Correspondence of the Warsaw Nuncio Antonio Santa Croce with the Roman Catholic Bishops from 1629: Frequency, Intensity and Content

Abstract

This article is based on source material from the unique collection of correspondence of the Warsaw nuncio Antonio Santa Croce, stored in the Roman Archivio di Stato in the Archivio Santacroce ensemble under number 774 and containing 846 letters from the year 1629, addressed to the nuncio from various senders. The authors analyze the correspondence of the nuncio from the Roman Catholic bishops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, consisting of 109 letters. 104 from the ordinary bishops and 5 from suffragan bishops. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the most regular and intensive correspondence was maintained with the nuncio by Archbishop of Gniezno Jan Wężyk and Bishop of Cracow Marcin Szyszkowski (presumably twice a month). Most of the other bishops approached the frequency of one letter per month, and this concerned the bishops of Vilnius, Cuiavia, Poznań, Płock, Samogitia, Łuck (Lutsk), Przemyśl and Chełm. The bishops present at the court, such as Bishop of Chełmno, Chancellor Jakub Zadzik or Bishop of Kamieniec Paweł Piasecki, made less frequent contact with the nuncio by letter. The bishops only sporadically addressed political issues in their letters and this was connected with the preparation for the sejm. Some hierarchs were interested in the Brest Union and referred to it in their letters. Most often, however, the bishops raised in their correspondence the issues of nominations for benefices, problems related to the discipline of the diocesan clergy and the issues of dispensations and facultates. The bishops’ contact with the nuncio therefore concerned in the vast majority of cases ecclesiastical matters and the secular functions of hierarchs, as senators of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, only occasionally marked their presence in correspondence with the papal ambassadors.