„Mazowiecka odmiana późnośredniowiecznego kościoła drewnianego” w świetle najnowszych badań kościołów w Janisławicach, Białyninie i Długiej Kościelnej
‘Mazovian Variant of a Late Gothic Wooden Church’ in the Light of the Latest Studies of the Janisławice, Białynin, and Długa Kościelna Churches

Summary/Abstract: ‘Mazovian Variant of a Late Gothic Wooden Church’in the Light of the Latest Studies of the Janisławice, Białynin, and Długa Kościelna Churches The ‘Mazovian Variant of a Late Gothic wooden church’ was initially characterized as one of four regional types of wooden sacral architecture in Poland. The churches in Janisławice, Białynin, and Długa Kościelna have been classified as part of the variant; they are all aisled churches, with the nave body of a basilica type, this meaning a separation of narrow aisles with pillars, and windows lighting the nave located in the structure under the upper sections of the nave wall above the mono-pitched roof of the aisles. Additionally, what the whole group had in common was the time of the creation of the facilities initially dated on the grounds of historical and archival research to the 16th century.Out of the facilities classified as specimens of the group, currently only the Janis³awice church has been preserved (the Długa Kościelna church having been destroyed in a fire in 2000). The author of the present paper was able to conduct some architectural research into the facility in 2010-13, in the course of the rehabilitation works. As a result of a dendrochronological examination it was ascertained that the chancel and nave of the Janisławice church, together with roof structures were raised in 1501-2, while the western vestibule in 1681-82, and the sacristy in 1696-97. In the course of the studies, it was ascertained that the third of the extensions, namely the vestibule by the southern aisle, was most likely raised in the 18th or at the turn of the 19th century.The conducted architectural study allowed for the reconstruction of the genuine look of the Janisławice church. The majority of the frame of the nave and presbytery walls, together with the roof structure common for both parts of the facility, date back to the period of the church’s construction in 1501-02. It was, therefore, a small church consisting of a nave of a rectangular layout, ca 10 x 11m, and a smaller presbytery, also on a rectangular layout, approximately 7 x 8 m, closed from the east with a triangle. The masses of the nave and the presbytery were covered with a gable roof of a single ridge, with a three-side roof of presbytery over the presbytery. From the north, the presbytery was extended with a wooden shallow sacristy covered with a monopitched roof.Furthermore, it was found out that originally the upper sections of the nave walls did not feature windows, while the mono-pitched roofs were steeper, reaching with their upper roof surface the bases of the roof structure. At the current stage of the facility’s preservation it is impossible to precisely ascertain the date of making the window openings in the nave walls. This may have happened either in the 17th or 18th century, still before the presbytery windows were made larger, since from the inside they featured glyphs analogical to the forms of the genuine joinery in the church.The cutting of the windows in the upper sections of the nave walls may have essentially weakened the latter’s structural durability, thus leading to their deformation, and eventually to the need to support them with pillars. Their appearance may have also resulted from the planned replacement of the ridge turret with a larger and heavier one, whose structure was based on the nave walls. The optical separation of the aisles with the pillars should then only be regarded as a side effect of the works meant first of all to structurally strengthen the walls, these already weakened by the wear and the cutting of additional windows meant to let in more light on the nave from the south and north.The architectural study of the Janisławice church and the re-analysis of the materials concerning the churches in Białynin and Długa Kościelna allowed to ascertain many essential facts related to the history of the facilities and their likely genuine appearance. In the case of the Janis³awice church, the study allowed to identify the construction dating, as well as the stages of the church’s later alterations. The historical and architectural analysis of the windows in the upper sections of the nave walls and that of the pillars separating the nave unequivocally demonstrated that they had been executed subsequently, in the next stages of the church’s modernization. Similar conclusions were prompted by the analysis of the measurements and iconographic materials of the Białynin and Długa Kościelna churches, with the only difference that in the case of Białynin the pillars separating the nave from the aisles were executed at the first stage of the church’s construction. They may have, however, predominantly resulted from the structural aspects related to the sagging of the chancel beam, and not from the attempt to shape an aisled interior, this actually merely signaled in this form as a consequence of the conducted works.The results of the above analysis essentially alter the so-far shaped image of wooden church architecture in Mazovia in the Middle Ages. In view of those the conclusion has to be reached that there existed no such variant as the one referred to as the ‘Mazovian variant of a Late Gothic wooden church’, while within the historical territory of Mazovia no distinctive regional variant of such structure was created in the Middle Ages. The up-to-date examined preserved facilities or those known from archival records represent the Lesser Poland regional type of a wooden church; and it seems most likely that this is

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