The Piety of a noble woman in the light of Polish printed 17th century funeral speeches
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15633/fhc.221Keywords:
piety, noble woman, funeral speeches, Poland, 17th centuryAbstract
17th century funeral orations, as sources of didactic character, include numerous threads referring to the piety of baroque damsels. They are full of examples describing religiousness of women of virtually all ages and marital statuses (married, single and widowed). According to the model propagated by the clergy, a zealous catholic woman was supposed to be devoted to God and persistent in her belief. She should also worship Mary the Mother of God, Jesus and saint patrons, which was reflected in her participation in religious confraternities. It was also important that she attended religious services and pilgrimages as well as respected fasting periods and received holy sacraments. On every day basis, it was suggested that a God fearing Christian should live by the rules of the Decalogue, read religious books and contemplate the moment of death and prepare to it by reading ars bene moriendi guides. Charity work and generous donations to churches, monasteries, schools and homeless shelters were also important. Preachers also emphasised the personality features of a model catholic woman. Hence it was suggested that she should be hard working, reasonable, quiet and modest. Although clergymen emphasised deep and fervent religiousness of women whom they were describing in their sermons, we are actually unable to fully confirm the accuracy of their words. Therefore, it must be assumed that, on the one hand, this religiousness and piety was supposed to constitute an ideal role model, on the other hand, however, it resulted from the fear which accompanied people almost everywhere in turbulent times of the 17th century.Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2012 Urszula Kicińska
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
The author declares that he or she has full copyright to the work, and such copyright it is not limited to the extent applicable to this declaration, that the article is an original work and that it does not infringe any third-party rights.
The author agrees to a free-of-charge, non-exclusive and non-restricted use of the work by Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow i.e.:
- to record and duplicate: make copies of the work by means of printing, reprography, magnetic or digital storage;
- to circulate the original or the copies of the work (disseminate, lend or lease the original or copies thereof, publicly display, screen or make the work publicly available so that everyone is able to access it at the time and in place they wish to do so);
- to include the work in a compilation;
- the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow may grant sublicenses Creative Commons Acknowledgement of authorship-Non-commercial use-Without derivative work 3.0 Poland
The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow makes the work available on the Platform Periodicals belonging to the University, according to the licence Creative Commons Acknowledgement of authorship-Non-commercial use-Without derivative work 3.0 Poland. Accordingly, the author authorises all interested parties to use the work on the following conditions:
- the author and the title of the work will be listed,
- the place of publication (name of the periodical and an Internet link to the originally published work),
- the work will be distributed in a non-commercial way,
- no derivative works will be created.