Blessed Salomea

Blessed Salomea was a princess of the Piast dynasty, the wife of Coloman, King of Halych, and after his death the first Polish Poor Clare. The Roman Martyrology commemorates her on November 17.

She was born in 1211 or 1212; the exact date is not known. She was the daughter of Leszek the White, Duke of Krakow and Sandomierz, and of the Ruthenian princess Grzymisława, and her younger brother was Bolesław the Chaste. As a child of only a few years she was promised, under an agreement between her father and King Andrew II of Hungary, as wife to his son Coloman, and she was sent to the Hungarian court. Coloman was the brother of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary.

About 1215, with the consent of Pope Innocent III, Coloman was crowned King of Halych, and from then on Salomea was called queen. Their reign in Halych was short. After a few years both were taken captive by Prince Mstislav, and once released they returned to Hungary. Coloman later ruled Slavonia, and Salomea was at his side. According to the medieval Lives, the spouses lived in virginity. In Hungary Salomea came to know the Franciscans.

In 1241 Coloman died of wounds received in battle against the Tatars. The widowed Salomea returned to Poland, to her brother’s court. In 1999 John Paul II recalled that Salomea and her mother Grzymisława, both known for deep piety, asceticism, and love of prayer, befriended the young Kinga, the future wife of Bolesław, and had a great influence on her. In 1245, at the chapter of the Franciscans in Sandomierz, Salomea received the habit of the Poor Clares.

For her and her companions a monastery was established at Zawichost near Sandomierz, endowed by Bolesław the Chaste, and beside it a hospital. The first sisters came from Prague. It was the first monastery of Poor Clares in the Polish lands. About 1260, under the threat of Tatar raids, the community was moved to Skała near Krakow. Salomea founded the monastery there, provided it with books and liturgical furnishings, and established a town beside it. In the town’s founding charter she called herself Sister Salomea of the Order of Saint Clare, once queen of Halych.

In the summer of 1268, gravely ill, she drew up her will, in which she left her goods to the monastery. She died at Skała in November 1268; the day most often given is November 17. The following year her body was moved, in keeping with her wish, to the church of the Franciscans in Krakow, where it rests to this day. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Poor Clares of Skała moved to Krakow, to the monastery beside the Church of Saint Andrew, where they live to this day.

She was venerated from the moment of her death, and her Life was written already in the Middle Ages. The efforts to raise her to the altars were renewed in the seventeenth century; King John Casimir supported them. Pope Clement X confirmed her cult in 1673, which is equivalent to beatification. In Poland her liturgical memorial falls on November 19.