, image=SM Tum kolegiata ID 612614.jpg , image_size=250px , caption=The church in 2012 , pushpin map=Poland , coordinates= , location= Tum,

Łęczyca Łęczyca (; in full the Royal Town of Łęczyca, pl, Królewskie Miasto Łęczyca; german: Lentschitza; he, לונטשיץ) is a town of 13,786 inhabitants () in central Poland. Situated in the Łódź Voivodeship, it is the county seat of the ...

Łódź Voivodeship Łódź Voivodeship (also known as Lodz Province, or by its Polish name ''Województwo łódzkie'' ) is a province- voivodeship in central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Łódź Voivodeship (1975–1999) and the Sier ...

, country=

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, denomination=

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

, consecrated date=21 May 1161 , style= Romanesque (external) , website= , religious order= , parish= , diocese= Roman Catholic Diocese of Łowicz The Collegiate Church of St. Mary and St. Alexius ( pl, Kolegiata w Tumie) is an encastellated Romanesque church located in the village of Tum near

, in central

. It was constructed out of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

blocks and

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

in the mid-12th century. The church was built using the

opus emplectum ''Opus emplectum'' is an advanced Roman construction technique. Each side of a wall is constructed with finished stone blocks, leaving a substantial void between them. The void is filled with a mixture of broken stones mixed with mortar. A good ex ...

technique. It has the form of an aisled

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's Forum (Roman), forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building ...

with galleries, a twin-tower west façade, and two

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

s (west and east). It was reconstructed in the 15th, 18th and mid-20th centuries; during the latest reconstruction the church returned to its simpler Romanesque form and round turrets at the east were added. The main (north) portal is sculpted and dates back to the first half of 12th century.

History

Medieval

The temple stands on top of a holm or islet which was once surrounded by wetlands and

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found a ...

es. There is evidence from a papal bull issued by Pope Innocent II that a wooden monastery of the early Benedictine Brothers pre dated the church by at least a century. Older excavations and historical analysis suggested that the monastery was founded by Boleslaus I, the first King of Poland, and

Saint Adalbert of Prague Adalbert of Prague ( la, Sanctus Adalbertus, cs, svatý Vojtěch, sk, svätý Vojtech, pl, święty Wojciech, hu, Szent Adalbert (Béla); 95623 April 997), known in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia by his birth name Vojtěch ( la, Vo ...

in approximately 997 AD. However, more recent studies prove that it was most likely founded during the Restoration period, in the second half of the 11th century. The monastery was demolished to make way for the current church. Historian and painter

Władysław Łuszczkiewicz Władysław Łuszczkiewicz (September 3, 1828 – May 23, 1900) was a Polish historian and painter of the late Romantic era from Kraków, active in the period of the foreign partitions of Poland. He was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts and ...

noted that the islet (and the nearby mound) served as a small fortified stronghold, or gord. He justified his claim with the location particulars, as churches would be founded in the vicinity of populated settlements or castles than on isolated land. The construction was initiated by Janik, Archbishop of Gniezno, in around 1149. According to a legend, the local townsfolk from

believed that the dimples in stonework were made by the hands of

Devil Boruta Devil Boruta ( pl, Diabeł Boruta) is a fictional character from Polish mythology, folklore and literature, associated with the Polish town of Łęczyca. The character is the transformation of the pagan Slavic demon '' leshy'' in post-Christi ...

, who attempted to destroy the church. The unfinished structure was consecrated on 21 May 1161 by officials and princes. Tum was the site of 21 provincial synods, beginning in 1181 and ending in 1547. TumCollegialePlan

Apart from religious service, the encastellated (fortified) church and its surroundings could harbour local townsfolk from danger and enemy troops. Tum defended itself in 1241 during the

first Mongol invasion of Poland The Mongol Invasion of Poland from late 1240 to 1241 culminated in the Battle of Legnica, where the Mongols defeated an alliance which included forces from fragmented Poland and their allies, led by Henry II the Pious, the Duke of Silesia. ...

, but in c. 1293 the army of

Vytenis Vytenis ( be, Віцень, Vicień; pl, Witenes) was the Grand Duke of Lithuania from c. 1295 to c. 1316. He became the first of the Gediminid dynasty to rule for a considerable amount of time. In the early 14th century his reputation outshon ...

, the pagan Duke of Lithuania, managed to capture the settlement. Some of the refugees who hid in the church were slaughtered and others were enslaved. The gord (''grodzisko'') to the southwest of the church was burned and abandoned, though the mound exists to this day. Throughout the 14th century, the church was being repeatedly pillaged by the

Teutonic Knights The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians o ...

. Subsequent reconstructions were not in the original Romanesque style, but

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

(15th century) and later Neoclassical (mid-late 18th century). This architectural versatility could be observed until the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Contemporary

During the

Battle of the Bzura The Battle of the Bzura (or the Battle of Kutno) was the largest Polish counter-attack of the German invasion of Poland and was fought from 9 to 19 September.''The Second World War: An Illustrated History '', Putnam, 1975, Google Print snippet ...

in September 1939, a German soldier used the northernmost tower as an observation point and with the intention to direct the German artillery against Polish positions. As a result, the Polish army shelled Tum, thus damaging one of the towers. During the recapture attempt, German

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

planes bombed the site which caused more destruction to the roof and internal furnishings leaving an empty shell. The original stone outerwalls did survive. Reconstruction works began in 1947 and were headed by

Jan Zachwatowicz Jan Zachwatowicz (4 March 1900 – 18 August 1983) was a Polish architect, architectural historian, and restorer. Biography Zachwatowicz was born in Gatchina. He studied Industrial Civil Engineering at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical Univers ...

and Jan Koszczyc Witkiewicz. The church was rebuilt without the later Gothic or Neoclassical elements, thus returning to its initial Romanesque form. The re-consecration took place in 1961. The crucifix inside the church was designed in 1943 by Józef Gosławski. File:Tum bok.jpg, Round turrets File:Tum - Kolegiata 01.jpg, Side view showing the encastellation File:Tum 007.JPG, The legendary dimples left by the hands of

File:Kolegiata w Tumie, absyda wschodnia.jpg, Rear view of the

presbyterium Presbyterium is a modern term used in the Catholic Church and Eastern Catholic Churches after the Second Vatican Council in reference to a college of priests, in active ministry, of an individual particular church such as a diocese or eparchy. T ...

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * *

External links

TUM – Collegiate Church of St. Mary and St. Alex on Medievalheritage.eu
*{{cite web , url = http://sekulada.com/kolegiata-w-tumie/ , title=Kolegiata w Tumie - Gniazdo orła białego , website=sekulada.com, language = pl Churches in Łódź Voivodeship Churches in Poland Łęczyca County Romanesque architecture