Fabrica ecclesiae dominikanów w Gidlach w świetle przekazów archiwalnych. Organizacja i koszty budowy murowanej świątyni w siedemnastowiecznej Rzeczypospolitej

THE DOMINICAN FABRICA ECCLESIAE IN GIDLE IN THE LIGHT OF ARCHIVAL RECORDS. AN EXAMPLE OF ORGANIZING AND FINANCING THE BUILDING OF BRICK TEMPLES IN THE COMMONWEALTH IN THE 17TH CENTURY The article discusses issues of building churches in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the modern era, a topic that has not been sufficiently investigated so far. The research is based on the rich archival records concerning the building of the Dominican church in Gidle and comparative data on the building of other churches in the 17th c. The church in Gidle is a good illustration of how such projects were carried out in the Commonwealth at that time. The Dominicans prepared the building site and provided the supply of building materials. In 1617, two years after they settled in Gidle, they opened a brickyard and a year later a quarry. The monastery, being the investor, made separate contracts with bricklayers, carpenters and other craftsmen. The number of craftsmen employed varied, depending on the current needs and the tempo of works. An analysis of expenditure indicates that on the average the building works involved a team of about twenty workers, including eight bricklayers. This relatively small number, probably connected with the church being far from urban centres, can explain why the building progressed rather slowly. The completion of the church, including the vaults and the roof, took 17 years (1632–1649/1650), which was above the average time of erecting a church of that size in the 17th c. The building process was uninterrupted but there might have been financial difficulties due to which completing the spires and decorating the interior were delayed. Such difficulties, however, were quite common in church building projects in the modern era, as their completion depended not so much on the technological potential as on the investor’s affluence. The time of completion was only partly determined by the size of the edifice and the grandeur of its interior decoration, although these made the costs higher. The Dominican church in Gidle, which is 55 metres long, with a 24-metre-wide nave and a 55-metre transept, counts as a large church. The accounts were made in florins (divided to 30 grosz), as was customary at that time, and settled weekly. For some time the bricklayers were paid for a particular length of wall built, which is reminiscent of a piecework system. The master supervising the works received a separate higher pay. The system of paying craftsmen and th