Żywczak, Dorota

English

Analecta Cracoviensia

Dorota Żywczak, Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański... 217Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański: biografia św. Jacka OdrowążaWydawnictwo Znak, Kraków 2015, 253 ss.Wierny pies Pański: biografia św. Jacka Odrowąża by Elżbieta Wiater is a book dedicated to the person of St. Hyacinth Odrowąż – a Dominican Friar who lived in Kraków at the turn of the 12th and the 13th centuries and was canonised in 1594.The publication consists of a short introduction, six chapters, a set of 12 illustrations, timetable for St.  Hyacinth’s life and his canonisation pro-cess, a repertory of prayers with his intercession, an index of persons, and a list of illustrations.The book constitutes an attempt to gather and present in a straight-forward manner all the scattered pieces of information concerning St. Hy-acinth Odrowąż – the spiritual father of the Dominican Friars in Poland. The author of the biography aimed not only at the well-ordered presenta-tion of facts concerning the life of the saint, but also tried to make his figure more approachable to the readers and, hopefully, to widen the circle of his worshippers.The first chapter is devoted largely to the Odrowąż house. Such a way of beginning the narration is in this case understandable and appropriate: the author aims at popularising the silhouette of St.  Hyacinth, yet stays faithful to the historical way of narrating that demands adumbrating the roots from which the character descends and family ties a part of which he is. In the majority of cases these hereditary aspects influenced a person’s way of life, potential and even personality (which, according to the author, was Dorota ŻywczakThe Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakowhttp://dx.doi.org/10.15633/fhc.2214Folia Historica Cracoviensia, t. 23, z. 1 (2017)218very much the case of St. Hyacinth Odrowąż). In the instance of a medieval person this interpersonal bond is particularly significant: the saint lived in the epoch of people whose mentality was naturally driven by the need for collectivity, fellowship. And St. Hyacinth was a representative of two com-munities concurrently: the Odrowąż house and the Order of Preachers.In this opening chapter the author provides quite a detailed narration concerning the history of Poland from the times of prince Wladislaw Her-man who ruled Poland from 1079 to 1102. To a historian who reaches for this book such a description may seem unnecessary, though he should keep in mind that it’s a popular science publication and the amateurs will presum-ably appreciate that the author leads them through the convolutedness of medieval history of Poland. The reader will also notice that E. Wiater tries to outline the relations between church and state in Poland, with all their complexity that affected both the former and the latter. The author devotes a lot of attention to the Odrowąż family crest. She not only provides its de-scription and intellectualizing of its presumable origins, but also affords the picture of it at the end of the book. In this chapter the author devotes a lot of space to Iwo Odrowąż – the bishop of Kraków in 1218–1229 and a kinsman to Hyacinth Odrowąż, clearly attempting to imply that Iwo had a significant impact on his younger relative.The second chapter is devoted wholly to the origins and spirituality of the Dominican Order. The author stresses the vocation of Dominican Friars as Domini canes, dogs of God. She does so in the context in which their com-munity was destined to come into being: the era of Cathar heresy that be-gan to infect the Christian West, in particular southern France. The chapter includes a  thorough description of St.  Dominic Guzmán’s, the founder of Ordo Praedicatorum’s life, and his mission among the heretics. E. Wiater gives also a lot of attention to the Dominican spirituality, its affinity to the ones of Cistercians and Franciscans and to the elements of the Dominican Friars’ habit. At some point the reader loses sight of St. Hyacinth and may even forget that he is reading his biography. The question occurs: was it necessary to provide such a detailed description of St. Dominic’s life at the cost of attention appertaining St. Hyacinth in a book being his biography? It seems that the author went a bit too far away in her attempt to present in detail the history of the founder of the Order of Preachers. Nevertheless, this expanded depiction may be treated as a help for the reader to gain an insight into the very Dominican spirituality and, in the aftermath of it, to get a better understanding of the person and activity of St. Hyacinth.Dorota Żywczak, Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański... 