Symbolic Capital and a Saintly Bishop in Medieval Poland

In this interview, Grzegorz Pac, Professor at the Faculty of History of the University of Warsaw, discusses his on-going research into the cult of saints and canonisation in Medieval Poland.  Through a case study of the canonisation of St Stanislaus of Krakow, Grzegorz focusses on how a saint, particularly a popular and highly venerated saint, could confer symbolic capital onto a specific church, diocese and individual bishops or archbishops.  And in turn, how this symbolic capital offers the beneficiaries greater status and power within the ecclesiastical hierarchy.  In addition, Grzegorz considers how the medieval process of canonisation, while becoming more formalised, was more difficult and less effective in the newly Christianised regions peripheral to the centre of Christianity in Rome.This podcast is part of a series of interviews covering central Europe in the medieval period for MECERN and CEU Medieval Studies.