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 THE ORIGINS OF CRACOW The illuminated liturgical MSS. for the use of Polish churches were at first all imported from abroad, e.g. the eleventh century homilies now in the archives of the Cathedral. But very early—in all probability as soon as the eleventh century—the art of illuminating began to be practised in the convent cells of Poland by the foreign monks. And as the codices carried away from Polish collections, and now kept in the Public Library at St. Petersburg, clearly show, the work of this kind done in Poland

followed the principles of the Rhenish school, but with some admixture of Eastern elements.

With the removal of the Ducal Court to Plock (now in Russian Poland) the city of Cracow temporarily loses some of its importance. Plock, the capital of Masovia, becomes, in the twelfth century, the centre of all Polish civilization and art. The episcopal see of Plock was then occupied by Alexander of Szrensko (1129-1156), a pupil of the Belgian Benedictines of Malonne, and