219Only in the next chapter begins the awaited and somewhat post-poned, actual story of the spiritual father of Polish Dominicans. The reader comes to know the details of the life of the young Hyacinth Odrowąż. The author confirms that the future saint and his two companions received their habits from St.  Dominic himself. Then began their travel to Poland in or-der to found first Dominican monasteries there. The Holy Trinity church in Kraków was supposed to be the first Dominican church on Polish ground. The moment E. Wiater begins to describe the topographical details of the location of the church and the architectural particulars of the building, the reader has the opportunity to appreciate her extensive knowledge of the field and the thorough research she must have done. The description may help those readers who haven’t seen the abovementioned church to at least imagine how it looks and how it was constructed. While explaining the practice of founding churches by princes and other laymen, the author em-phasises the role of Iwo Odrowąż as a church founder and proceeds to dis-cuss his attempt to forgo the bishopric, as he would prefer living in a seclud-ed monastery. It’s all very interesting, but the author once more forsakes the person of the actual protagonist of her book and shows her evident inclina-tion for addressing his older relation. One can’t negative that many steps taken by Iwo Odrowąż had a direct influence on Hyacinth Odrowąż, none-theless it seems that the author tends to devote too much attention to the former, whose person several times overrides the character of St. Hyacinth.The forward part of the chapter was supposedly meant to be devoted preponderantly to the missions of St. Hyacinth and his role in founding new Dominican monasteries. And, indeed, the author describes it, with particu-lar reference to his activity beyond the northern frontiers of the 13th century Poland, but again yields to the temptation of describing in detail the relat-ed subjects. She puts forward the issues that are directly connected with St.  Hyacinth’s mission, such as the appearance of the Teutonic Order on Polish ground, but gets distracted, easily and frequently abandoning the chief theme of the book.The fourth chapter is a crucial one. It provides a description of most important miracles that companied the person of St. Hyacinth both during his life and after his death. It constitutes a guide to understanding of the advancement of St. Hyacinth’s cult. E. Wiater describes in a straightforward way one of the most important occurrences with which the saint is associ-ated, namely the fire of the Dominican church in Kiev. It was then that the future saint escaped from the flaming church, taking with himself a tin with Folia Historica Cracoviensia, t. 23, z. 1 (2017)220consecrated Body of Christ, but also a statuette of Mother of God, asked to do so by Herself, even though he considered it to be too heavy for him to carry. The picture of St. Hyacinth carrying the tin (or a monstrance) and the figurine endures in iconography and constitutes the most characteris-tic and recognisable depiction of the saint. As for the statuette itself, it’s widely known as St. Hyacinth’s Mother of God (Matka Boża Jackowa) and, as the author mentions, nowadays there are at least four figurines consid-ered to be the original one. E. Wiater briefly describes each of them and determines which of them is most probably the authentic one. The further part of the chapter is devoted to a description of St. Hyacinth’s miracles, his death and the nascence of the legend concerning his life and his power as an intercessor.The last but one chapter is also an important one. The author makes an attempt to characterise the beginnings of cult of St. Hyacinth and, more importantly, to describe his canonisation process, which rendered to be a travel on a bumpy road full of obstacles and stopovers. It should be appre-ciated that the author gathers in one place and puts in order all the details concerning St. Hyacinth’s so convoluted way to become a saint. She also reveals the details of controversies concerning the uncertain burial place of the future saint. As the author ultimately provides a description of the canonisation ceremony, she makes a  point of depicting the canonisation gonfalon of St. Hyacinth. It’s a crucial fragment, since it concerns the oldest gonfalon of that type in the world. A great advantage of the book is that the author provides a photograph of the aforementioned object and also of several more objects connected with the worship of the saint Dominican, whose detailed description is added at the very end of the book.The last chapter of the book is devoted mainly to discussing the growth of posthumous cult of St. Hyacinth. E. Wiater emphasises what she implied at the very beginning – that his cult is more widespread abroad than in Poland. She provides examples of his worship among others in Italy, Peru, France, Canada, USA. The author didn’t forget to mention a very sig-nificant curiosity: that St. Hyacinth is the only Polish saint whose statue can be found in Bernini’s colonnade on St. Peter’s Square in Rome. It’s definitely a considerable distinction while not many Poles are aware of this fact. The indisputable advantage of this chapter is the fact that, as E. Wiater herself suggests, there is no monograph that would present the development of St. Hyacinth’s postcanonisation cult, yet the author at least tries to gather in one place the fragmented pieces of information concerning this subject. Dorota Żywczak, Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański... 