Monastery

Legnickie Pole Monastery

The Post-Benedictine provostship at Legnickie Pole is a masterpiece of the Silesian Baroque. According to legend it was built in the place of the battle of 1241 between the Silesian duke Henry II the Pious and the Tatars; and ideologically refers to this event elevating it to the rank of Christian sacrifice suffered from paganism. The other part of the church’s iconography presents another local legend about Henry’s mother – the duchess Hedwig (later Saint) bringing the relics of the Holy Cross and the settling of the Benedictine monks at Legnickie Pole, which invokes the significance of this place as a centre of Christianization through Benedictine service. Expelled from Legnickie Pole during the Reformation the Benedictines came back in the beginning of the 18th century thanks to abbot Othmar Zinke, whose intention was to create a branch here of the monasteries at Prague-Břevnow and Broumov. The magnificent monastic complex built on a rectangular ground plan with a church on the axis of the western wing was erected between 1720 and 1730. It was designed by Kilian Ignacy Dientzenhofer – an imitator of Guarino Guarini, a Roman architect, a designer of churches built in the so-called chain system, covered with a sail vault. The frescoes inside the church were designed by Kosma Damian Asam and together with the sculptures of Karol Józef Hiernle and the paintings of Wacław Lorenz Reiner they form an iconographical program which refers to the place’s legendary historical events showing the elevation of the Holy Cross towards all the nations of the world, therein emphasizing the service of the Benedictine monks.

The legend of the church and the monastery and the related invocation and iconography are the result of the free interpretation, conceived by the Benedictine monks, of those historical events that took place in this area after the battle with the Tatars. The monks connected the tradition of the Battle of Legnica with the foundations of duchess Hedwig and the donation of the relics of the Holy Cross to the chapels of Sts. Benedict and Laurent in Legnica which, as was mentioned before, was reflected in the church’s invocation.

Dientzenhoffer took the idea of a centrally-elongated pattern within a so-called chain system from the churches designed by the Italian architect Gaurino Gaurini. Together with the sail vault the church is a particular example of the transplantation of the Czech style to Poland. Internal buttresses add to the gothic character of the church, which refers to the medieval tradition of this place, and the mitras on the top of the elevation recall Henry II’s affiliation to the ducal family of the Piasts.

The paintings inside the church shall present the metamorphosis of the sacrifice of Henry the Pious into eternal triumph of the Glory of God and the Sacrifice on the Cross as the main cause of the triumph of the Word of God in Silesia, to which the Benedictine monks contributed significantly. The program of the facade of the church summarizes the ideological content of the inside of the church. The general meaning of the iconography of the church at Legnickie Pole, relating to the historical event which took place in this area, is to present worldly sacrifice as a source of the prize in Heaven. Symbolized by the Cross it justifies the death of Henry the Pious, which thanks to St. Hedwig and the Benedictine monks contributes to the process of spreading the Catholic faith in Silesia, (which did in fact happen thanks to the arrival of Czech monks).