to provide carved combs, which reach as far as the territories of Khazars and Scandinavia (Lund, Sigtuna). A specimen from Lund has exactly the same carvings of lions as the comb of Lednica. Both combs, from Ostrów and Lund, represent an identical artistic method of work. What is more, the item from Lednica may have been owned by a senior clergyman who was present at the residence where the liturgical comb was found. A small bronze cross was discovered next to the comb.
The comb, similarly to the staurotheke, could have been brought to Lednica as a gift – perhaps even from the German Emperor himself.
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THE RELIQUARY CASKET |
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Wooden caskets covered with bone facing were very popular in the cultural circle of Christian Europe. Many of them are kept in cathedral treasure vaults, a numerous collection comes from archaeological excavations. During such works the remains of a casket were found at Ostrów Lednicki in the smallest annex of the single-nave church. The ornamentation of the facing is characteristic. It presents a motif of a corrugated braiding and an openwork rosette, both used to create larger patterns. This widely used decorative style being an inherent element of the Medieval canon has an early-Christian and ancient origin. Although some ideological associations were observed between the casket of Lednica and the Lombard art from the 10thc., the period style manner applied in the casket’s ornamentation suggests rather an affinity with the Carolingian or Ottonian art circle. Moreover, different types of bone caskets, including reliquary caskets, were a popular products coming from the insular region (Iro-Scottish, Anglo-Saxon), as well as workshops in the Alemannic- Frank, Burgundian, Scandinavian regions and Byzantine area of the Mediterranean circle. There were also other actively performing workshops on the opposite pole, i.e. in the Caliphate of Cordoba and later in the Sicilian-Arab area. The casket of Lednica dates back to the period between the first half of the 10th c. and the second half of the 11th c. It was used to keep valuable relics and it testifies to the presence of cult objects at Ostrów Lednicki, as those objects were stored in one room in the smaller church.
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CLASPS OF LITURGICAL BOOKS |
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Two clasps were made of bronze sheet. Indisputably they were on the books used in the church. Both clasps were found in the vicinity of the sovereign’s palace, namely in a cave beside a corridor cabin bordering one of the palatium’s corners. They date back to the period between the second half of the 10th c. and the first half of the 11th c. The bigger clasp, 9.2 cm long, 2.2 cm wide, was gilded. In the central part of the clasp there is a protruding hole (for a leather strap or a chain to pull through). From the bottom the fitting has two rivets to attach the clasp to a book. One of the rivets has a fragment of a leather cover stuck to it. The ornamentation of the clasp is unique, as it is masterfully executed. A composition motif was put in an edge frame. The surface between the edges is foliated and it gives an impression of harmony and a movement of the twig. The pattern of the clasp is slightly convex, which illustrates how skilful the artist was. Although the object does not have an analogous counterpart in the Polish archaeological material, its ornamental style constitutes a typical of the early Middle Ages blend of various influences of Syrian-Egyptian, Carolingian-Ottonian, Byzantine or even Arabian heritage. The direction of these influences can be traced by observing how the ornamentation of a waving twig propagated. The second clasp is a small fragment of a metal sheet (1.5 x 1.6 cm) equipped with a support and a sizeable rivet. A relatively small surface of the preserved clasp is undecorated, yet due to the context in which it was found its value remains immense
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OTHER OBJECTS OF LITURGICAL USE (A SMALL KNIFE, A SMALL CROSS, A THURIBLE) One of the artefacts connected with Christianity was a wrought-iron small knife. Its distinctive feature is that it has three gilded crosses incrusted on its hilt. Such an ornamentation of a knife is absolutely unique and it suggests special functions of the find. Although the relic was discovered in an insular graveyard, which is chronologically younger that the early Piasts’ era, its function may still be interpreted in connection with Lednica as the early sacral centre of the state (the second half of the 10th c. – the first half of the 11th c.). A small bronze cross is a finding with arms widening at the end. Their characteristic underside indicates that the cross was attached to another (lost) part of the finding or it could have been a part of a book cover. The discovery
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of the cross was made inside a homestead in the vicinity of the single-nave church. Other objects of liturgical use located there corroborate special functions of the wooden building, which was a house of a clergyman. A triangular bronze thurible was intended to suspend an incense boat on chains. It was found in the vicinity of the palatium and it was connected with liturgy celebrated
in the palace chapel or in the other of the sacral buildings on the island. The chronology of the find, linked with the horizon of the end of the 11th c. up to the 13th c. indicates that church facilities at Ostrów still functioned despite the fact that the island was no longer the sovereign’s residence.
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ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURAL DECOR
In archaeological research it happens very rarely to find remains of décor of the earliest phases of stone architecture. Ostrów Lednicki possesses a dozen or so findings, whose location (around the sacral building, inside the gord) and early dating allow to connect them with the period when the island functioned as a temporary ruler’s seat. Colourful slivers of glass were originally parts of stained-glass windows in the residential and sacral building. Other glass findings comprise interesting remains of glass candelabras (green, dark green, yellow, white – opalescent) holding candles that most probably shed more light inside the buildings. Some of the remains (found around the church) come from rubble stratifications from the period when the island was destroyed (1038), other remains are younger. To the group of décor findings belongs also a thin lead frame (a T-shaped structural steel) used for small pieces of stained glass. The frame was lost on the eastern bridgehead in the second half of the 11th c. From the buildings’ roofing a corrugated lead tile has been preserved.
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