221The closing pages of the book feature a very useful timetable for St. Hya-cinth’s life and the progression of his canonisation process. It is followed by a repertory of prayers to St. Hyacinth, which constitutes a very suitable and attractive appendix to a book largely devoted to description of the de-velopment of the worship of the Dominican saint. The next constituent of the book is an index of persons mentioned in the book. Basically, it seems rather unnecessary, since the book is not a thick one and a personal index is rather a typical part of comprehensive scientific publications, which this book is not. A bibliography would undoubtedly be a more acceptable and usable part of this book. All the more, for the author notoriously alleges other publications, including historical sources. She discusses them, some-times disputes with them, yet in the end the reader has no access to their listing, which must be perceived as quite a serious drawback of the book.E. Wiater took a punt at presenting the figure of St. Hyacinth in a pop-ular science book, written in a  straightforward language. The problem is that the language sometimes gets too colloquial and the style – too sloven-ly, which may be a somewhat unpleasant surprise for the reader. For exam-ple, when she comments on St. Hyacinth’s escape from burning church and taking with him the statuette of Virgin Mary, which he at first considered too heavy, she allows herself to place not a very sophisticated comment: “Bracia do dziś nie potrafią się do końca zdecydować, czy cudem było to, że ją [statuetkę – D. Ż.] wyniósł, to, że była lekka, czy to, że nie dostał po uszach za sugerowanie kobiecie, że za dużo waży […]”. Or the following fragment: „Rok, w którym święty umiera, jest ważny nie tylko z powodu jego odejścia do Pana. Zaczyna się jak w scenariuszu Hitchcocka – 31 stycznia następuje w Krakowie trzęsienie ziemi, po czym napięcie tylko rośnie”. Or: „Święci są jak bohaterowie współczesnych filmów akcji – co epoka, to ko-lejny sequel, w końcu są naprawdę nieśmiertelni”. Unfortunately, there are many more such missed fragments in the book. Regrettably, the author can be also faulted for somewhat strange, ut-terly unnecessary and inappropriate irony, that contributes nothing to the narration, except for making it slightly ridiculous: “Tak więc jeśli zobaczy-cie kiedyś dominikanina podnoszącego do ust szkaplerz, to wiedzcie, że ma coś na sumieniu. I  to grubszego niż zapomnienie serwetki’; “Niecałe dwadzieścia lat po pierwszych odwiedzinach, w roku 1259 lub 1260, Mongo-łowie znów zajrzeli z wizytą, która dała podobne rezultaty jak pierwsza”; “Wcześniej o ubóstwo i pełną elegancji prostotę wnętrza [kaplicy św. Jacka w krakowskim kościele Dominikanów – D. Ż.] zadbali najpierw okupujący Folia Historica Cracoviensia, t. 23, z. 1 (2017)222klasztor szwedzcy żołdacy, a potem dwa pożary: z lat 1668 i 1681”. The effect is poor, but most probably the author must have had no bad intentions.Another issue that should be raised is the author’s tendency to ad-umbrate too wide a background while attempting to introduce a new ques-tion. Such was the case for example with the narration about the Tutonic Order or the very beginnings of Ordo Praedicatorum. Surely, the narrative demanded some contextual pieces of information, but the background it-self became so wide that it overrided the foreground, the actual narration. It seems connected with the author’s inclination for digressions and easy losing sight of the main subject.Fortunately, the book has many strong suits. First of all, the very idea of an attempt to gather in one publication all the main data concerning St. Hyacinth and, secondly, aiming at presenting it in an approachable way. It seems that E. Wiater managed to reach both the goals. Reading of the book gives an impression that the author knows very well and intutits the Dominican spirituality. It seems a merit of long hours she must have spent researching the chosen subject and the time spent in the Dominican church in Kraków and in the presence of Dominican friars themselves. That seems the reason why she clearly had no problems