ABSTRACT
On the opening pages of a missal printed for the Polish capital in the 1490s, a crudely executed woodcut shows Fryderyk Jagiellon as bishop of Kraków, kneeling in a two-dimensional space (Figure 3). He is depicted in a flowing cardinal’s cloak and tonsured, with a wide-brimmed hat dangling down his back, a long primate’s cross tucked under one arm and the Polish coat of arms resting at his knees. This is the approved picture of Fryderyk as prelate and pastor that he wished his flock to see. What realities of church government lay behind this simple printed image? Just what kind of bishop, ecclesiastical administrator, pastor and spiritual leader was Fryderyk Jagiellon, ‘the son and brother of great kings’?1
