Church-Hospital Complex of the Holy Spirit in Szydłów (Lesser Poland) in the Light of Field Research and Against a Comparative Background

This article presents the results of an archaeological and architectural investigation of the church and hospital complex of the Holy Spirit in Szydłów, one of the most interesting surviving examples of this type of layout in Poland. This study analyses the structural evolution of this site from the 16th to the 18th century, and reconstructs its successive development phases based on written sources, field studies and analysis of anthropological burials. Special attention was given to the complex’s social and sepulchral uses, as well as its place against the background of hospital management in Poland and Europe. This study highlights the significance of future interdisciplinary studies of similar sites, which allow us to gain further insight into the transformation of the spatial disposition of hospital and sepulchral complexes that occurred between the Middle Ages and the modern period. They were marked by the narrowing of the religious sphere in favour of the secular functionalization of space and the separation of these once equivalent contents, with their long-term interpenetration evident in the example of the provincial Szydłów project up to the end of the 18th century.