with describing the character-istic features of their spirituality.A  reader who is a  historian himself will definitely spot and appreci-ate the author’s wide background and a good history workshop. E. Wiater reaches for many various sources and knows how to present their content to the reader. On the one hand she quotes the fragments of sources in their original wording, on the other hand she always provides a Polish transla-tion, keeping in mind that her work is addressed not only to historians, but to various readers. Also the extent of issues she raises makes a great impres-sion. The author reaches for details from the field of theology, architecture, art history, geography, topography, archeology, history of education, hagi-ography and others. This makes her book more than a biography of St. Hy-acinth, but a kind of a multiaspectual study of his times.Wierny pies Pański: biografia św. Jacka Odrowąża by Elżbieta Wiater is a book, which, with some flaws and many assets, is a recommendable one. It might be a trigger for broader research on the subject of this great yet still underestimated Polish Dominican saint. The author brings this person liv-ing in the turn of the 12th and the 13th centuries closer to the contemporary reader. The work may help to spread the cult of St. Hyacinth and strongly motivates to visit his chapel in the Holy Trinity Dominican church in Kraków.

Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański: biografia św. Jacka Odrowąża

Folia Historica Cracoviensia

Dorota Żywczak, Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański... 217
Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański: biografia 
św. Jacka Odrowąża
Wydawnictwo Znak, Kraków 2015, 253 ss.
Wierny pies Pański: biografia św. Jacka Odrowąża by Elżbieta Wiater is 
a book dedicated to the person of St. Hyacinth Odrowąż – a Dominican 
Friar who lived in Kraków at the turn of the 12th and the 13th centuries and 
was canonised in 1594.
The publication consists of a short introduction, six chapters, a set of 
12 illustrations, timetable for St.  Hyacinth’s life and his canonisation pro-
cess, a repertory of prayers with his intercession, an index of persons, and 
a list of illustrations.
The book constitutes an attempt to gather and present in a straight-
forward manner all the scattered pieces of information concerning St. Hy-
acinth Odrowąż – the spiritual father of the Dominican Friars in Poland. 
The author of the biography aimed not only at the well-ordered presenta-
tion of facts concerning the life of the saint, but also tried to make his figure 
more approachable to the readers and, hopefully, to widen the circle of his 
worshippers.
The first chapter is devoted largely to the Odrowąż house. Such a way 
of beginning the narration is in this case understandable and appropriate: 
the author aims at popularising the silhouette of St.  Hyacinth, yet stays 
faithful to the historical way of narrating that demands adumbrating the 
roots from which the character descends and family ties a part of which he is. 
In the majority of cases these hereditary aspects influenced a person’s way 
of life, potential and even personality (which, according to the author, was 
Dorota Żywczak
The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow
http://dx.doi.org/10.15633/fhc.2214
Folia Historica Cracoviensia, t. 23, z. 1 (2017)218
very much the case of St. Hyacinth Odrowąż). In the instance of a medieval 
person this interpersonal bond is particularly significant: the saint lived in 
the epoch of people whose mentality was naturally driven by the need for 
collectivity, fellowship. And St. Hyacinth was a representative of two com-
munities concurrently: the Odrowąż house and the Order of Preachers.
In this opening chapter the author provides quite a detailed narration 
concerning the history of Poland from the times of prince Wladislaw Her-
man who ruled Poland from 1079 to 1102. To a historian who reaches for this 
book such a description may seem unnecessary, though he should keep in 
mind that it’s a popular science publication and the amateurs will presum-
ably appreciate that the author leads them through the convolutedness of 
medieval history of Poland. The reader will also notice that E. Wiater tries 
to outline the relations between church and state in Poland, with all their 
complexity that affected both the former and the latter. The author devotes 
a lot of attention to the Odrowąż family crest. She not only provides its de-
scription and intellectualizing of its presumable origins, but also affords the 
picture of it at the end of the book. In this chapter the author devotes a lot of 
space to Iwo Odrowąż – the bishop of Kraków in 1218–1229 and a kinsman 
to Hyacinth Odrowąż, clearly attempting to imply that Iwo had a significant 
impact on his younger relative.
