DETERMINATION OF THE DEGREE OF THE PRESERVATION OF HISTORICAL ROOF RAFTER FRAMING IN SACRAL MONUMENTS IN MAZOVIA

The years 2007-2008 witnessed the determination of the degree of the preservation of historical roof rafter framing in sacral monuments in Mazovia. The pertinent studies encompassed the historical borders of Mazovia from the second half of the sixteenth century, and all sacral buildings – brick and wooden churches, together with eventual monasteries and chapels, erected to the mid-nineteenth century. Such a chronological limit made it possible to become familiar with monuments that could contain preserved roof constructions and those most interesting from the scientific viewpoint. The prime objective of the conducted studies was to establish the number of preserved historical roof trusses and to collect basic data concerning the sort of extant constructions as well as the time of their origin. Each construction was accompanied by a basic description as well as photographic and drawn documentation. The investigations led to the recognition of 312 monuments, in which 523 rafter framings constructions were examined. Among the total of the monuments as many as 210 preserved 330 historical roof constructions were raised to the middle of the nineteenth century. A total of 102 monuments no longer contained historical roof framings, while the general number of the non-historical constructions amounted to 1 3. The conducted examinations made it possible to assess the presumed time of the erection of particular rafter framings. The largest number of the constructions was built in the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Within 330 historical constructions as many as 280 may originate from that period (eighteenth century – 1 8, nineteenth century – 132). The domination of trusses from the eighteenth and nineteenth century stems from the specificity of Mazovian architecture, with a distinct prevalence of buildings erected in the eighteenth century, as well as the considerable construction movement that took place in sacral architecture in the nineteenth century and resulted in an exchange of a large number of the original trusses into new constructions. Due to those reasons none of the constructions has been dated as fifteenth-century, and only nine framings are described an sixteenthcentury. A mere 1 constructions presumably originate from the seventeenth century. The conducted verification simultaneously entitles to present an initial typology of the roof rafter framings. The authors applied all the fundamental types of constructions, from the simplest rafter (3) and collar beam (27) to the more complicated king- -post (6 ), queen-post (12 ) and truss rafter (26). The three latter types were frequently linked in mixed king-post-queen-post (36) and truss rafter- -queen-post constructions ( 7). The inventories also include three dome constructions, based on expanded queen-post configurations with radially arranged truss rafters. The presented outcome of the distinction of the degree of the preservation of historical trusses in sacral monuments of Mazovian architecture make it feasible to propose an initial analysis of the types and chronological transformations of roof constructions in a relatively large part of the country. The documentation and data gathered in the course of the performed investigations facilitate the definition of the research material resources, aiming at a complete and detailed systematic of the roof constriction in Mazovia and the popularisation of knowledge about those extremely interesting elements, as a rule ignored by researchers