Early books in the library of the parish of St John the Baptist in Bychawa

Abstract

Although the parish of St John the Baptist in Bychawa is one of the oldest in the Lublin diocese, because its origins date back at least to the beginning of the 14th century, its library in the Old Polish period was very modest. This was caused by the following unfavourable historical conditions: the takeover of the church by Calvinists in the 16th century, difficulties with the restoration of the seized property, Cossack invasions, etc. For these reasons, until the end of the 17th century, the parish owned only necessary liturgical books, with the possible exception of those that had been donated by the parish priest Sebastian Piatkowski to his nephew as payment for his care in the 1930s; however, we have no detailed information about them. It was not until the 18th century that the book collection was enriched with non-liturgical books. These mainly included collections of sermons by Polish or foreign authors, maxims and prayer books, all serving pastoral work. Many of these books cannot be identified due to the general descriptions left by parish inspectors or damage to the codices. Most of the early printed books preserved to this day were possessed by private individuals, and a large number of them came from the libraries of monasteries liquidated after 1863. There are 29 of them, all basically in need of conservation.