The analysis shows that the status of prothetic v- explored in old prints differs from contemporary common Czech. The non-etymological v- is conditioned by the following factors: 1) grammatical or lexical status of words (prothetic v- occurs most frequently in grammatical words, sporadically in prepositions vo ‘about’, vod ‘from’, in 3rd-person personal pronouns and in pronominal adverbs); 2) prefixation or non-prefixation (v- is more common in non-prefixed words, less frequent in prefixed words with prefix o-, rare in words with prefix od-, and quite sporadic in words with prefix ob-); 3) semantics of words (v- is common in names of domestic things and works, on the contrary, it is not used in abstract words, literary expressions and borrowings); 4) lexicalization (the most lexicalized forms are e. g. vorati ‘to plough’, votava ‘aftermath’, votruby ‘bran’); 5) literary genre (agricultural literature is more opened to the phenomenon in question than biblical texts or chronicles); 6) text topics (most benevolent are mathematical texts, less agricultural texts and the least medical texts); 7) other factors, especially extralinguistic.
Due to the rapid economic changes which took place in Lithuania in the 16th century, there emerged a strong trend to further codify the regulations regarding forestry, beekeeping, fishery, and hunting. This trend found its reflection in the legal rules of that time, including the Statutes of Lithuania of 1529, 1566, and 1588. The particular regulations included in these codifications reflect the gradual process of consolidation of the rules regarding the exclusive hunting rights of the owner. In the light of those rules, it is possible to notice a certain tendency to formulate increasingly restrictive bans on hunting on somebody else’s grounds as well as to gradually limit the possibility to pursue the animal on somebody else’s land. At the same time, however, the statutory law attempted to limit the possibility of a potential conflict arising on those grounds, especially with regard to the practice of wchody (the right to enter royal forests and utilise royal property such as timber, hay, etc.), extremely popular in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The attention to detail when it comes to this particular area of the Lithuanian law can be seen, e.g., in the detailed regulations concerning protection of birds’ nests or beaver lodges.
The author discusses the manifestations of the ways in which noblemen talked about and evaluated social and family life. He brings attention to the cult of a family home, respect for home tradition, brotherhood of the nobility and the will to get to know the world.
The paper briefly characterizes the Jesuit education in the Polish- Lituanian Commonwealth in 16th century and the first Latin grammar book by Emmanuel Alvarez SJ used in colleges. The reader is presented with a brief description of the Grammatica of Alvarez and its editions in Poland till the end of the 16th century.
The issue that is the main focus of this paper has not been of great interest to bibliology scholars. Even though one version of the Brest Bible, marked as B, was described quite thoroughly by Feliks Bentkowski already two hundred years ago, the catalogue descriptions have until today been based upon the scheme formulated by Karol Estreicher (senior). He identified three versions of the Brest Bible, which differ only in the title page. The fact is that there are only two versions, A and B, in existence, which differ in the first gathering (*) or (very rarely) in the first two gatherings (*, **). The gatherings of version B were established to have been printed in the 1580s or 1590s in Jan Karcan’s press in Vilnius. Apparently, a certain number of the Old Testament gatherings A–Y were typeset and printed in Brest in 1563. There is only one extant complete copy of it with the newly printed gatherings, whereas in the remaining dozen or so copies that have survived it is only one, or rarely, two gatherings, and sometimes only single leaves. The search for versions of the Bible also made it possible to compile a list of 135 copies of the Brest Bible stored today in public, monastic and church collections in Europe and North America.
This study offers an iconographic analysis of the allegorical cycle accompanying the moral- -educational tract Masopust. Drawing on the text in the book and iconographic dictionaries, the study explains the meaning of the symbols, thus expanding on M. Bohatcová’s older description. Since the chosen iconographic means play a key role in the reader’s reception of the illustrations (and the entire book), subsequent research was made into parallel iconographic elements in the contemporary old prints and in manuscripts illuminated by M. Hutský, whose authorship of drawing models has recently been demonstrated by M. Šárovcová. The study concludes that although many analogies can be successfully found, Hutský’s cycle as such is unparalleled in our environment not only due to its predominantly secular and highly satirical content, but also due to the number of incorporated symbols and allusions. As the conservative Czech readership was not systematically educated to be able to identify them, it can be hypothesised that it was due to the barely intelligible iconography that the book did not meet with any reader’s response in contemporary literature and art. Therefore, the study also seeks to bring a new perspective on how an early modern individual related to the creative type of allegory.
