Search

Written in the middle of the twelfth century, the Annals of Hradisko and Opatovice show an extensive use of Bohemian and Moravian sources, but also of foreign works. Th e main foreign source which the annalist had at disposal was a ‘universal chronicle’ which he used to relate information concerning general history until the end of the tenth century, but two entries of the Annals of Hradisko and Opatovice also show influence of Regino of Prüm’s Chronicle and its continuation. Th e analysis of the use of the Chronicon Universale as well as of Regino of Prüm’s Chronicle and its continuation in the Annals of Hradisko and Opatovice shows that these sources have a different function. The extensive use of the Chronicon Universale in the first part of the annals aims indeed to put the events concerning Bohemia and Moravia in a broader perspective whereas the entries of Regino of Prüm’s Chronicle and its continuation, which the author borrowed from a Bohemian annalistic integration to the national historiography to their contribution to the narrative of Bohemia’s past. Th e coexistence of those two uses, which can be respectively described as “metanational/universal” and “national” is however not specific to these annals, since it can also be spotted in other twelfth century Bohemian historiographical writings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term laus terrae (praise of the land) refers to a very positive description of the homeland which appears frequently at the beginning of medieval historiographic works. The paper analyzes the composition of such texts in the oldest known extensive Polish, Czech, and Hungarian chronicles. The three works in question give very similar descriptions of the homeland, which is presented as a wealthy land abounding in various natural resources, whose qualities are also underlined in a similar manner. The existence of those analogies is not surprising as the authors of those works were clearly influenced by the same literary motifs. Their choice to present the homeland as a locus amoenus (pleasant place) was of course related to their intention to emphasize the position of the country whose past they related as well as the power of the current and previous rulers of this territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During decades, scholars tried to establish the origin of foreign notes in the oldest Polish annals and to determine the nature of their relationships with their Czech counterparts : at the beginning of the 21st century, the traditionnal dual model which postulated the existence of a Corveyo-Hesfeldian compilation and of another one with notes from Fulda and Reichenau was challenged by a new model which suggested the existence of a great foreign compilation containing notes from Fulda, Reichenau and Hersfeld which traveled from Germany to Poland through Bohemia and of a smaller list or Corveyan notes which were mixed which Czech notes in Prague and were later transfered to Poland. With the examination of the so-called Annates Magdeburgenses brevissimi, an eleventh century short annalistic work so far rarely studied by scholars, recent research confirms that in all probality the Corveyan notes travelled first from Germany to Prague and afterwards from Prague to Poland and to Magdeburg. The examination of the Hersfeldian notes in Polish and Czech annals also shows that both productions did not use the same Hersfeldian source, which limits the common material to Corveyan notes and mentions concerning chiefly Czech saints; the use of two different Hersfeldian sources also pleads against a travel of the great foreign compilation containing notes from Fulda, Reichenau and Hersfeld through Bohemia and proves the needs to investigate further the modalities of the travel of this compilation to Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]