Gniezno Cathedral — five churches on one hill

Five churches, one site

What you see from outside is the fifth building raised here. Excavations beneath the floor uncovered a stone structure from the late ninth century and, above it, the walls of the church in which Dobrawa, wife of Duke Mieszko I, was buried in 977.

After the Bohemian duke Břetislav raided the town in 1038 the church lay in ruins. Rebuilt in Romanesque style, it was consecrated in 1064 and extended for two centuries until its eastern end collapsed.

The Gothic cathedral standing today was begun in the 1340s by Archbishop Jarosław Bogoria, with the chancel and nave finished around 1390. It is a three-aisled basilica with an ambulatory — a plan that lets pilgrims circle the saint's tomb without interrupting the liturgy.

Over the centuries a ring of fourteen chapels accumulated around the walls, funded by successive archbishops and magnate families. Each has its own style and its own crypt, so walking the circuit is a tour through four hundred years of Polish funerary art.

The year 1000

Adalbert of Prague, a Bohemian nobleman turned bishop, was killed in 997 on a mission among the pagan Prussians. Bolesław the Brave bought the body back and had it buried in Gniezno. Two years later Adalbert was canonised, remarkably quickly by any standard.

In March 1000 Emperor Otto III travelled to the grave. The meeting, known as the Congress of Gniezno, created the Archdiocese of Gniezno, the first church province on Polish soil and answerable directly to the pope. Its first archbishop was Radzim Gaudentius, Adalbert's half-brother.

Gniezno has been called the mother of Polish churches ever since. From 1419 its archbishops have held the title of Primate of Poland, and in 1931 Pius XI raised the cathedral to the rank of minor basilica.

The doors

In the south porch hang the Gniezno Doors, cast in bronze around 1175 and generally reckoned the finest Romanesque object in Poland. Eighteen relief panels narrate the life and martyrdom of St Adalbert, from his birth through his mission to the ransom of his body.

One technical detail betrays two different workshops: the left wing was cast in a single piece, while the right was assembled from twenty-four separately cast sections. Both wings stand a little over three metres tall.

Most visitors give them five minutes, which is a shame. This is a narrative in metal, read bottom to top on the left wing and top to bottom on the right, framed by foliage with animals and small figures hidden inside it.

A silver coffin and five coronations

The relics of St Adalbert rest at the centre of the church in a silver coffin made in 1662 by the Gdańsk goldsmith Peter von der Rennen. It replaced an earlier one funded by King Sigismund III, which the Swedes carried off in 1655. Inside it sits a twelfth-century wooden casket.

Beside it lies a red marble tomb slab of 1480 by Hans Brandt of Gdańsk. The silver coffin was stolen in 1986 and recovered badly damaged; conservators spent years putting it back together.

Five rulers were crowned in this cathedral: Bolesław the Brave (1025), Mieszko II (1025), Bolesław the Bold (1076), Przemysł II (1295) and Wenceslaus II of Bohemia (1300). After that the coronation role passed to Kraków.

Shelling in 1945, and the return to Gothic

On 23 January 1945, two days after Soviet troops entered the town, the cathedral came under artillery fire. The tower helmets and roofs burned, vaulting collapsed and the organ was destroyed. Little survived of three centuries of baroque and neoclassical furnishing.

The rebuilding of the late 1950s and 1960s took a decision that is still argued over: rather than restoring the pre-war interior, conservators carried out a re-Gothicisation, stripping out what baroque remained. The result reads as a coherent medieval building — at the cost of the layers that are now gone.

In 1994 the cathedral was among the first sites placed on Poland's register of Historic Monuments, the highest national heritage designation.

Undercroft and tower

A route beneath the floor amounts to a cross-section through a thousand years: fragments of Mieszko I's church, foundations of a stone building from the late ninth century, and the oldest known funerary inscription in Poland, dated to about 1006.

The crypts under the chapels hold archbishops and primates, among them Ignacy Krasicki, bishop and the leading poet of the Polish Enlightenment. The names on the slabs are largely the names of people who helped govern the country for centuries.

One tower is open as a viewpoint. From the top you see the whole town, Lake Jelonek below the hill, and the plain crossed by the Piast Route, which links the cathedral with Ostrów Lednicki, Biskupin and Kruszwica.

Getting there

• By train — Gniezno sits on the Poznań–Inowrocław line; trains from Poznań take about forty minutes, and the cathedral hill is a fifteen-minute walk from the station.
• By car — national road 5 from Poznań, or via Inowrocław from Toruń and Bydgoszcz. Car parks are in the centre; spaces right by the hill are few.
• On foot in town — the cathedral, the Museum of the Origins of the Polish State and the market square are all within a short walk.
• Along the Piast Route — Ostrów Lednicki is halfway back to Poznań and Biskupin about forty kilometres north, which makes a comfortable two-day trip.

Before you go

This is a working parish church and the seat of the Primate of Poland, so the interior, undercroft, tower and doors are shown outside service times. The ticket desk beside the cathedral, run by the archdiocesan museum, handles everything in one place.

An hour covers the cathedral itself; two hours with the undercroft, the tower and an unhurried look at the doors; half a day if you add the museum. The undercroft stays cool and damp even in August.

The tower and undercroft are reached by steep stairs and are not accessible to visitors with limited mobility. The main body of the church is far easier.

How to get there and practical info

Location

Lech Hill in central Gniezno, Wielkopolska Voivodeship, about fifty kilometres east of Poznań

What to see

the nave, St Adalbert's tomb, the Gniezno Doors, the undercroft and the tower viewpoint

Age

the present Gothic cathedral was begun in the 1340s and largely finished around 1390

Status

minor basilica since 1931, Historic Monument of Poland since 1994

Time needed

an hour for the cathedral, around two hours with the undercroft and tower

Without a car

train from Poznań to Gniezno, then a fifteen-minute walk

Accessibility

tower and undercroft by steep stairs only; the main church is accessible

Current opening times and tickets

the cathedral's page on the Gniezno archdiocese website

When to go