This article presents two Karaim religious hymns attributed to the famous Lithuanian Karaite sage, Isaac ben Abraham Troki (1533–1594), the best known Lithuanian Karaite scholar in Europe, author of Ḥizzuk Emuna ‘The strengthening of faith’, which was translated into a number of European languages. The poems were found in two Karaite manuscripts, one undated, the other dated 1686.
Geometria, to jest miernicka nauka (Geometry or the science of measurement) by Stanisław Grzepski was published in 1566. A look at the examined treaty from the angle of the discourse theory makes it possible to notice a living communication process leading to the formation of the paradigm designated by the expert – layman roles in the 16th century scientifi c, educational literature. When sharing information with a novice, an expert reaches for the specialised register vocabulary including, most of all, scientifi c terms being in operation in the field of the 16th-century science. Terminology is a tool for creating a clear worldview, it combines the abstractness of the message with the observation of the practical sphere. The occurrence of terms in a text fulfi lling an educational function legitimises the author as an expert, proves the effectiveness of the solutions dictated by science. Moreover, terms in an educational text, as a record of knowledge, are a functional instrument of ensuring that the reasoning is consistent, making it a logically designed structure that is recipient-friendly in terms of cognition.
Through its older biblical translations Czech provided stimuli for the written language to develop in Poland. In the medieval translation of the Bible into Polish, Czech elements were used to expand the expressive capacity of Polish and to highlight stylistic differences, although in many places the influence of the Czech translation made itself evident at random at the graphic-phonetic and the morphological level. As the Bible was being translated into Polish at the end of the Middle Ages the conviction emerged that forms closer to Czech were stylistically more appropriate. In the first half of the 16th century this became apparent not only in the solutions of writers and translators, but also and particularly in treatises on language and style. On the other hand the development of written Polish and the development of linguistic awareness led translators and editors of the Polish Bible in the latter half of the 16th century to limit the Bohemization of forms, but the influence of Czech Bible texts continued to be substantial. The Melantrich Bible (1549) was used by translators of the Polish Leopolite Bible (1561), while the author of the working version of the mid-16th century Bible translation had the Severýn Bible on his table. Use of a Czech Bible is also admitted in the case of the Polish translation by Jesuit Jakub Wujk (1599). A Czech biblical text also had an influence on more recent Polish translations both through tradition (i.e. older Polish translations) and directly – through the usage of a new Czech translation. The new Czech Bible, the Kralice translation, was known in Poland soon after its publication. It was also recommended as a model translation to translators and editors of the classic Protestant translation, the Gdansk Bible (1632). Here the influence of the Czech text was reflected at the text and editorial level, and sometimes the Kralice translation even provided a specific linguistic solution.
The author presents a sample study of church ceremonies during rulers’ visits to the minor Czech Crown Lands in the 16th century. On the basis of ecclesiastical regulations, he describes the ideal course of a ritual, then with support in the sources, which have been relatively poorly utilised by the scholars, he illustrates the practical side of some specific ceremonies, but also their spiritual content.
The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne vol. 62, issue 2 (2014). The presented work makes reference to results of research on the ordination of religious clergy by bishops of the dioceses of Gniezno and Płock in the 15th and 16th centuries. The analysis of the contents of the books of pontifical acts of the Kuyavian bishops issued in the first half of the 16th century and the survey of selected books of the Włocławek Consistory permits the identification of more than 100 previously unknown members of the religious clergy originating chiefly from monasteries situated in the area of the Kuyavian Diocese, who received minor or major holy orders from their ordinaries and suffragans.
In the middle of the 16th century many people left the Low Countries for England as a result of religious persecution and economic hardship. Several thousand of these people, mainly from the Southern Netherlands, went to Norwich, the second largest city in England. Some of them wrote letters to friends and family members whom they left behind in the Low Countries, which indicate that they valued the religious freedom and economic opportunities in Norwich. This suggests that they had a positive image of the local English people. However, if one looks at official English documents, the picture is more mixed. While some English valued the economic contribution that the migrants made, others were concerned about the effect on the local workforce, and measures were taken to restrict their economic activities. Furthermore, some people in Norwich had Catholic sympathies and this was an important motivating factor in a plot to eject the migrants from the city, which ultimately failed. In short, this article uses the situation in Norwich in the late 16th century as a case study for exploring how different sources can create contrasting images of how one group of people views another.
