6
ANTEMURALE:
The Bulwark of Christendom
At any point between AD 1000 and 1939, quotations can be found to illustrate the
conviction that Poland was, is, and always will be, the last outpost of western
civilization. In the earliest centuries it was seen to be holding the line against the
Prussian and Lithuanian pagans; in the modern period against Islam and the
Muscovite schismatics; in the twentieth century, against militant communism.
At all times, Poland's 'Place in Europe', like that of neighbouring Hungary, was
quite clear; it was the antemurale, 'the bulwark'.^1
The vocabulary has varied, of course. The term antemurale christianitatis
was generally accepted after the Fall of Constantinople notably in a memorial
to Pope Paul II in 1467. Elsewhere, one finds murus (wall), scutum (shield),
clipeus (buckler), praevalidum (barbican), propugnaculum (rampart); in Polish,
przedmurze (bulwark), forpoczta (bastion), and even plot (fence), or straz
(watchtower). In 1573, in Paris, when a Triumphal Arch was raised in honour
of Henry Valois's election to the Polish throne, the inscription read: POLO-
NIAE TOTIUS EUROPAE ADVERSUS BARBARORUM NATIONUM...
FIRMISSIMO PROPUGNACULO (To Poland, Most Steadfast Fortress for the
whole of Europe against the barbarian peoples). Thirty years later, Sully prepar-
ing his Grand Design for the regeneration of European unity, described Poland
as the 'boulevard et rempart'. In 1623, Wojciech Dembolecki wrote charmingly
that 'God has enclosed Christendom with the Polish Crown, as a fence against
the pagans'. The Polish kings invariably reminded their foreign correspondents
of the Republic's traditional claim. On 11 March 1620, at Whitehall, the Polish
Chancellor George Ossolinski, commenced his oration to James I with the
words: Tandem erupit ottomanorum iam diu celatum pectore virus... et pub-
lico Barbarorum furore, validissimum christiani orbis antemurale, petitur
Polonia.' At the end of the century, on 25 July 1676, John HI Sobieski was writ-
ing to Charles II in almost exactly the same language, informing him how 'vast
Multitudes of Turks and Tartars fell upon this Bulwarke of Christendome to
destroy it.'^2
The concept of 'Antemurale' has been specially favoured by Catholic writers,
and in recent times has been adopted by the Vatican's Institute of Polish History
as the title of its distinguished journal. It is often associated with two other slo-
gans - that of 'Polonia Semper Fidelis' (Poland Ever Faithful) and that of Poland