The second chapter is devoted wholly to the origins and spirituality of 
the Dominican Order. The author stresses the vocation of Dominican Friars 
as Domini canes, dogs of God. She does so in the context in which their com-
munity was destined to come into being: the era of Cathar heresy that be-
gan to infect the Christian West, in particular southern France. The chapter 
includes a  thorough description of St.  Dominic Guzmán’s, the founder of 
Ordo Praedicatorum’s life, and his mission among the heretics. E. Wiater 
gives also a lot of attention to the Dominican spirituality, its affinity to the 
ones of Cistercians and Franciscans and to the elements of the Dominican 
Friars’ habit. At some point the reader loses sight of St. Hyacinth and may 
even forget that he is reading his biography. The question occurs: was it 
necessary to provide such a detailed description of St. Dominic’s life at the 
cost of attention appertaining St. Hyacinth in a book being his biography? 
It seems that the author went a bit too far away in her attempt to present in 
detail the history of the founder of the Order of Preachers. Nevertheless, 
this expanded depiction may be treated as a help for the reader to gain an 
insight into the very Dominican spirituality and, in the aftermath of it, to get 
a better understanding of the person and activity of St. Hyacinth.
Dorota Żywczak, Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański... 219
Only in the next chapter begins the awaited and somewhat post-
poned, actual story of the spiritual father of Polish Dominicans. The reader 
comes to know the details of the life of the young Hyacinth Odrowąż. The 
author confirms that the future saint and his two companions received their 
habits from St.  Dominic himself. Then began their travel to Poland in or-
der to found first Dominican monasteries there. The Holy Trinity church in 
Kraków was supposed to be the first Dominican church on Polish ground. 
The moment E. Wiater begins to describe the topographical details of the 
location of the church and the architectural particulars of the building, the 
reader has the opportunity to appreciate her extensive knowledge of the 
field and the thorough research she must have done. The description may 
help those readers who haven’t seen the abovementioned church to at least 
imagine how it looks and how it was constructed. While explaining the 
practice of founding churches by princes and other laymen, the author em-
phasises the role of Iwo Odrowąż as a church founder and proceeds to dis-
cuss his attempt to forgo the bishopric, as he would prefer living in a seclud-
ed monastery. It’s all very interesting, but the author once more forsakes the 
person of the actual protagonist of her book and shows her evident inclina-
tion for addressing his older relation. One can’t negative that many steps 
taken by Iwo Odrowąż had a direct influence on Hyacinth Odrowąż, none-
theless it seems that the author tends to devote too much attention to the 
former, whose person several times overrides the character of St. Hyacinth.
The forward part of the chapter was supposedly meant to be devoted 
preponderantly to the missions of St. Hyacinth and his role in founding new 
Dominican monasteries. And, indeed, the author describes it, with particu-
lar reference to his activity beyond the northern frontiers of the 13th century 
Poland, but again yields to the temptation of describing in detail the relat-
ed subjects. She puts forward the issues that are directly connected with 
St.  Hyacinth’s mission, such as the appearance of the Teutonic Order on 
Polish ground, but gets distracted, easily and frequently abandoning the 
chief theme of the book.
