Church Court Records as Evidence for the Christianisation of Lithuanian Society in the Late-15th and Early-16th Century

This article surveys evidence of Lithuanian social and religious life during the long fifteenth century asrevealed by consistory court records from the sees of Płock, Gniezno, Lutsk and Cracow. The dynamicsof church court evidence coincide with those of other aspects of Catholic life in the Grand Duchy.Building churches, chantry chapels, funding mansionary priests, selecting particular Masses to be celebratedby your chantry priest (Salve sancta Parens, the Five Wounds of Christ, the Seven Joys of OurLady), going on pilgrimage, taking part in a procession, venerating the Blessed Sacrament, sendingsupplications to Rome to obtain permission to own a portable altar or choose a confessor all becomemuch more common in the later decades of the fifteenth century. Cases before the consistory courts inPłock, Gniezno, Vilnius and Lutsk involve a wide social group and deal with a broad range of issues (notjust matrimonial disputes or the hiring out of parish churches between priests). What we do not find isany obsession with paganism, no use of pagan as an insult, no account of ‘pagan’ practices (or even folkcustoms, which later become tarred with an ideological brush). Lithuanian dioceses are clearly integratedinto the Polish metropolitan sees (Gniezno and also to a lesser degree, Lwów).Key Words: Catholic Church, consistory court, Gniezno, Lithuania, Lutsk, Poland. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/ ahuk.v29i0.106