Początki reformacji w Kurowie na Lubelszczyźnie: „heretyckie” lektury i pierwsi zwolennicy protestantyzmu

Abstract

Beginnings of Reformation in Kurów in the Lublin Province: “heretic” readings and First Followers of Protestantism On the basis of excerpts of distinguished historian Stanisław Kot, deposited in the library of the Jagiellonian University, the author reconstructs the contents of a silva rerum of the Zbąski family from the Lublin Province. The silva rerum itself was destroyed during World War II, yet the remaining notes enable us to reconstruct many facets of the Zbąski family’s life in sixteenth-century Lublin Province, including the inventory of books kept by this noble family in their library in 1547. The author believes that this collection was the property of Abraham (Abram) Zbąski, son of the Lublin Castellan Stanisław (d. 1553). Abraham was studying in Wittenberg in 1544 and sympathized with Lutherans, a sentiment which finds its expression in the inventory. In 1553, the Knurów Catholic church was turned into a Protestant temple, but the local active Protestants were prosecuted by the Kraków diocese bishop, Andrzej Zebrzydowski. In the later Protestant historiography, one of them – vicar Mikołaj (Nicholas) – is named and considered a martyr of the Protestant case.