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The Battle of Liegnitz in Vita beatae Hedwigis.
Silesia, Poland, 1353AD.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig XI 7, folio 11v.
Manuscript Title: Vita beatae Hedwigis
Object Title: The Battle of Liegnitz; The Beheading of Heinrich and His Soul Carried by Angels to Heaven
Artists/Makers: Unknown maker, Nicolaus of Prussia
Culture: Silesian
Place: Silesia, Poland (Place Created)
Date: 1353
Medium: Tempera colors, colored washes, and ink on parchment bound between wood boards covered with red-stained pigskin
Object Number: Ms. Ludwig XI 7 (83.MN.126), fol. 11v
Dimensions: Leaf: 34.1 × 24.8 cm (13 7/16 × 9 3/4 in.)
Marks: Inscribed fol. 148, a scribal colophon: "Explicit legenda maior et minor de Sancta Hedwigi anno Domini millesimo trecentesimo quinquagesimo tercio consumata. Comparata autem per inclitum ducem dominum Lodewicum ducem Slesie et dominum Legniczensem in honore beatae Hedwigis quondam ducisse Slesie tociusque Polonie. Scripta est autem per manus Nycolai Pruzie foris civitatem Lubyn."
Alternate Titles: Život Sv. Hedviky (Published Title) The Life of the Blessed Hedwig (Translated Title)
Previous Attribution: Court workshop of Duke Ludwig I of Liegnitz and Brieg (Polish, 1364 - 1398)
In 1353 Duke Ludwig I of Liegnitz and Brieg and his wife Agnes commissioned this manuscript, which narrates the story of the life and works of Saint Hedwig in Latin (Vita beatae Hedwigis). One of the Duke's ancestors, Hedwig was born a wealthy noblewoman in the 1200s and lived a devout life with her husband Henry I and their children at the court of Silesia, a German-Polish border region. Hedwig founded numerous religious houses, including Silesia's first nunnery at Trebnitz. After her husband's death, she retired to this convent, where she lived an austere life dedicated to helping the poor. Although she never took religious vows, her self-mortification and charitable deeds and the healing miracles associated with her tomb led to her canonization in 1267.
This manuscript is the earliest extant copy of Hedwig's biography that includes illuminations. An image of the manuscript's patrons venerating Hedwig visually sets the book in the context of its creation, and a sequence of narrative images follows the story of Hedwig's life. At the duke's death, he left this manuscript to the shrine of Saint Hedwig at Brieg, where it came to be considered a relic of the saint herself.
Source: The J. Paul Getty Museum
Referenced as figure 99. FOOT-SOLDIER OF THE ORDENSSTAAT, 14th CENTURY in Armies of the Middle Ages, Volume 2 by Ian Heath
This figure from a scene in the Polish ‘Legend of St Jadwiga’ ms. of c. 1353, depicting the Battle of Leignitz in 1241, is undoubtedly intended to represent one of the converted natives on whom the Order relied heavily for its infantry and auxiliary cavalry on the Livonian frontier. Kurs, Livs and Letts in particular could be found fighting for the Order in large numbers, though the ‘Livonian Rhymed Chronicle’ at least indicates that the majority of them were somewhat timid and far from consistently reliable, except in the regularity with which they turned in flight at the first sight of a Lithuanian war-band, invariably leaving their outnumbered Teutonic overlords decisively in the lurch. It should be emphasised, however, that the same chronicle makes a point of praising those who did loyally stand and fight, so clearly not all were of the same craven disposition. This figure wears a bleached linen tunic and trousers and carries a white, characteristic almond-shaped shield with a black cross. Most were armed with sword, spear and shield.
