The Attempts of the Bernardines to influence the society of Kowno in the second half of the seventeenth century: the case of a Miraculous image

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); Lietuvos istorija; Socialinė istorija; Kasdienybė; Kaunas; Bernardinai; Stebuklai; The Lithuanian history; Social history; Trivial round; Kaunas; Bernardines; Miracles.

ENThe city of Kowno (Kaunas), situated at the confluence of the Niemen (Nemunas) and Wilia (Neris) rivers, was one of the largest cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, an important regional centre of crafts and trade. In the second half of the sixteenth century Kowno had about 7,000 inhabitants.1 Although research is lacking, it can be surmised that, given general levels of growth in the Grand Duchy, the population could have doubled by the middle of the seventeenth century. The city was multicultural. Besides groups of Lithuanian, Ruthenian and Polish speakers comprising Catholic and Orthodox believers, there was an influential group of German speakers who had become Lutheran in the time of the Protestant Reformation. Jews had also settled in Kowno, as they did in every city of the Grand Duchy. Two Catholic churches were founded in Kowno in the early fifteenth century - the Parish Church of St Peter and the Franciscan Order’s Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Churches dedicated to St Nicholas and St Gertrude were established in the suburbs of Kowno at the end of the fifteenth century. [Extract, p. 75]

• Catholic women and religious life in an early modern Lithuanian town: the case of Kaunas / Vaida Kamuntavičienė. Chrétiens et Sociétés. 2021, 28, p. 9-23.
• The book of miracles of the Bernardines of Minsk (1672) / Vaida Kamuntavičienė. Journal of Byelorussian studies. 2022, 12, 1/2, p. 63-80.