Apotheosis of the heraldic emblem of Bishop Wojciech Skarszewski in the Latin armorial poems in the Chełm-Lublin and Lublin directorium

Abstract

A directorium plays an important role in the pastoral life of a diocese. In Poland such writings have been known since 16^th century. They are made up of a liturgical calendar, which lists local holidays, pastoral directives, as well as institutions and clergymen serving in a diocese. A directorium is issued by the decision of the bishop. In the early centuries, it was an opportunity for the bishop to print his coat of arms and an appropriate Latin poem on the first page of a directorium. Wojciech Skarszewski, the last bishop of Chełm, and then the first bishop of Lublin, had 34 directoria issued, which displayed the Skarszewskis’ coat of arms, i.e. the Leszczyc coat of arms. The poems presented in the directoria sometimes repeated themselves. Altogether, 21 original poems were issued in the directoria in Chełm and Lublin. Their authors remain unknown. The poems are in the form of epigrams, which are short texts, usually of a 4- or 6-verse stanzas, written in the elegiac couplet, of a two-part structure, where the first part refers to a coat of arms, and the other one refers to its allegorical explanation. This article presents the poems translated into Polish. Their analysis and translation is a new phenomenon as there is a lack of scientific works dealing with poems issued in the directoria.