134 ANTEMURALE
followed the stations of the Cross, were founded by pious noblemen. The elabor-
ate Baroque shrine of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska in the Carpathian foothills of
western Malopolska, laid out in 1613 by Michal Zebrzydowski, was but one of
many, and launched a cult which has lasted to the present day. New ascetic
Orders, such as the Cameduli in their enclosed hermitages at Bielany near
Cracow, and near Warsaw, struck a new note of unworldliness. Confraternities
of pious laymen, the bractwa, were organized. They were noted for their devo-
tion to the Rosary, for their marathon prayer meetings and processions, and for
their public displays of repentance and even of communal flagellation. Immense
efforts were made to cultivate the lives of the saints, especially of Polish saints,
and to press for their canonization. In 1594, St. Jacek, 'Hyacinth of Cracow'
(1185-1257), founder of the Dominican Order in Poland, was canonized. In
1602, St. Casimir of Cracow (1458-84), the second son of King Kazimierz
Jagiellonczyk, was recognized by the Vatican as the patron saint of the Polish
See. In 1622, the canonization of the Spaniard, St. Isidore the Farm-Servant,
caused great rejoicing among the Szlachta, who propagated his cult as a means
of engendering harmony, if not increased productivity, among their serfs. In the
course of the seventeenth century, the lengthy process of canonical litigation in
Rome was started on behalf of several prospective Polish candidates. The
beatification in 1604 of the youthful Jesuit St. Stanislaw Kostka (1550-68), pre-
pared the way for his canonization in 1826; the beatification in 1680 of St. Jan
Kanty, 'John of Kanti' (1390-1473), born at Kety near Cracow and sometime
Professor of the Jagiellonian University, preceded his canonization in 1767. The
Polish Church's martyrs included the Uniate Archbishop Jozefat Kuncewicz of
Polock (1580-1623), eventually canonized in 1867, and the priest, Andrzej
Bobola S.J. (1591-1657), barbarously murdered by Cossacks near Pinsk and
raised to the ranks of the Blessed in 1938. Among the unsuccessful candidates
was another Jesuit, Bazyl Narbutt whose case, though officially supported by the
Polish Sejm, failed to impress.
As a result of the Catholic Reformation, the Marian Cult reached new heights
of intensity. To some extent, the extraordinary veneration awarded to the
Virgin Mary in Poland, may be seen as the reassertion of a local 'Old Polish' tra-
dition against the centralizing, Latinizing, Romanizing reforms of the Council
of Trent; but it was equally the most obvious expression of Catholic solidarity
against the Protestant, Orthodox, and Judaic challenges of the age. In the sev-
enteenth century, more than one thousand Marian shrines were thriving in
Poland-Lithuania, each with its miraculous icon of the Matka Boska, 'The
Virgin Mother of God, Queen of Heaven'. Apart from the Pauline monastery of
Jasna Gora at Czestochowa, the principal Marian shrines were at Berdyczow in
Ukraine, at Borune in Lithuania, and at Chelm. The exclusively Polish Orders
of the Marian Fathers (1673) and of the Sacramentalist Sisters (1683) were
founded in honour of the Virgin; whilst many existing monasteries, especially
the nunneries of the Polish Benedictines, - the Norbertanki (Pre-monstraten-
sians) and Brygidki (Bridgettines) - were turned over entirely to the Marian cult.