Studia Waweliana (8.1999)

ROYAL COFFIN TABLETS AND EPITAPHS ON ROYAL SARCOPHAGI IN THE WAWEL CATHEDRAL

(1519-1596)

Summary

A popular funeral custom in the early Post-mediaeval era was to
place by the corpse, and also on a coffin (sarcophagus) itself, a metal
tablet with an inscription of identifying and laudatory character. This
custom, going back to the Middle Ages at the latest, has its precedent
at Wawel in the form of a lead plate dating from the first ąuarter of
the 12th century, which was found in the grave of Bishop Maurus
(d. 1118), buried in the Crypt of St Leonard. In addition to the words
identifying the deceased, it contains an abridged text of the Creed.
In the light of the present state of research on the tombs in the Wawel
cathedral the Maurus plaąue remains an isolated object. Therefore,
one cannot say that it inaugurates a sepulchral tradition which,
following European practice, would be continued until the end of
the Middle Ages, because the next funeral inscription known to us
comes from the tomb of King Sigismund I (1548).

In view of the obvious inaccessibility of those inscriptions in
particular which were placed by the body itself, one might ask about
the actual aim of making them. The ideological purpose of such
inscriptions, especially in the Middle Ages, was in a sense mystical.
In the eschatological situation they were to play an apologetic role.
Attesting to the virtues and merits of the deceased, along with other
testimonies of creed and fidelity laid in the grave, they were a kind
of commendation of the dead person to God, or - as French
archaeologists of the mid-19th century put it - „a passport to heaven".
Such a character, for instance, seems to have been given to the text
on the plaąue of Sigismund I, containing, beside a laudation, a
prayerful supplication for granting the king what he so firmly hoped
for (fiducia; firma spes).

In the context of the humanistic ideals of the Renaissance, the
second answer to the above-posed ąuestion suggests itself:
preservation of the identity, individuality of the deceased. But then
we may ask again: for whom? Was it taken into consideration that
„posterity" would choose to disturb the peace of the dead, or was
perhaps such an encounter even procured?

It is worth while recalling here that even in the graves of the
Polish Brethren, commonly known as Arians, who in their doctrine
attached hardly any importance to the ąuestion of the fate of the
body after one's death, claiming that in the face of God's omnipotence
this matter is practically indifferent {adiafora), one could find at the
side of the dead person a bottle containing his/her curriculum vitae
written down on paper (or parchment), and in the hands of the
deceased brass tablets engraved with the words conveying a kind of
manifesto:"SCIO CVI CREDIDI" („I know in whom I have
confided").

Among several objects found in the royal tombs during their
exploration conducted for more than two hundred years were the
coffin plates of Sigismund I, of Olbracht - the prematurely born son

of Sigismund I and Bona - of Sigismund Augustus, and of Anne the
Jagiellon.

The tablets from the tombs of Elizabeth of Habsburg, first wife
of Sigismund Augustus, and of Barbara Radziwiłł, in Vilnius
Cathedral were the subject of a separate paper (K.Wilkus, Odkrycie
grobów królewskich w katedrze wileńskiej, Studia do Dziejów
Wawelu, vol.5, Kraków 1991, pp. 530-550).

In the Cathedral Treasury at Wawel, in addition to the Jagiellonian
plaąues discussed here and the above-mentioned lead tablet removed
from the grave of Bishop Maurus, are kept the plates taken out of
the coffins of Bishop Bernard Maciejowski (d. 1608), Mikołaj
Zebrzydowski, Palatine of Cracow (d. 1620), King Sigismund III
Vasa (d. 1632), Queen Louise Marie of Gonzague (d. 1667), Queen
Marie Casimire, wife of John III Sobieski (d. 1716), and King
Augustus II of Saxony (d. 1733).

The inscriptions presented here, though so scarce in number, give
a fairly reliable idea of changes in the lettering and composition of an
inscription that took place in Renaissance epigraphy - from imitation
of Roman monumental inscriptions (inscriptions on the sarcophagus
of Sigismund I) and the elegiac distich arrangement to axial
compositions (inscription from the sarcophagus of Anne the Jagiellon),
the last of these triumphing in Baroąue eulogies.

For the above reasons it was attempted in the present edition to
copy as accurately as possible the graphic form of inscriptions. These
are the texts on the extant and accessible objects (inscriptions on the
sarcophagus of Sigismund I: the coffin tablet of Olbracht (Adalbert)
the Jagiellon; the coffin plate of Sigismund Augustus and another
one on the lid of his pewter sarcophagus; a plaąue on the lid of the
sarcophagus of Stephen Bathory; and an epitaph on the side of the
sarcophagus of Anne the Jagiellon) as well as those from the objects
which probably remain in the tombs (coffin plate of Anne the
Jagiellon) and from those about which we are not sure whether they
were not removed from the graves during their exploration and then
perhaps lost. This doubt concerns principally the coffin plate of
Sigismund I. In the case of the last-mentioned objects the edition of
the inscriptions is based on the oldest versions of the text that are
known to the present author, and the descriptions on the information
found in the royal accounts (coffin plate of Sigismund I) and on
reports of the exploration of the tombs. The graphic layout of these
inscriptions is hypothetical, referring either to the lettering of archival
records (coffin plate of Sigismund I) or to the layouts used in
particular periods (coffin plate of Anne the Jagiellon).

The description of each inscription contains the following
elements: historical information, description of an object (including
its dimensions), list of major versions of the text, edition of the text,
and notes.