The written culture of parish books in Warsaw in the first period of a capital city until 1655

Abstract

The author, referring to her research, presents the problem of the written culture of the Warsaw parish books until 1655. This culture includes experience and achievements of the parish clergy in regard to chancellery tradition, consisting of the formulation of recordings, and an external form of the written document as a transmitter of the author's thought to a recipient. Studies on parish books created in Warsaw in the first half of the 17th century, and exploration of the community of the authors of such documents, aim at answering the question whether transmission the royal court, together with state authorities' chancelleries and the nunciature, to Warsaw, influenced the culture of the books being created then. The comparison to analogue books of selected Polish cities will enable us to verify if the level of the written culture of a parish book in Warsaw was somehow extraordinary or average, as well as how much it depended on individual talents and engagement of its direct makers: writers and bookbinders. The author characterises: technical and aesthetic level of Warsaw church registers, methods of making an entry, the community of the writers. The article is completed with the list of Warsaw parish books for the years 1600-1655 and the index of writers working in the Saint John the Baptist parish in Warsaw.