The fourth chapter is a crucial one. It provides a description of most 
important miracles that companied the person of St. Hyacinth both during 
his life and after his death. It constitutes a guide to understanding of the 
advancement of St. Hyacinth’s cult. E. Wiater describes in a straightforward 
way one of the most important occurrences with which the saint is associ-
ated, namely the fire of the Dominican church in Kiev. It was then that the 
future saint escaped from the flaming church, taking with himself a tin with 
Folia Historica Cracoviensia, t. 23, z. 1 (2017)220
consecrated Body of Christ, but also a statuette of Mother of God, asked to 
do so by Herself, even though he considered it to be too heavy for him to 
carry. The picture of St. Hyacinth carrying the tin (or a monstrance) and 
the figurine endures in iconography and constitutes the most characteris-
tic and recognisable depiction of the saint. As for the statuette itself, it’s 
widely known as St. Hyacinth’s Mother of God (Matka Boża Jackowa) and, 
as the author mentions, nowadays there are at least four figurines consid-
ered to be the original one. E. Wiater briefly describes each of them and 
determines which of them is most probably the authentic one. The further 
part of the chapter is devoted to a description of St. Hyacinth’s miracles, his 
death and the nascence of the legend concerning his life and his power as 
an intercessor.
The last but one chapter is also an important one. The author makes 
an attempt to characterise the beginnings of cult of St. Hyacinth and, more 
importantly, to describe his canonisation process, which rendered to be 
a travel on a bumpy road full of obstacles and stopovers. It should be appre-
ciated that the author gathers in one place and puts in order all the details 
concerning St. Hyacinth’s so convoluted way to become a saint. She also 
reveals the details of controversies concerning the uncertain burial place 
of the future saint. As the author ultimately provides a description of the 
canonisation ceremony, she makes a  point of depicting the canonisation 
gonfalon of St. Hyacinth. It’s a crucial fragment, since it concerns the oldest 
gonfalon of that type in the world. A great advantage of the book is that 
the author provides a photograph of the aforementioned object and also of 
several more objects connected with the worship of the saint Dominican, 
whose detailed description is added at the very end of the book.
The last chapter of the book is devoted mainly to discussing the 
growth of posthumous cult of St. Hyacinth. E. Wiater emphasises what she 
implied at the very beginning – that his cult is more widespread abroad 
than in Poland. She provides examples of his worship among others in Italy, 
Peru, France, Canada, USA. The author didn’t forget to mention a very sig-
nificant curiosity: that St. Hyacinth is the only Polish saint whose statue can 
be found in Bernini’s colonnade on St. Peter’s Square in Rome. It’s definitely 
a considerable distinction while not many Poles are aware of this fact. The 
indisputable advantage of this chapter is the fact that, as E. Wiater herself 
suggests, there is no monograph that would present the development of 
St. Hyacinth’s postcanonisation cult, yet the author at least tries to gather 
in one place the fragmented pieces of information concerning this subject. 
Dorota Żywczak, Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański... 221
The closing pages of the book feature a very useful timetable for St. Hya-
cinth’s life and the progression of his canonisation process. It is followed 
by a repertory of prayers to St. Hyacinth, which constitutes a very suitable 
and attractive appendix to a book largely devoted to description of the de-
velopment of the worship of the Dominican saint. The next constituent of 
the book is an index of persons mentioned in the book. Basically, it seems 
rather unnecessary, since the book is not a thick one and a personal index 
is rather a typical part of comprehensive scientific publications, which this 
book is not. A bibliography would undoubtedly be a more acceptable and 
usable part of this book. All the more, for the author notoriously alleges 
other publications, including historical sources. She discusses them, some-
times disputes with them, yet in the end the reader has no access to their 
listing, which must be perceived as quite a serious drawback of the book.
E. Wiater took a punt at presenting the figure of St. Hyacinth in a pop-
ular science book, written in a  straightforward language. The problem is 
that the language sometimes gets too colloquial and the style – too sloven-
ly, which may be a somewhat unpleasant surprise for the reader. For exam-
ple, when she comments on St. Hyacinth’s escape from burning church and 
taking with him the statuette of Virgin Mary, which he at first considered 
too heavy, she allows herself to place not a very sophisticated comment: 
“Bracia do dziś nie potrafią się do końca zdecydować, czy cudem było 
to, że ją [statuetkę – D. Ż.] wyniósł, to, że była lekka, czy to, że nie dostał 
po uszach za sugerowanie kobiecie, że za dużo waży […]”. Or the following 
fragment: „Rok, w którym święty umiera, jest ważny nie tylko z powodu jego 
odejścia do Pana. Zaczyna się jak w scenariuszu Hitchcocka – 31 stycznia 
następuje w Krakowie trzęsienie ziemi, po czym napięcie tylko rośnie”. Or: 
„Święci są jak bohaterowie współczesnych filmów akcji – co epoka, to ko-
lejny sequel, w końcu są naprawdę nieśmiertelni”. Unfortunately, there are 
many more such missed fragments in the book.
