The Shrine of the Black Madonna at Czestochowa [antikvár]

eeply rooted in Polish history and culture for the past six centuries and extolled by Polish and foreign artists alike, the Paulite Monastery at Jasna Gora, where the famous Picture of Our Lady of Czfstochowa has been preserved, continues to draw both pilgrims and an connoisseurs. The Paulite Order was founded in Hungary by Canon Eusebius of Gran (Esztergom) who in 1246 retired to the Pilis forests as an hermit. Though in 1308 the Paulite Order was given the rule of St. Augustine by Cardinal Gentili, legate of Pope Clement V, the mode of life of the Paulite monks was influenced by its eremitic origins, which finds expression to this day in the name of the Order: Order Sancti Fault Primi Eremitae, or the Order of St. Paul the First Hermit. This, at the same time, is a reference to the patron of the Order, St. Paul of Thebes in Upper Egypt (born c. 228), a son of a wealthy family, who withdrew into the Thebes desert to flee the Emperor Decius' persecution of Christians. He lived there as an hermit for nearly ninety years. Shortly before his death, when he was 113 years old, he was found by another solitary, St. Anthony. St. Paul's attributes, often found in Paulite monasteries, are a palm tree and a raven; the former provided him with leaves to make his attire, while the latter, according to legend, brought him bread. Sometimes he is also represented with two lions which are said to have dug his grave with their claws, where the body of the recluse was laid by his friend, St. Anthony. So much for the legend. And what does history say? The Hungarian monks who recog- nized St. Paul as their patron drew up their constitutions during a general chapter held in St. Laurence's Monastery at Buda in 1309. Erom the original idea of eremitism there remained seclusion, the abandonment of family and social life, and severe discipline with periods of hard labour, meditation and prayers. As the Order evolved, each of its monasteries acquired its own specific features depending on where it was established. Such was also the case with Jasna Gora where Pau-lites were brought by Duke Ladislaus of Opole. This was at the time when Hungarian influences were particularly strong in Po-land-during the reign of Louis of Anjou, nephew and heir of the last king of the Polish Piast dynasty. Ladislaus was Louis's palatine for Ruthenia which encompassed the western part of today's Ukraine with the main towns of Lvov and Halich. He installed the Paulite monks in the estates he had been granted by the monarch. In this task he was assisted by Jan Radlica, Bishop of Cracow and court physician. On 9 August 1382, several weeks before the death of King Louis, in a document affixed with a seal representing a horseman-which is preserved to this day in the Jasna Gora Archives-Ladis-laus performed the act of foundation of the Paulite Monastery in Cz^stochowa which was to become one of the centres of religious and cultural life in Poland. Within the Paulite Order, the Jasna Gora Monastery held a specific position: though the monastery was headed by a prior, from the end of the 14th century on it was also the seat of the provincial of the Order for Poland where in the period of the Paulites' greatest influence as many as 29 PauHte monasteries existed. In