Kościół pod wezwaniem świętego Wojciecha BM w Kielcach do końca XVIII wieku

Piotr J. Starzyk (Kielce) Church of Saint Wojciech Bishop and Martyr in Kielce until the end of the 18th centuryThe present article presents the pre-partition history of Saint Wojciech Bishop and Martyr Church situated in Kielce. Due to the lack of early-medieval sources, the analysis concentrates mostly on the 18th century and refers to the stone construction that replaced a much older wooden church. Source materials of the Kielce church archives have been analyses. Additionally, 18th century epigraphs as well as 19th century published and unpublished church iconography have been used. The early-medieval wooden church, most probably founded by a prince at the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century, which had an already mentioned patrocinium, was originally situated in the centre of the pre-location settlement of market or ministerial character. Following the location of the city, at the beginning of the 15th century, the church was situated in the so-called Bożęcki suburbs. Probably until the construction of the collegiate church in Kielce, it had played the function of a parish church. It could have been used as an assembly place for secular canons and thus it could have been both a canonic and a parish church. According to one hypothesis, the church might have also played a missionary function in the early Middle Ages. After moving the parish to the collegiate church, the role of the church under discussion diminished. In later years, it played a cemetery function and gradually went to ruin. The article states that the wooden church might have been built in the 1480s replacing the older early-medieval building. Mourning services and requiem masses were conducted there. What is more, processions from the collegiate church on Easter Monday, St. Wojciech Day Eve and St. Mark the Evangelist Day headed there. The stone church constructed in the years 1762-1763, which replaced the wooden object, was founded by priest Józef Jan Rogalli, Krakow cathedral canon, prelate and curator of the Kielce collegiate church. The priest might have felt obliged to keep St. Wojciech Church in good condition firstly because of the money he collected there and secondly because of the early-medieval tradition according to which the vicar of St. Wojciech Church became a member of the Kielce chapter holding the position of prelate and curator. This is why Rogalli wanted to have a stone church built in the place of the former ruined wooden church. The exterior of the church from the 1760s has been reconstructed on the basis of the catalogue prepared during a dean’s inspection of the Kielce churches on May 25, 1791 as well as the detailed plans of the building prepared in 1826 by Wilhelm Giersz, engineer, architect and constructor of the Krakow Province. The interior of the church has been described on the basis of the above-mentioned sources as well as the church’s inventory from 1862-1938. The church remained in the shape from 1763 until the 1860s when it was extended by Franciszek Ksawery Kowalski, architect, and assumed its present exterior.