Economic base of the Jesuit College in Poznań in the light of archaeological research in 2021–2022

Abstract

In 2021–2022, an archaeological survey was carried out on the grounds of Courtyard II of the Poznań City Hall. The courtyard origi- nally served as an economic base for the vast complex of the Jesuit college functioning from the 3^rd quarter of the 16^th to the late 18^th cen- tury. The upper layers, to a depth of about 0.5 meters, are associated with the cleanup this area after World War II, when the outhouses that had existed on the site since the late 18^th century were demolished. Below them, in the northern trench, levelling layers were recorded, which rested on the destructs of several phases of buildings dating to the 2^nd half of the 17^th– 18^th centuries. A significant part of the excavation was defrayed by a ceramic floor associated with a building with wooden or wood and clay walls.

The sequence of layers in the southern trench documents the successive elevation of the southern edge of the courtyard, occupied at least until the late 16^th century by a moat. The relatively uniform layer deposit at the 0.5-1.5 m level can be associated with the earthworks accompanying the construction of the defensive wall that surrounded the Jesuit complex to the south in 1702–1712. A wooden water supply pipe and the corner of a polygonal wooden structure, probably the sump of a well, known from a cataloguing plan made after the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1780, were discovered within the trench.