„Fratribus forte tribus qui fenestras et libros laborant”

Szklenie okien klasztoru dominikanów we Wrocławiu na przełomie XV i XVI w. w świetle źródeł pisanych / The glazing of the windows of the Dominican friary in Wrocław at the end of the 15th c. in the light of written evidence

Abstract

DOBROSŁAWA HORZELA (Jagiellonian University) / “Fratribus forte tribus qui fenestras et libros laborant”. The glazing of the windows of the Dominican friary in Wrocław at the end of the 15th c. in the light of written evidence
Account records for building work carried out between 1487 and 1501 at St. Adalbert’s Church and the Dominican friary in Wroclaw were published by Hermann Luchs in 1859. A large part of this resource, numbering some 80 items, is related to window glazing, providing an insight into its form and especially into the organisation of the work on it.
These documents have been mentioned in the literature, albeit cited piecemeal. The present article is an attempt at a comprehensive analysis of the resource relating to the work on the windows. The account records bring a wealth of information about the organisation of window glazing work at the Wroclaw convent, which was carried out by both friars and guild craftsmen. Thanks to these documents, it is possible to reconstruct, at least to a small extent, the appearance of the windows in some rooms (plain glazing, supplemented by figurative stained glass in the library and coats-of-arms in the cloisters). The sources for the history of stained glass – and more broadly: glazing – in this period are far from clear, as the terminology had not been standardised at the time yet. Understanding of the accounts is usually facilitated by their confrontation with surviving material evidence: buildings and their glazing. Readers of the accounts of the Dominican convent in Wroclaw are denied such a luxury, and some of the conclusions presented here must remain in the realm of hypotheses.