Церковная канцелярия в Литве в XVII веке: язык отчетов генеральных визитаций

Abstract

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, due to its inner organisational model - a multinational, multilingual and multi-religious state - and the geopolitical situation was compelled to employ multilingualism to maintain internal and external communication. Bilingualism and sometimes multilingualism were also characteristic of GDL Western Catholic churches. The paper analyses the manifestations of bilingualism in the scriptures of the GDL Roman Catholic church with the focus on the documents of ecumenical visitations to parish churches. During the visitations of high-level church officials to the parish, a thorough examination and detailed description of the church building, its equipment, liturgical accessories, the buildings and property of the rectory, etc. were carried out. Nowadays, the old visitation documents are significant not only for the history of specific parishes and the analysis of material culture and art heritage or for the cognition of other regional organisational models, but also for the perception of the linguistic situation and the level of linguistic education in GDL. As Latin was the language of the Catholic church, the documents of visitations were written in this language. Still the visitation process itself - presentation, registering and directions - combined verbal, visual and written communication. The result of this communication had to be presented in Latin. The analysis of old visitation documents discloses lexical and grammatical shifts between different (most often Latin and Polish) languages in the process of communication during visitations.[...]