Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (15.2015)

li. MałborkCastłe, Pałace
of the Grand Masters, TaH
Hałłway. Photo: author

vaults, applied in the square crossing bays or towers, and
often distinguished with a compositional grid of ridge
ribs, like at Lincoln (c. 1360-1380), York (c. 1370-1374;
Fig. 10)^ ^ Peterborough (c. 1350-1380)3^.
The Malbork architect, certainly familiar with a wide
range of both secular and church buildings across the
Continent and England, was also well acquainted with
Middle European architecture, and was capable of select-
ing and blending numerous motifs of various origins.
This is best shown again in the Renters and in the Tall
Hallway, this time in the form of plain vaulting pads, with
or without applied brackets (see figs. 8,9). They probably
first appeared in the St Margarets Chapel (now sacristy)
at the Cracow Cathedral (c. 1322), but were most popular
in Bohemia and Silesia in the 3rd quarter of the i4^cen-
tury35. ^ case of Malbork, its most plausible origin
is the Bohemian origirE^, since the political relations
between Poland and the Teutonic Order throughout the
14^ century were mostly tense, if not hostile. Yet, it must
be noted that in Bohemia and Silesia such vaulting pads
were usually combined with microarchitectural brackets with filigree trefoils,
while in the Grand Master s Renters the analogous elements are heavy, polygonal
and richly moulded. They are once again probably reminiscent of English archi-
tecture, where similar forms were in constant use, for example in the Lady Chapel
at Ely (late 1330s - 1349^ or in the external elevations of the northern porch
of St Mary Redcliffe at Bristol (c. 1320^, to name just a few notable examples.
A peculiar treatment of "stalactite" brackets in the Summer Renifer is perhaps best
comparable to the smaller, but similar forms giving support to the mouldings in
the transept arcades at Gloucester Cathedral (c. 1337)^.
Traces of English architecture are apparent at the Palace of the Grand Master,
and not only in the realm of vaults. Christofer Herrmann stated recently that the
reduction of architectural details to a purely constructional form is in this late
i4*-century building so advanced that it looks like a product of the early 16^-, if
not even the 20* century^. In fact, the astonishingly "modernistic" appearance of

33 S. Becker-Hounslow, Der Beitrag, p. 236.
34 D. Stephenson, Heavenly Vaults. From Romanesque to Gothic z'n European Architecture, New
York 2009, p. 176.
35 Cf.: P. Crossley, Gothic Architecture In the Reign of Kasimir the Great. Church Architecture In
Lesser Roland 1320-1380, Kraków 1985, p. 23; K. Czyżewski, M. Walczak, Z hadań nad gotyckq
katedrq w Krakowie, "Studia Waweliana", 8,1999, pp. 21-22.
36 Cf. J.T. Frazik, Sklepienia gotyckie, p. 9.
37 P. Lindley, Ely Cathedral, Lady Chapel, in: J. Alexander, P. Binski (eds.), Age of Chivalry. Art in
Rlantagenet England 1200-1400, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 6 No-
vember 1987-6 March 1988, London 1987, pp. 413-414.
38 C. Wilson, St Mary RedcllfG Bristol, outer north porch, in: J. Alexander, P. Binski (eds.), Age of
Chivalry, p. 413.
39 H J. Bóker, Der Beginn einer Spatgotik innerhalh der englischen Architektur zwischen 1370 and
1430, Koln, 1981, pp. 30; C. Wilson, Gloucester Cathedral, choir, in: f Alexander, P. Binski (eds.),
Age of Chivalry, p. 417.
40 Cf. C. Herrmann, Mittelalterliche Architektur ini Rreussenland, p. 250.

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ARTYKUŁY

Jakub Adamski