https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.2702
The pontification of abbot Jan Taczel of Racibórz was a special period in the history of the Cistercian monastery in Mogiła in the last years of the Medieval period. Jan Taczel’s death, the pontification of Jan Weinrich and, subsequently, Erazm Ciołek transitioned the monastery into the modern era. The article analyzes the source documents related to Jan Taczel, an outstanding figure in the monastery’s history. Jan Taczel was probably born in the mid-15th century. He was around 50 when he was officiated as abbot in the Cistercian monastery in Mogiła (1493), which implies that he had served as monk for around 20 years and had sufficient experience and the appropriate age to assume the office. As a layman, Taczel studied the Arts at the university in Cracow. He continued his studies after being ordained and earned a doctoral degree in theology in 1484. Taczel gave lectures, wrote commentaries on philosophical works and received the title of professor of divinity in the 1490s. Taczel wrote a commentary on Aristoteles’s Nicomachean Ethics and copied extensive fragments of Jan Versor’s Questiones in 1469. He also commented on Peter Lombard’s Sentences. As an outstanding intellectual, Taczel was a dedicated curator of the monastery’s library, and he instigated the purchase of valuable manuscripts. Three incunabula dating back to 1477 and 1488 with glosses in Taczel’s hand have been preserved to this date. The identity of the author of interlinear glosses has been confirmed based on the copied fragments of Jan Versor’s Questiones, one of which ends with Jan Taczel’s colophon. The typographic features of the incunabula and the fragments of the manuscript copied in 1469 are identical, and their structure is typical of the second half of the 15th century. Abbot Taczel was reputed as a humble man of very high personal standards. He was a charitable superior who loathed informants. In his educational efforts, he made every attempt to build mutual understanding – he fought for men, not against men. However, Taczel was not always equally considerate, and he displayed leniency only to his fellow monks and other members of his social class. In his dealings with members of the lower social classes who worked in the monastery’s fields, Taczel swiftly abandoned the air of a considerate superior and a subtle intellectual and acted as an enterprising businessman who ruthlessly fought for the monastery’s financial interests. In 1497 and 1500, peasants filed suit against the payment of financial dues (stationes pecuniales) to the monastery. The court not only ruled against the plaintiffs, but even raised the rents paid by the peasants to the monastery. Abbot Jan Taczel was a subtle intellectual and a compassionate superior in the monastery, but he was a ruthless businessman in a gray habit who had no qualms about protecting the monastery’s wealth.
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