St. Giles-Church in Inowłódz: A Romanesque Filial Church in Poland
Site at a Glance
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- Poland
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Poland
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Fortified Church
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History
St. Giles-Church in Inowłódz is a Romanesque Roman Catholic filial church in Inowłódz, Poland. A filial church is a subsidiary church attached to a parish, and this one belongs to the Parish of St. Michael the Archangel in Inowłódz, within the Diocese of Łowicz, an ecclesiastical district administered by a bishop. The building is regarded as an example of early Romanesque architecture from the eleventh-century phase of the first major pan-European architectural style.
Uncertain medieval foundation
The church’s foundation date and founder remain uncertain. A later inscription, probably from the seventeenth century, says that Władysław I Herman founded it in 1082 in thanksgiving for the birth of his son, Bolesław III Wrymouth. Władysław I Herman was a Piast ruler of Poland from 1079 to 1102, while Bolesław III later served as duke of Poland from 1107 to 1138. The fifteenth-century chronicler Jan Długosz gives 1086 as the foundation date. Another interpretation attributes the foundation to Bolesław III in 1138.
A Benedictine nunnery, meaning a women’s monastery following the Benedictine tradition, was established on the same hill at the time associated with the church’s foundation. The nunnery was destroyed during the Mongol invasion of 1241. St. Giles-Church survived, and its architectural features include elements regarded as defensive in character.
Decline and changing use
The construction of the Church of St. Michael in 1520 reduced the older church’s importance, and it subsequently began to decline. An attempt to renew its religious role came in 1790, when a miraculous image of Our Lady of Sorrows was transferred from a chapel in Giełzów.
Prussian soldiers plundered the church in 1793. Afterward, the building was converted into a grain store and deteriorated further during the nineteenth century. By the beginning of the twentieth century, it was damaged and covered by a thatched roof.
Twentieth-century reconstruction
Restoration began under Tsar Nicholas II, the last emperor of the Russian Empire, but the church suffered additional damage during the First World War. The first postwar reconstruction, undertaken from 1924 to 1926, remained unfinished.
A comprehensive restoration and reconstruction followed in 1936 to 1938 on the initiative of Ignacy Mościcki, president of Poland from 1926 to 1939. The work followed a design by Wilhelm Henneberg and was carried out by Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz, a Polish architect and monument conservator. The church was reconsecrated on 1 November 1938. This campaign also introduced elements considered foreign to the earlier architecture, including an additional storey on the tower and a gallery with triforium-like openings in place of the nave’s open western arcade.
St. Giles-Church in Inowłódz is a registered historic monument under registration number 765, dated 27 December 1967. A cemetery lies beside the church, which continues to have a religious role, with summer services held once a week on Sundays.
Remains
The church has a compact axial plan formed by a cylindrical western tower, a single-space rectangular nave, and an eastern apse, the usually semicircular termination of a church. Its surviving form combines early Romanesque features with alterations made during the 1936 to 1938 reconstruction. The tower rises from the nave’s western wall, while the cemetery is situated beside the building.
Plan and tower
The western tower opens toward the interior gallery through a high arcade, a series of arches. A spiral staircase leads up to the gallery. The tower’s upper storeys contain biforium openings, or two-part openings divided by a central support, and serve as a bell tower. The tower was raised by one storey during the 1936 to 1938 reconstruction, so its present height reflects both the earlier structure and the later intervention.
Nave, apse, and western gallery
The nave is a single rectangular space ending in an eastern apse. The western part now contains a gallery with triforium-like openings, meaning an internal gallery or wall zone formed by small arcades. This arrangement replaced an open western arcade during the twentieth-century reconstruction. The church’s defensive architectural features are part of the surviving character of the building, which endured the destruction of the Benedictine nunnery on the same hill in 1241.
Masonry and carved detail
The walls are built from carefully laid, flat sandstone ashlar blocks. Ashlar is masonry made from regularly cut stone blocks arranged in low courses. In some places the stones form opus spicatum, a herringbone pattern. The exterior walls lack lesenes, which are shallow vertical strips commonly applied to Romanesque façades.
A capital, probably preserved from a biforium opening, carries interlaced ornament enclosed within a figure-eight shape and flanked by volutes. Its design recalls a classical capital. Together with the rounded forms, robust stone construction, and relatively small openings associated with Romanesque architecture, this carved element contributes to the building’s early medieval character.
Architectural connections
The church’s arrangement has been compared with round-tower churches in the counties of eastern England. The architectural model may instead have reached Poland through Saxony, since Poland had no direct contacts with England at the time. Its present appearance therefore brings together an early Romanesque plan and masonry tradition with the raised tower and western gallery introduced in the 1936 to 1938 rebuilding.
