The Lutheran Church in Rodowo as a Place of the Spiritual Meeting of Three Social Strata

The article presents the hitherto unknown decoration of the furnishing of a little Protestant church in Rodowo in Ducal Prussia, founded by the local aristocratic family ofthe Schack von Wittenaus. After firstly providing an overview of the complicated confessional history of the region, the church, and its patrons, the second part of this article presents the emblematic decoration of church benches based on the “Four Elements,” with models for tapestries designed by Charles Le Brun and published in Paris in 1668 (and later in Germany). The original emblems, with descriptions by Charles Perrault, refer to King Louis XVI as the ideal ruler, but in Rodowo they emphasize the position of the Prussian nobility as the most important social group in the country. The second part of the article presents four unknown easel paintings on the church walls, with a symbolic presentation of Lutheran piety connected with Pietism in Ducal Prussia. The entire artistic ensemble in the church refers to the role of noblemen as leaders in the social and religious life of Ducal Prussia.

analyze the topic. The research presented here is still very much a workin-progress. The article makes some tentative suggestions regarding the visualization of power relations in a village in Ducal Prussia and the influences of popular Western European texts and emblems on this agenda.
It contributes to current research on the use of Lutheran church spaces and the iconographic programme commissioned by Lutheran rulers to express their version of the order of society within them. While much recent research has particularly focused on analyzing the redecoration of formerly Catholic churches in the early phase of confessional change, the Lutheran church decorations presented here were commissioned and executed in the mid-eighteenth century (Spicer 2012;Heal 2017: Harasimowicz 2017.
The chosen programme therefore sheds further light on the themes employed by patrons and their artists in the age of Pietism and the early Enlightenment. The author hopes to further develop the ideas presented in the following pages through more comparative research in the future.

the History of rodowo in the context of confessional change in ducal Prussia
The Lutheran church in Rodowo, its furnishing, and its iconographic programme have not been the subject of scientific study so far. One of the first aims of this paper must therefore be to present its unique interior to a wider readership. It is unfortunate but symptomatic for many villages in Prussia that we do not have enough sources to write a full history of them, Rodowo included. The village (Ger. Gross Rohdau or Rodau), which was a part of the Prabuty estate, has its roots in medieval times. A first settlement was founded around 1285 and initially belonged (as Radowe) to the Teutonic knight Dietrich Stange and his heirs (Perlbach 1902).

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The Lutheran Church in Rodowo as a Place of the Spiritual Meeting of Three Social Strata Other references to the settlement appear in 1323 on the occasion of the demarcation of the neighbouring Gonty village boundaries, and then in 1361, when Bishop Nicholas of Cammin gave a settlement privilege to the village leader, a man named Segehardow, and to the residents of Rodow.
The privilege included the right to crop 70.5 fiefs of ground. Rodowo and the church were mentioned in local records concerning land use and land transaction in 1336 and 1361. The site was subsequently destroyed during the Polish-Teutonic wars (1409-1411 and 1454-1466) and, as a consequence, the village and its surrounding area became increasingly depopulated (Kaufmann 1937, 178). The Lutheran church established in his duchy was the first Protestant state church to be founded. From then on, Lutheran services were held in the Rodowo parish church. In 1530, the 'Statuta synodalia', a compendium of rules and regulations considered a textbook for the Lutheran confession, was published for the whole territory of Ducal Prussia and the 'Confessio Augustana' was adopted as obligatory (Małłek 2012, 233-247 (Kaufmann 1937, 178). The next church, which is the focus of this investigation, was built in 1754 ( Fig. 1). In all likelihood, it was of similar shape and had the same dimensions as the previous church. The date of the construction of the new building is preserved on the inscription above the south portal of the church. On the balustrade of the choir, one can read the name "Johann from Gdańsk (Schmid 1906, 198-201). The family's coat of arms (not retained today), indicating that the church

Figure 2
Rodau pulpit J. Doebel, Johannes Soeffrens furnishing was commissioned by the Schacks, was initially attached to the church benches and was decorated with emblems (Schmid 1906, 197 showing a deep red and blue chessboard and a wolf placed on the red background (Schmid 1906, 197-198;Fig. 3).

