Vyskupo vaizdinio kūrimo XVI a. Prūsijos kronikose aspektai

LTDvasininkija viduramžiais buvo itin svarbi socialinė grupė, atlikusi ne tik savo pagrindinę sielovadinę funkciją, bet ir vaidinusi labai reikšmingą vaidmenį valstybės valdymo sferoje. Įvairaus rango dvasininkai buvo itin aktyvūs dalyviai daugelyje valstybės valdymo hierarchijos pakopų. Valstybės administravimui gyvybiškai reikalingas raštingumas, ilgą laiką buvęs dvasininkijos monopoliu, garantavo jos atstovams išskirtinę padėtį valstybėse besiklostančių galių balanse. Ilgą laiką dvasininkija buvo pagrindinis valstybės administracijos, diplomatinio korpuso personalo šaltinis. Vis labiau stiprėjant atstovaujamiesiems institutams, dvasininkijos atstovų atsirado ir parlamentuose ar tarybose. Dvasininkų padėtis garantavo jiems, jei jie turėdavo pakankamai gabumų ir valios, galimybę užsitikrinti didžiulę politinę galią. [Iš straipsnio, p. 150]

ENDuring the Middle Ages and Early-Modern Period the institution of bishop was a particularly important component part of social organisation. The tide and duties of bishop endowed a prelate with great spiritual authority and also wide political powers. The bishop was not only the leader of the Faithful responsible for suitable and good-quality pastoral care in the area under his jurisdiction, but also the head of diocesan administration responsible for the functioning of ecclesiastical organisation. The bishop's authority encompassed broad areas of religious, intellectual and political life. For a long time the clergy enjoyed a virtual monopoly of literacy and played an important role in state organisation. In many European countries churchmen of various ranks were active political administrators. Literacy was essential to the smooth functioning of the state and this guaranteed clergy an important role in administration and diplomatic activity of the realm. Spiritual and political power led many a cleric and especially bishops to oppose the monarch. In their attempt to centralise political authority monarchs needed to control local nobilities and clergy, who might undermine their power. One weapon used by bishops to defend their rights was reference to history. With the aid of historical texts with their consciously crafted narratives, bishops might confirm and legitimise the parameters of political power to justify the legitimacy and continuity of power and create models of required behaviour and images of the enemy. Such texts were used in practice to form, confirm and justify a certain oudook within society at large, especially that of a theocratic, clergy-friendly world view. The positive images of bishops created deliberately and consciously in chronicles provided further arguments to defend the rights and privileges of the clerical caste.The struggle between the secular authority's attempt to concentrate power in its own hands and the clergy's desire to maintain their autonomy can also be seen in Prussia. The Teutonic Order managed quite quickly to take over control of the dioceses of Samland, Pomezania and Kulm, but the diocese of Ermland tucked away between the Kingdom of Poland and the Ordensstaat succeeded for a long time in maintaining a nominal autonomy. Autonomy and the political need to defend local interests on the basis of history encouraged the development of an Ermland school of historiography, aimed against the Teutonic Order and seeking to legitimise the independence of the see. On the instructions of Bishop Paul von Legendorf (1458-67) Canon Johann Plastwich (ca 1400-1464) compiled a chronicle in 1463-64 which unambiguously relates the independence of Ermland from the Teutonic Order. Sixteenth-century Prussian chroniclers imagined quite well what an ideal bishop was like. As elsewhere in Europe most attention was paid to the pastoral activities of the Early Church (especially St Paul's episdes to Timothy and Titus) and allegorical examples from the Old Testament. The image of the ideal bishop was adopted and adapted with reference to local realities and the chroniclers' own aims. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the main traditions of Prussian history writing were chronicles commissioned and edited by the Teutonic Order and later these formed in part the basis of the historiography of Ducal Prussia and the Prussian (secular and religious) clergy. The most important of these works was the Chronicle of the Dominican friar, Simon Grünau, and the secular tradition of local history (Landesgeschichte) which was evolved from the mid-fifteenth century mainly in the towns of (Polish) Royal Prussia (Gdańsk-Danzig, Elbląg-Elbing and Toruń-Thorn).In all these traditions the image of the bishop played an important role, even though it was created according to different needs and different audiences. The role of the bishop in literature supporting the Order was reduced deliberately in order to emphasise the role of the Teutonic Knights, and the Prussian bishops were portrayed often in a negative light as rivals of the Order; they were prelates who were far from meeting the episcopal ideal and given over to sating their material desires. In clerical literature bishops were portrayed depending on their actions as defending and protecting the interests of the clergy, from being the only defenders of the True Faith against the corruption of the Teutonic Order, to a particularly negative view of the Prussian bishops who had gone over to the Reformation, whom they equated with the agents of Satan. In secular Prussian historical writing the common criterion for judging a bishop is his local patriotism and respect for the laws of Ius indigenatus. [From the publication p. 320-322