 Regrettably, the author can be also faulted for somewhat strange, ut-
terly unnecessary and inappropriate irony, that contributes nothing to the 
narration, except for making it slightly ridiculous: “Tak więc jeśli zobaczy-
cie kiedyś dominikanina podnoszącego do ust szkaplerz, to wiedzcie, że 
ma coś na sumieniu. I  to grubszego niż zapomnienie serwetki’; “Niecałe 
dwadzieścia lat po pierwszych odwiedzinach, w roku 1259 lub 1260, Mongo-
łowie znów zajrzeli z wizytą, która dała podobne rezultaty jak pierwsza”; 
“Wcześniej o ubóstwo i pełną elegancji prostotę wnętrza [kaplicy św. Jacka 
w krakowskim kościele Dominikanów – D. Ż.] zadbali najpierw okupujący 
Folia Historica Cracoviensia, t. 23, z. 1 (2017)222
klasztor szwedzcy żołdacy, a potem dwa pożary: z lat 1668 i 1681”. The effect 
is poor, but most probably the author must have had no bad intentions.
Another issue that should be raised is the author’s tendency to ad-
umbrate too wide a background while attempting to introduce a new ques-
tion. Such was the case for example with the narration about the Tutonic 
Order or the very beginnings of Ordo Praedicatorum. Surely, the narrative 
demanded some contextual pieces of information, but the background it-
self became so wide that it overrided the foreground, the actual narration. 
It seems connected with the author’s inclination for digressions and easy 
losing sight of the main subject.
Fortunately, the book has many strong suits. First of all, the very idea 
of an attempt to gather in one publication all the main data concerning 
St. Hyacinth and, secondly, aiming at presenting it in an approachable way. 
It seems that E. Wiater managed to reach both the goals. Reading of the 
book gives an impression that the author knows very well and intutits the 
Dominican spirituality. It seems a merit of long hours she must have spent 
researching the chosen subject and the time spent in the Dominican church 
in Kraków and in the presence of Dominican friars themselves. That seems 
the reason why she clearly had no problems with describing the character-
istic features of their spirituality.
A  reader who is a  historian himself will definitely spot and appreci-
ate the author’s wide background and a good history workshop. E. Wiater 
reaches for many various sources and knows how to present their content 
to the reader. On the one hand she quotes the fragments of sources in their 
original wording, on the other hand she always provides a Polish transla-
tion, keeping in mind that her work is addressed not only to historians, but 
to various readers. Also the extent of issues she raises makes a great impres-
sion. The author reaches for details from the field of theology, architecture, 
art history, geography, topography, archeology, history of education, hagi-
ography and others. This makes her book more than a biography of St. Hy-
acinth, but a kind of a multiaspectual study of his times.
Wierny pies Pański: biografia św. Jacka Odrowąża by Elżbieta Wiater 
is a book, which, with some flaws and many assets, is a recommendable one. 
It might be a trigger for broader research on the subject of this great yet still 
underestimated Polish Dominican saint. The author brings this person liv-
ing in the turn of the 12th and the 13th centuries closer to the contemporary 
reader. The work may help to spread the cult of St. Hyacinth and strongly 
motivates to visit his chapel in the Holy Trinity Dominican church in Kraków.


http://czasopisma.upjp2.edu.pl/foliahistoricacracoviensia/article/download/2213/2084

Elżbieta Wiater, Wierny pies Pański: biografia św. Jacka Odrowąża

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