The 16th century saw a significant transformation in Central-European clothing customs, which became evident in the emergence of national styles of clothing (German, Hungarian, Polish) and the equally rapid adoption of Spanish dress ensembles. Changes in clothing also touched the countryside, where new kinds of textiles began to replace the predominant woollen cloth in the second half of the 16th century. Woollen, cotton and silk materials were used mainly in festive clothing. At first, it was in the production of traditional garments, but increasingly new items of clothing appeared alongside them, which the countryside adopted from the urban environment after a certain period of time. The urban guild tailors were the source of the structural innovations transforming the existing cut of the women’s full skirt, from which the sleeves and subsequently the bodice were separated. By the end of the 16th century, a new ensemble of clothing articles had established itself in the countryside, containing individual garments of different origins and period, but creating a new aesthetic quality in the ensemble that lasted for several centuries.
The article deals with the printer and Briefmaler (letter painter) Michael Peterle (1537–1588), who is also considered to be a woodcutter by Czech book scientists. It focuses on his pictorial broadsides and illustrated books and analyses the morphological features of the extant woodcuts. It has reached the conclusion that Peterle’s woodcutting activities cannot be proved. Apart from the art-historical perspective, it brings a number of new facts associated with Peterle’s printing activities: for instance, it documents the financial background of Prague printers in the 1570s and 1580s.
The Wallachian monasteries are very well documented in the 16th century, but the life of nuns or monks after joining the monastery is a lesser-known aspect. Various details can be found in the life of a noblewoman (taking the name of Mușa), who decided to become a nun (Magdalina) during the first years of the 16th century. Mușa’s life before entering the monastery is not very well known. Although many researchers tried to link her to the Craiovescu family, one of the most influential families in Wallachia at that time, this paper argues against this opinion. The historical sources describe her as a relative of a Wallachian nobleman, Cârjeu, and as the wife of Hamza, another important nobleman from the first decades of the 16th century. Mușa took vows in the monastery, which she built, and even after she became a nun, she preserved some of her former habits. Thus, the nun Magdalina kept in her possession villages and Roma families, which she donated to different monasteries, a widespread situation in the Byzantine monasticism. Although the sources did not describe her everyday life as a nun, they documented her relations with the political and ecclesiastical elites.
In the extensive work of the Dubrovnik-born Benedictine Lodovico Tuberon de Crieva, „Commentaria de temporibus suis” describing the events in the Mediterranean in the years 1490–1522, there is a small passage about the events on the island of Hvar (ital. Lesina). The island was then, together with most of the Dalmatian coast, under the rule of the Venetian Republic. On Hvar in 1510, a popular uprising against the local nobles broke out, which lasted with varying intensity until 1514. The Venetian authorities then sent considerable armed forces, which, after defeating the rebels at sea and on land, suppressed the rebellion. It is surprising, however, that Tuberon suggests in the above-mentioned passage that the outbreak of the revolt could have been provoked by the Venetians themselves, who feared the nobility allegedly favoring the King of Hungary. He also mentions the leading role of a clergyman who was supposed to encourage the plebs to act and initiate a revolt. Taking the mentioned text of Tuberon as a starting point, the author analyzes the political and social situation on the island of Hvar as well as the background and course of the events in the years 1510–1514. The author's goal is to establish what the grounds for Tuberon's presumptions were and to what extent they are true.
The article aims to show Poznań bourgeois inventories as a source for studying lexis related to beer production. The excerpted vocabulary has been classified into lexical-semantic fields by means of textual and lexical meanings derived from the Dictionary of Polish Language of the 16th century. The possibility of supplementing the dictionary resources by lexical material obtained from the inventories has also been indicated – these are new meanings and numerous new attestations, especially relevant for lexemes recorded in the dictionary several times. The analysis was supplemented by a commentary on the origin of the lexica.
Based on an analysis of the edition of the list of the members of the Prague- Tuchoměřice congregation, compiled by the bishop of the Unity of Brethren Matouš Konečný in 1607 and found in 2006 within the episcopal archive. It was a group of burghers tending to the creation of significantly closed communities of connected familial, friendship and professional ties, which settled in a concentrated fashion on the prestigious addresses of all three towns of Prague. It was precisely these Prague fraternal burgher elites that intervened in a fundamental way in the course of the Bohemian Revolt in 1618–1620 and paid for its defeat also with death sentences and to a degree much more distinctive than was the case with the representatives of other social classes of estates’ society, or other Protestant confessions.
The article is a comment in a long debate on the place of interment of Georg Pencz, a painter from Nuremberg who created paintings in the altar of Sigismund’s Chapel at the Wawel Castle. Decisive character of the presented stand is based on information found in sources preserved in State Archive in Wrocław.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.