When describing the Battle of Grunwald of 1410 at the times of Casimir Jagiellon, Jan Długosz noted that when the Teutonic Knights had sent two unsheathed swords, the Polish knights sang Bogurodzica, (Mother of God) "patrium camen" before the battle: "When the signal [for the battle] started, the entire royal army sang in loud voices their native song Bogurodzica, following which they dashed to battle, shaking their lances."
He reported the singing of Bogurodzica before a battle in two more accounts: of the Battle of Nakło (1431) and the war with Świdrygiełło (1435), which means that it was a custom that formed part of Polish chivalric tradition. Although it is now doubted whether the entire army could indeed sing the song, given its difficult melody (or rather it was sang by a group of chanters); what matters, however, is the conviction first expressed by Długosz and later repeated by historians: Marcin Bielski and Marcin Kromera as well as other authors, that our predecessors treated the song as a chivalric song encouraging them to fight, which affected later perception of Bogurodzica.
In the 16th century, the text of Bogurodzica was disseminated through print, but what matters is not so much the number of reprints (as many as 16 between the years 1532 and 1621, according to J. Starnawski) as the nature of the publications it usually accompanied. First of all, these were fundamental collections of laws, i.e. the 1506 Jan Łaski's Statutes. The fact that Bogurodzica was included in that publication made it almost a national anthem, especially that it also accompanied crowning ceremonies (e.g. of Władysław of Varna). Secondly, collections of sermons and polemical and religious texts. It was also commonly believed and repeated by most authors (although now it is treated more like a legend) that the author of the song was Saint Adalbert (e.g. M. Kromer, with reserve: "claiming it to be the work of Saint Adalbert"). In the most famous of them, the Postylla katolicka (Catholic postil) (1573-1575), Jesuit Jakub Wujek wrote in a sermon for the feast of Saint Adalbert: "It was the custom of Polish commanders and knights, when they went to battle with pagans, Turks, Vlachs, Moscow, or Tatars, then they would first sing Bogurodzica, as a proclamation of faith that they defended risking their own lives. We too, with Bogarodzica as proclamation of faith and the first and the only true Gospel, can today confront heretics, such as Tatars..."
Thus, the updating interpretation made the song of ancestors a tool in counter-reformation struggles, and the basic polemical argument that convinced sarmatians was its long history. The fact that Bogurodzica was a very old song (now, it is commonly dated to the 13th century) also caused linguistic problems. This is why in the most popular book in old Poland, namely Żywoty świętych (Lives of the Saints) (1579), Piotr Skarga, when describing the life of Saint Adalbert, presented Bogurodzica as a catechism of the "true Catholic faith" and included an explanation of the song, from which we can see that he, too, was unable to understand some anachronisms. After all, even the writers of the golden period of Renaissance emphasised the song's belonging to the old world and its difference from contemporary cultural models. Łukasz Górnicki, in his Dworzanin polski(Polish courtier), criticised those who complained about the imperfection of the Polish language using as an argument the "old Polish language of Bogurodzica," and Jan Kochanowski, in his prose dialogue Wróżki(Fairies) used the song to criticise his contemporaries: "..today's songs are as different from Bogurodzica as morals are from the statutes."
The changes also affected the functioning of the song in chivalric customs. In a dialogue published in 1595, Albertus, a servant sent to war by a parish priest, gives such account to his patron:
"Pr(iest)
Do they still maintain the old and holy tradition
of singing Bogurodzica before a battle,
like they used to when Poland accepted Christianity?
My old father would tell me stories like that.
Alb(ertus)
No, you wouldn't here it nowadays, it is now sung by women
and beggars asking for mercy in God's name.
It would be ridiculous, if anyone tried
To sing Bogurodzica in times of war."
The above work represents the trend of carnivalesque literature that eagerly ridicules official cultural models, so most certainly it presents a sharpened and deformed image of reality. However, turning a chivalric song of ancestors into the song of beggars does not necessarily have to be a satirical exaggeration. Similar definitions of Bogurodzica as beggar song (Grzegorz z Żarnowca) and song of the poor (K. Kraiński) can be found in polemical Protestant texts. However, an account of indisputable source value may be the testimony of Fabian Birkowski, the famous camp preacher who spent a lot of time at war and was the author of the special Camp sermon on Bogurodzica (1623). In the dedication letter preceding the sermon, addressed to the famous warrior and Knight of Malta, Bartłomiej Nowodworski, he wrote: "[...] I took part in a number of wars and never heard Poles singing Bogurodzica when in need; instead they would rather shout like wolves on the enemies [...] Some, when, requested by priests, would sing Bogurodzica with them near the tents; however, there were not many of them and they were outnumbered but those who neither knew nor cared what that song was."
The above actions taken by chaplains were an element of the campaign undertaken by Catholic priests to revive the chivalric spirit in the Commonwealth, according to specific instructions of the Catholic Church, formulated in numerous letters propagating the model of a Christian knight (e.g. Żołnierskie nabożeństwo(Soldier's worship) by P. Skarga or Prawy rycerz (Righteous knight) by S. Starowolski).
Bogurodzica was used as a tool to propagate knightly ideals also by lay authors. A meaningful example is the Seneca-style Pobudka do cnoty (Arguments for being virtuous) (1618), "compiled by one soldier," probably Hetman Stefan Żółtowski himself and the fact that it is preceded by the text of the "old Polish song"Bogurodzica "that Polish soldiers for ages used to sing before battle." Similar is the significance of the leaflet published by Bartłomiej Nowodworski at the hot times of 1621: Bogurodzica is the song and testament of Saint Adalbert, Polish apostle and Gniezno Archbishop, left by him to educate Polish Catholics..., where the text of the song was followed by a distich encouraging to battle:
"I give Bogurodzica for a pogrom of pagans,
Bartłomiej Nowodworski, Knight of Malta."
In the next year, Nowodworski asked Pope George XV to order that Bogurodzica be sung in the churches of the Commonwealth as a catechetical hymn, claiming it to be the oldest and most devotional anthem of the Polish nation written by Saint Adalbert and hoping that it would be sung at weddings and funerals and would accompany military campaigns. However, Bogurodzica remained forever only a part of idealised knightly tradition, rather than military practice.
Translation: Lingua Lab
