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The study is dedicated to the cult of St. Denis, the first Bishop of Paris and the French “national” patron saint in medieval Bohemia and Moravia. The cult of St. Denis had played a rather important role already in the Duchy of Bohemia, having probably propagated there via Bavaria during the initial Christianization efforts. This is documented by the pilgrimage of St. Adalbert of Prague to SaintDenis monastery and the general presence of St. Denis in Bohemian liturgy from, at the latest, the 12th century. Although isolated monuments and altar dedications of Saint Denis had existed since the 13th century, it was not until the 14th century that the cult of Saint Denis grew stronger, driven by French influences. Its ebb and flow seem to have faithfully reflected the intensity of friendly contacts between the Kingdoms of Bohemia and France. Charles IV, the famous King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, privately venerated St. Denis, probably due to having spent his childhood in Paris. This is evidenced not only by his acquisition of two St. Denis relics and commissioning of the image of St. Denis for the Chapel of the Holy Cross at Karlštejn but also by his personal visit to the SaintDenis monastery in January 1378, when he expressed his devotion at the saint’s tomb and kissed the saint’s head. Although the cult of St. Denis declined in the period leading up to and, especially, following the Hussite Wars, it remained present in late medieval Czech society thanks to the saint’s inclusion in the group of Fourteen Holy Helpers and the celebration of his feast day in the liturgy of all Catholic churches. Although St. Denis never became a popular saint in the Czech lands during the Middle Ages, he was widely known. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to introduce the Czech traditional ballad to the international reader from the perspective of mnemopoetics, i.e., inherent textual patterns of orally transmitted compositions that support the singers' memory. It discussesCzech traditional balladry's distinctive features and important mnemopoetic textual patterns-- such as first line, genre, repetition and incremental repetition, assonance/rhyme scheme, law of three, strophe patterning, and parallelism -- which are illustrated in these ballads. Special focus is paid to the supra-narrative function of formulas, especially connected to green and black epithet formulas, using the analytical framework of Flemming J. Andersen's Commonplace and Creativity: The Role of Formulaic Diction in Anglo-Scottish Traditional Balladry (Odense: Odense University Press, 1985). The study forms a conclusion that mnemopoetics of Czech ballads exist but are less prominent than in Czech traditional lyric songs, and discusses the role of Czech traditional ballads in the formation of Czech cultural memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conciliarism is the theory of the supremacy of the Council over the papacy. The study investigates whether such ideas were known in Bohemia. It traces the environment of the court of Wenceslas IV, the role of the University of Prague, Hussitism with its Wycliffian definition of the Church, and the period after the conclusion of the Compactata and during the reign of George of Poděbrady. The knowledge of conciliarist theories in Bohemia is a fact, even if their development and application did not take place on Bohemian soil. The Czech lands were not a fertile ground for Conciliarist ideas, yet at certain moments the Czech environment reached for Conciliarist arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the issue of burial of revenants, which in current ideas merges more with the listing of various antivampire rituals. At the heart of the debate is the grave of an alleged werewolf in the area of Livonia (today's Latvia), and a comparison with the execution of an alleged werewolf, Peter Stumpp, near Cologne. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As with most of the Latin cultural circle countries, the oldest written texts, including the historical writings, in the Czech Lands were written in Latin. In Bohemia, the first translations of texts on historical topics into vernacular languages appear in the second half of the 13th century. It begins with loose adaptations of "common historical" topics, such as the life of Alexander the Great, in German and from the end of the 13th century also in Czech. In the first half of the 14th century we can find real translations of historical texts, not from Latin into vernacular language, but on the contrary from Czech into Latin and into German (Chronicle of so called Dalimil). Following are the German chronicles in verse, already translated from Latin. While the Latin translation was probably meant for a high-level laic, the German texts were written for the German monks living in the Bohemia, and perhaps for the Prague patricians. Further translations of historical texts were being written from the second half of the 14th century. Those are the translations of the official historical works from the Charles IV era into Czech, later also into German for the citizens of "incorporated lands of the Bohemian Crown". At the end of the 14th and at the beginning of the 15th century, even the "common" texts of Latin culture were translated into Czech, such as Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica, Martin of Opava's Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum or the German chronicle of Jacob Twinger of Königshofen. However, the readers were much more interested in pseudo-historical light literature. The translators were among the clergymen, but also laymen, and the translated texts were primarily meant for laic readers. In the 15th century, the Czech history was being translated also outside the Czech borders, mainly in Bavaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text deals with collective representations of Czech tramping movement with focus on its leftist fraction and their journal Tramp, published between years 1929 and 1931 when the movement faced both inner split and increasing state repression. The text is based on discoursive analyses of this journal by means of investigating basic concepts of tramps of the period which aim to scrutiny the world of meaning and self-identification of tramps as well as reasons of their radicalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A priest administering a parish did not live in the Early Modern times, despite the ideals of the post-Tridentine Church, in isolation from the surrounding world. Following this initial thesis, the study focuses on analysing various factors that integrated the clergy with the rural society, on the one hand, and those that separated it from it, on the other hand. The status of the parish priest as an elite member of rural society is explored both in the context of his exclusive position as a spiritual administrator and his economic activities and, last but not least, of his relations with his superiors, parishioners and patron. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study considers the ratio between books written in one of the national languages (German, Czech), books written in Latin in the total book production of Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia in 1751, 1761, 1771, 1781, and 1791. Data obtained by excerpting the catalogues of the National Library of Prague and the Scientific Library in Olomouc are used to outline the changing language situation in the Czech Lands. The author indicates that Czech as a language for more demanding communication (both written and printed) only faced a real threat at the end of the 18th century, when German occupied positions previously occupied by Latin, while the imports of German-language literature from the countries beyond the borders of Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia were rising. Furthermore, the author draws attention to the importance of Czech-language books in the output of Slovak and Hungarian printers for the creation of a language consciousness in the Czech Lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper summarises the possibilities of studying the tax burden on the Czech countryside in 1780-1850. For its analysis it proposes to use the archival collection ‘Contribution Funds', consisting of individual schedules for the planned contributions (so-called sub-repartitions), and contributory accounts recording all receipts and outlays. Due to the limited ‘sub-repartition' for land tax only, it recommends to use the sums in the contributory accounts and to work with values for the whole estate. The most suitable comparative figures are grain prices, preserved from commodity prices that are important for the rural environment in the most comprehensive price ranges. Both series of numbers need to be subjected to source criticism (the most important for the period under review is the variability of the currencies used) and then compared with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines some real personalities in the Early Modern-Age Czech history who appear in legends as revenants (Jiří Tunkl of Brníčko and Zábřeh, Zdeněk senior Kavka Říčanský of Říčany, Rudolf Karel Rašín of Rýzmburk). The paper presents, interprets and evaluates selected legends about these protagonists, describes their common stereotypes and the specificities they characterise, and outlines the legends' genesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After analyzing the Czech literature of the second half of the 16th and the beginnings of the 17th century (historical, polemical, occasional, the "proto-journalism"; narrative as well as poetry; translations as well as original works), it can be stated that the Black Legend reflected also in the Czech Lands. Predominant were the themes of the Inquisition and other problems related to the confessionalization in Europe (the rebellion in the Netherlands after the year 1566, the defeat of the "Invincible Army" in 1588, the religious wars in France) as well as in the New World. As for the focus of propagation of the anti-Spanish literature, it was not possible to localize it specifically, because there were numerous connections between non-Catholic Bohemians and different streams of European Protestantism of the period. However, majority of the most important connections were detected between the members of the Czech Unity of Brethren and the Calvinists in Geneva. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]