Introduction

The earliest sacred building at Wawel was most probably a small church built by the hill’s Czech crew in the second half of the 10th century. The Czech origins are indicated by the patronage of St Wenceslaus, duke and patron saint, of the Přemyslid dynasty. In the course of archaeological excavations conducted under Wawel Cathedral, small fragments of dirt floor have been found, around which a wooden church was probably built. After Małopolska was conquered by Mieszko I and incorporated into the Polanie State, the cathedral was built on the site of the earlier wooden church. This was connected with the establishment of the Gniezno metropolitan bishopric in the year 2000 along with subordinated bishoprics in Poznań, Cracow, Wrocław and Kołobrzeg. The cathedral, probably rather monumental, was one of the first stone churches in Poland, however, we do not know much about its appearance. Miniscule fragments of walls built from flat, unprocessed stones have been found under the western part of the present cathedral. These fragments may have been elements of the first cathedral.Their distribution and similar structures which can be seen in neighbouring countries seem to suggest it was a church with

a transept and three apses adjoining from the east. The construction of the third, Gothic, cathedral began with the gradual demolition of the western part of the Romanesque church, most probably during the times of the Czech reign in Cracow ca. 1300. At that time Jan Muskata was the Bishop of Cracow. The structure was a very ambitious construction project, featuring polygonal galleries with an ambulatory and French-style chapels, but only small parts of its foundations have survived. Works were prolonged probably in connection with the struggle for the Cracow throne. They gained momentum no earlier than after the coronation of Władysław the Short in 1320, and were inspired by another Bishop of Cracow, Nanker (ca. 1320-1326). The construction of the ambulatory walls and St Margaret’s Chapel on the northern side is associated with this bishop. Another administrator of the diocese, Bishop Jan Grot (ca. 1330-1346), was involved in the work on the construction of the chancel and its consecration (1346). The last phase of the construction is attributed to Bishop Bodzanta (before 1364); in his times the nave with the cathedral façade were built.

It is traditionally believed that the construction of another Romanesque church was initiated under the reign of Władysław Herman. However, its spatial layout and architectural plan was of a clearly royal style, which suggests that the initiator of the cathedral’s reconstruction was the last crowned ruler of Poland before the country’s regional disintegration, i.e. Bolesław the Generous (the Bold). The church was built by stages, the first of which can be traced owing to the burial of Bishop Maurus (died 1118) in the western St Leonard’s Crypt. The burial is a clear terminus ante quem for the completion of works in the western part of the church. The church was consecrated in 1142. It bore the form of a gallery basilica with two galleries over the crypts, which were located underground. Mighty towers on the square plan adjoined the corners of side aisles due to which the structure had a characteristic multi-section silhouette.The construction of the third, Gothic, cathedral began with the gradual demolition of the western part of the Romanesque church, most probably during the times of the Czech reign in Cracow ca. 1300.

At that time Jan Muskata was the Bishop of Cracow. The structure was a very ambitious construction project, featuring polygonal galleries with an ambulatory and French-style chapels, but only small parts of its foundations have survived. Works were prolonged probably in connection with the struggle for the Cracow throne. They gained momentum no earlier than after the coronation of Władysław the Short in 1320, and were inspired by another Bishop of Cracow, Nanker (ca. 1320-1326). The construction of the ambulatory walls and St Margaret’s Chapel on the northern side is associated with this bishop. Another administrator of the diocese, Bishop Jan Grot (ca. 1330-1346), was involved in the work on the construction of the chancel and its consecration (1346). The last phase of the construction is attributed to Bishop Bodzanta (before 1364); in his times the nave with the cathedral façade were built. The construction of the Gothic cathedral at Wawel is strictly connected with political history. In the late 13th century successive dukes from the Piast dynasty undertook efforts to reunify the lands of the former Polish Kingdom.

