Borsch eaters under the protection of bear paws

On April 26, 1521, Andrzej Krzycki (1482–1537), the royal secretary of Sigismund the Elder, while in Brest, wrote a letter to Piotr Tomicki, the king’s vice-chancellor in Kraków, the future bishop of Kraków. Rejoicing that he and the king and the entire retinue had finally successfully reached their destination, Andrzej immersed himself in ecclesiastical and political matters, among which we see a strange-sounding line in the letter: “It would b…