the Founders of the decoration
Presenting and analyzing the paintings in the interior of the church in Rodowo, we should start with the fact that the ensemble is not completely preserved in its original form. An unknown number of panels with emblematic paintings were presumably stolen. One of them was found in a church in Pasłęk (Preussisch Holland) in the property of the local parish.
Given the unique character of the emblem paintings, we can assume that such characteristic decoration benches were made particularly for the church in Rodowo (Fig. 4,5,6). So far, the decoration benches have not been discovered in any other churches in Ducal Prussia. Therefore, we will discuss only the panels present there and four oval paintings located in the western part of the church. The decoration of the church in Rodowo can be considered as a visualization of the relationship between the clergy, the peasants, and, above all, the owners of the village. These tiers are represented through different artistic styles and motives, and through the Bible and from the Dutch graphic art (Cieślak 1988;Birecki 2009). We can detect, therefore, a new tendency in the iconographic programme, which might have taken place in the eighteenth century.
The emblems of the "Quatre elemens" indicate the qualities of an ideal ruler. In Rodowo, they emphasize the qualities of the local landlords, the Schack von Wittenaus. The element emblem of "Fire" (Fig. 7), showing the censer of burning fire, refers to the sacred fire burning before God.
It represents salvation and the "Holiness of the Lord" ("Gottseligkeit"), who is "a consuming fire" ("Das Heilig Feuhr verzehr"-"Et Sacro capitur igni"). This emblem is associated with the other emblem of "Goodness" or "Gütigkeit", which was explained with the phrase, "My light illuminates the way so that you can sail safely," and was given the motto "In Publica Commod Fulget (pleasantly radiant in public)", indicating that God kindly sends the beacon light to lead man through life's difficulties. "Air" (Fig. 8) is associated with an emblem showing bees flying out of the hive, referring to the explanation of gentleness and grace as qualities that characterize the good ruler: "Gelindigkeit und Gnad, des Königs Zeichen hat". The Lord, as indicated by the explanation, is known by his subjects and by the fact that the king is, analogous to a queen bee, a king bee devoid of a sting. It indicates that he is full of grace and goodness. "Water" is related to the emblem with the motto and explanation of Charles Perrault, "Facit omnia laeta", an illustrated presentation of a water current and figures of frogs, which, in Rodowo, were turned into more serious sirens. The explanation of the emblem placed below the image clearly shows that the majesty of the king will bring good luck and wealth to all who obey him. We can find two examples related to "Earth" in the group of emblems in Rodowo.
The first depicts a sunflower in bloom, underlined by the motto, "Wie sich der Himmel regt, so werd ich auch bewegt", explaining to the reader that the power of the king directly affects the subjects, who must follow him just like the sunflower follows the sun. The other emblem says, "Et regit, et Servat," described "Er leitet hin und her, und ist der Schäflein wehr".
Charles Perrault explains that the pastoral staff is to watch over the herd 123 and, if necessary, to defend it against wolves. The king, therefore, not only governs his people, but also protects them against all enemies.
The emblem ensemble in Rodowo and its particular motifs are unique in Ducal Prussia. In other churches, the nobility preferred to represent themselves and their leadership virtues through a display of their coat of arms. This was easy for the reviewers to read. The Schacks followed this practice in their main church in Susz, but why they preferred this intellectually more ambitious programme of emblems, initially designed in praise of Louis XIV to decorate their small and remote village church in Rodowo, remains unclear.

Pietism and the spiritual Meeting of three social strata
Another very important element of the interior of the church are the four oval paintings (formerly on the ceiling) mentioned above, placed in broad  The third painting indicates the power of the prayers of the saints (orationes sanctorum), true believers in Christ, whose prayers, usually praising God, are carried straight toward heaven (Fig. 11). Prayer for divine power is naturally pronounced by the minister, from the hand-held book, reading: "Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus, Deus Sabaoth" (Isaiah 6:3).
The abortive prayer is spoken in turn by the spouses, whose words, as a thin    (Michalski 1982, 194).  This is the case with paintings placed on the benches, where the source of inspiration was precisely written emblems and their message was directed toward the most educated members of the parish, that is, the founders or the noble guests of the Schacks visiting the church.
The easel paintings of the church in Rodowo fit into the image of Lutheran art as "verba visibilia" of that religion (Michalski 1982, 173). The emblematic structure is arranged in a very original ensemble, in which the image is completed by the Word. Combining a biblical quotation with a picture is, of course, part of a much older tradition, associated with medieval art, for instance (the words on the bands). In Lutheran art, the coexistence of the image and the written word was realized by inserting biblical verses in medieval paintings, thus literally overwriting the traditional cult of the veneration of sacred images. The last step was giving the words the new confessional narrative. Luther recommended, for instance, the visual representation of the Last Supper "with large golden letters described around, so that the eyes could see, a heart could remember it, and for the reading eyes to praise and thank God" (Michalski 1982, 173-174). Paintings combining inscriptions with images were intriguing iconographic puzzles offering a way to develop multiple biblical threads in preaching on part of the local clergy in Rodowo. An example of this could be a painting showing the king in chains, which might refer to the inner "I", "the old nature" of St. Paul, which, as a king, reigns in humans and must be suppressed in accordance with the accompanying inscription-the will of God. Church (Harasimowicz 1996, 9-19;Burkhardt 2009 (Harasimowicz 1996, 21). We Prussia (Cieślak 1994, 205-219).
In the small towns in the Duchy of Prussia, the combination of texts and pictures can frequently be seen in pulpits, where biblical verses were placed on the stairs along the railings (e.g. in Łabędnik or in Lwowiec).  (Gawthrop 1993, 200-269;Wójcik 2000;Lorck 1965, 106-107;Dohna 1995, 93).