Huge collection of medieval documents discovered in Gniezno

Part of the document Łaskarz of Sarnowa, rector of a church in Broniszew with a visible seal of the clergyman depicting the coat of arms Godziemba; paper, 210x177 mm. Photo by Jakub Łukaszewski

About 1500 documents, showing the functioning of Gniezno ecclesiastical court in the medieval period, have been discovered in one of the rooms of the Cathedral of Gniezno.

"Thus, the Gniezno archive became the holder of one of the largest collections of medieval paper documents. Next to Gdańsk and Wrocław - it is the third such collection in the country" - explained Jakub Łukaszewski from the Institute of History of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

Documents are now in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Gniezno, where they will be inventoried. Director of the Archives, Fr. Dr. Michał Sołomieniuk explained that until 1998 the seat of the archive was in the cathedral. From there, the documents were moved to the new premises. The so-called dirty file storage remained in the cathedral.

Read the rest of this article...