Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (15.2015)

Poland, the western region of the
Kingdom of Poland. The former
church was damaged by fire in
1422 started by Polish and Lithua-
nian troops^. Although we know
that on 13 April 1469 Bishop Win-
centy Kiełbasa issued a charter
in which he donated a garden to
the Chełmża Chapter as contri-
bution to the Cathedrals restoration efforts^, it seems rather
unlikely that the building remained ruined for almost fifty
yearsW Most probably in the 1420s or 1430s new vaults
had already been erected over the choir and the crossing^.
The latter structure is covered with a four-pointed star pat-
tern with lierne ribs, which form an internal inscribed cross
with triangular endings based on the top of the formerets
(Figs. 15b, 21). Teresa Mroczko was the first to suggest the
insular origin of this peculiar rib figuration, but she was
wrong in pointing out that the wooden nave vault at Chester
Cathedral was erected in 1307-1377, as she assumedW In fact,
it was built between 1461 and 1490W
English experiments with the inscribed lierne crosses
combined with the four-pointed star patterns start with the
prodigious artistic activity of William }oy in the West Coun-
try. As acknowledged by Richard Morris, foy was probably
the author of the nave vault at St Augustines at Bristol con-
structed in the 13308-13408^, in which the conventional star
figuration is interrupted with four cusped lozenges creating
a cross-like motif on the ridges of each bay. Almost identical

The first signs of this inter-
est appeared simultaneously at
the aforementioned Chełmża
Cathedral and at St Andrews
Church at Gosławice in Greater

21. Chełmża Cathedrat,
vautt of the crossing. Photo:
author
22. Wetts Cathedra}, vautt
of the northern choir aiste.
Photo:author

70 S. Becker-Hounslow, Der Beitrag, p. 114.
71 See Crkundenbuch des Bisthums Culm, vol. 2: Das Bisthum (Mm unter Polen 1466-1774, Danzig
1887, no. 650, p. 539.
72 Christofer Herrmann was the only one to believe that the reconstruction of the Cathedral after
the fire of 1422 was undertaken as late as in c. 1470-1485 (cf. idem, Mittelalterliche Architektur
im Preussenland, pp. 535-536).
73 Such dating was accepted by: T. Mroczko, Architektura gotycka, pp. 247-248; f.T. Frazik, Sklepie-
nia gotyckie, pp. 18-19; S. Becker-Hounslow, Der Beitrag, pp. 117,119; J. Adamski, Remote Artistic
Connections of the Late-Gothic Church Architecture in Lesser Poland. Figured Vaults in the 13"*
Century, in: Z. Sarnecka, A. Fedorowicz-Iackowska (eds.), Artistic Translations between Four-
teenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Warsaw 2013, p. 105.
74 Cf. T. Mroczko, Architektura gotycka, p. 248.
75 1-S. Hendrix, Architecture as Cosmology, p. 264. The present-day structure is a 1868-1876 replace-
ment by George Gilbert Scott.
76 R.K. Morris, European Prodigy or Regional Eccentric? The Rebuilding of St Augustines Abbey
Church, Bristol, in: L. Keen (ed.), Almost the Richest City. Bristol in the Middle Ages, Leeds 1997

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ARTYKUŁY

Jakub Adamski