She was born on 5 March 1234 in Esztergom, daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary and Maria Laskarina, of the imperial Byzantine house. Royal blood, then, flowed in her veins on both sides.
As a child of five, in the year 1239, she came to Poland, and at Wojnicz she was betrothed to Bolesław, son of Leszek the White. The wedding took place in Kraków “after 1246”, and the marriage, so tradition holds, was chaste.
Lady and Duchess of Sącz
In the year of Our Lord 1257, on the second day of March, at Korczyn, Prince Bolesław, whom posterity named the Chaste, gave the land of Sącz to his wife.
Nor was it on a mere whim, but as repayment for her dowry. Forty thousand marks of silver had the Hungarian princess brought with her, and all of it went to raising from the ashes a duchy that the Tatars had laid waste with fire and sword in 1241. The Historical Atlas of Polish Towns, for its part, links this grant with funds lent for the chartering of Kraków in the same year.
By what right she held the land, scholars cross swords to this day. Some write of full ownership with ducal power, others of a life interest, others still – following a copy of a document from 1661 – of a pledge of Sącz and 28 villages.
One thing is certain: from then on she styled herself domina et princeps de Sandech, Lady and Duchess of Sącz.
From village to town
“The town was founded in 1257” – so the guidebooks say, but that is a simplification. The charter of foundation has vanished without trace, and the chartering under German law is cautiously dated to 1257–1273.
As late as 4 June 1268, at Korczyn, Kinga granted the office of village headman (sołectwo) of Sącz to one Pysz (Pyschon) – Sącz was then a village with a headman.
Yet by 18 April 1273 a document freeing the burghers from tolls names the reeve Michał, advocatus de civitate nostra Sandecz – the reeve “of our town of Sącz”. Between those two dates the village became a town. A further toll privilege followed in 1278.
The layout of the new town followed models from Spiš and Hungary – Košice, Prešov, Levoča, Bardejov, Podolínec – measured with the “small” cord of 125 feet. Kinga brought from her homeland not only silver, but a pattern as well.
The parish church was taken under the care of St Elizabeth and St Margaret – the duchess’s aunt and sister.
The Lady of Sącz cared for the surrounding country too. She granted mills in Podegrodzie, freed the settlers of Gołkowice from taxes for 30 years in return for clearing the forest, and the parish of Biegonice received its first church in 1269. The charter of Gołkowice from 1276 was discovered in the Ossolineum by Professor Stanko.
The convent of the poor ladies
In the western part of the terrace there rose a Franciscan friary with the church of St Stanislaus, intended for twelve brothers. In 1287 a provincial chapter was held there.
On 7 December 1279 Bolesław died, and the widowed Kinga went to Sącz.
The foundation charter of the convent of the Poor Clares bears the date 6 July 1280. Kinga made over to the community the town of Sącz with its customs house and 28 villages – among them Biegonice, Barcice, Łącko and Zarzecze – with their rivers, mills, ponds and forest beehives. This estate was among the largest held by the Poor Clares in Poland.
In 1281 the community was already at work, the first sisters having come from Skała. Pope Martin IV confirmed the foundation on 2 July 1283, and around 1285 Archbishop Jakub Świnka granted indulgences to those who would support the building of the convent church.
It did not pass without dispute. Leszek the Black, Bolesław’s successor, challenged Kinga’s rights to the Sącz region. A settlement brokered by Bishop Paweł of Przemanków left her the land of Sącz in exchange for renouncing Biecz and Korczyn.
Tatars at the gates and the final years
In December 1287 and January 1288 came terror: a Tatar raid forced Kinga and the sisters to flee to the castle in the Pieniny near Krościenko. The Tatars burnt the wooden church at Biegonice, which Kinga rebuilt in 1288.
In January of that year the Hungarians routed a Mongol detachment circa castrum Zandech – “near the stronghold of Sącz”. Whether this meant the stronghold at Podegrodzie or the town itself, no one knows.
After the storm came the stillness of the cloister. In 1288 Kinga began her novitiate, and on 24 April 1289 she made her profession at the hands of Bishop Paweł.
Whether she was formally abbess, the sources do not say; Gryfina succeeded her as abbess. On 21 September 1291 her illness began, and on 24 July 1292 Kinga died in Stary Sącz. She was laid to rest in a chapel of the convent church.
She left a lasting legacy. The Poor Clares preserved musical manuscripts from the 13th century – chant books with polyphony added, and a fragment from c. 1300, most likely copied on the spot, with the conductus Omnia beneficia. From it today’s festival of early music takes its name.
A few months after Kinga’s death, on 8 November 1292, King Wenceslas II issued the charter of foundation of Nowy Sącz. For Kinga’s town a new and harder age was beginning.
In old and new photographs
