Social Stratification as Formulated by Father Florian Jaroszewicz, Polish Hagiographer of the Late 18th Century

Abstract

Father Florian Jaroszewicz (d. 1771) wrote a work entitled Matka świętych Polska (Poland, the Mother of Saints). Published in Cracow in 1767, it includes 427 biographies of saints and pious Poles from different epochs, milieu, and social strata, arranged according to a calendar system.

The author of the article analysed the biographic material contained in Matka świętych from the view-point of statistics and presented the tabular comparison of the chosen aspects, such as length of the biographies, sex, life span, social status, etc.

The article is a contribution to the studies on the social consciousness in Po- land in the late 18th century and its reflection in a hagiographic work.