In this context of great importance was the veneration of Stanislaus, the Bishop of Cracow, who was believed to have been murdered by King Bolesław the Generous (the Bold) in 1079. At the end of the 12th century, Wincenty Kadłubek, in his Chronicle of Poland, told the story of the martyrdom of Stanislaus who admonished the sinful ruler and cast an anathema on the king who had the bishop arrested and then killed him by his own hand. The body of the bishop was quartered but God sent down four eagles to watch over his earthly remains, which miraculously became whole again. Around 1253 the legend was repeated in The Greater Life Story of St Stanislaus, written by the Dominican Wincenty of Kielcza on the occasion of the canonization of the saint. The biographer of the new saint told the tragic story according to the crime and punishment system: God had punished the king with the loss of the crown and disintegration of the state for the murder of the bishop but the fact that the martyr’s limbs grew back together again brought hope for a similarly miraculous unification of the parts of the disintegrated kingdom. According to the interpretation by Wincenty of Kielcza, God saved the royal insignia in the treasury of the Cathedral in Cracow – the royal seat and the country’s capital “until the arrival of he who is summoned by God, like Aaron”. The prophecy was fulfilled at the moment of the coronation of Duke of Kujawy, Władysław the Short (1320-1333). His son and successor, Kazimierz (1333-1370), due to his numerous talents, was the only ruler of Poland to have earned the appellation of “the Great”. As the result of a series of events, the most important of which was the claim by the King of Bohemia, John of Luxembourg, the coronation of Władysław the Short took place – against centuries-old tradition – in Cracow, in the Małopolska Region, instead of Gniezno in Wielkopolska. The act of changing the site of inaugurating the new ruler dramatically changed the status of the Cracow cathedral of Blessed Wenceslaus and Stanislaus. Propaganda became the dictate of the moment, to sing praise to the reborn kingdom and to raise the new coronation cathedral to the rank of a royal church, also in the language of architectural forms. The coronation of Władysław the Short was certainly one of the most important stimuli for the reconstruction of the old, Romanesque church in the Gothic spirit.An important reason must have also been the desire to honour St Stanislaus whose grave was at the crossing of the aisles, and the intention to enhance his role in the rebirth of the state. Before 1346, the eastern part of the church was completed with a four-span chancel enclosed with a straight wall and rectangular ambulatory, probably under Cistercian influences. It may have been modelled on abbey churches from Lilienfeld, Zbraslaw and Lubiąż, as well as the Wrocław church, one of the earliest Gothic buildings in the former Piast region. It can be assumed that, during the construction of the church, architectural concepts of the great foundations of the Babenberg, Habsburg and Přemyslid dynasties were consciously borrowed. In this way the new cathedral in Cracow joined the group of great, most highly venerated royal churches in Central Europe. Some of the ideas applied in the construction of the church are genuine and evidence the unique skills of anonymous architects. Among the finest such concepts is an extremely impressive triple-abutment vault, over the farthest eastern span of the chancel, which, in an illusionist manner, suggests a polygonal enclosure.

This type of vaulting, known in Polish literature as the “Piast vaulting”, was also used during the construction of the transept of the Wroclaw Cathedral and, through Silesia, became popular enough in the Kingdom of Bohemia. At least two independent workshops were involved in the building of the Gothic chancel of Wawel Cathedral the first of which, known as the “Nanker workshop”, built St Margaret’s Chapel along with the ambulatory walls. Its composition was changed after 1327, probably after the administration of the diocese was taken over by Bishop Jan Grot (”Grot’s workshop”). After a few years’ break, which was associated, among other factors, with the need to demolish the western part of the old, Romanesque cathedral, another workshop undertook the construction of the compact, almost square-plan body of the nave. During the construction of Wawel Cathedral, constitutive features of the so-called Cracow school of Gothic architecture were formed. This is a court phenomenon, strictly connected with the activity of King Kazimierz the Great. The most characteristic features of this “style” are the integral combination of stone and brick in the construction of walls, the division of the internal elevations of the main nave using a protruding cornice with the simultaneous, slight recession of the wall above it, and the optical elongation of the low windows using panels. The most original is the use of the pillar-and-buttress construction system. There are no arches from the outside, which are typical of the French “cathedral” Gothic, so the slit forces of the vaulting are absorbed by buttresses, which, extending down the walls of the main nave, “pierce” the vaultings of side aisles and become pillars, while the arcades that link them duplicate the arcades between the aisles. All these solutions appeared in an almost unaffected form in the group of Cracow’s great 14th-century basilicas: St Mary’s Church, the Corpus Christi Church and St Catherine’s Church, as well as the Dominican Basilica of the Holy Trinity.They can also be seen elsewhere in Małopolska, and even outside (e.g. St Giles’ Church in Bardiov, Slovakia). These similarities are sometimes treated as a proof of the existence of the “royal workshop”, i.e. a permanent group of builders who worked on commissions for the circles of the court of Kazimierz the Great.