Early Modern Polish Hagiographic Works of the Capuchins and the Deficiencies in the Manuscript Collections of the Capuchin Province of Warsaw

The Capuchins were brought to Poland in 1681 however Polish Capuchin friars had been active
much earlier in pastoral working, also in the field of hagiography in other European countries: Italy,
Switzerland, and Czech. We have our native textual traces that have survived from Renaissance and Baroque
documents of the beatification and canonization processes of Capuchin Blessed and Saints as well
as their hagiographic biographies. Here we can mention eminent Polish friars, authors of ecclesiastical
testimonies and vitae: Jan Baptista Fromberger, Grzegorz Stanisław, Franciszek Wacław Rozdrażewski.
We can also be sure that in the Capuchin Order, parenetic significance of a saint’s life was especially appreciated.
It is difficult to doubt that in Poland, where the hagiographical tradition had been rich and
distinguished, there was a strong emphasis on pastoral activity by means of vitae sanctorum. Unfortunately
when saying about the hagiographic works of the Capuchins in early modern Poland, particularly
in the present Province of Warsaw, we encounter some very serious problems; the complete lack of texts
surviving from that time is the most severe one. The Russian partition of Poland and the Second World
War resulted in huge deficiencies in Capuchin book resources. Especially the German suppression of the
Warsaw Uprising led to the destruction of libraries where unique manuscript collections were stored. The
only method to say something about the early modern Polish Capuchin hagiography is to reconstruct
its character and scope on the basis of pre-war library catalogues and 19th century reprints of single texts.
Thus we are able to confirm only four names of Capuchin hagiographic authors: Stanisław Ignacy Filipecki,
Ludwik Wojciech Zaleski, Modest Jan Freindsteter and the most eminent and outstanding Wiator
Piotrowski. We can be sure that their hagiographies focused specifically on Capuchin saints. We can also
deduce that texts generally realized a narrative scheme vita – virtutes – miracula. That scheme, typical
for beatification and canonization elite hagiography, had been carried out shortly after the Trent Council
and subsequently used in hagiological documentary writings from the 17th to the 19th century. Surviving
reprints of two Piotrowski’s texts suggest that early Capuchin authors included ascetic-mystical and moral
theological content into their vitae and took care about a parenetic orientation of discourse and its correspondence
with contemporaneity. In the Library of the Capuchin Province of Warsaw in Zakroczym
we can also find some traces of later reception of missing manuscripts that confirm the practical nature
of early modern Capuchin hagiographies.