The study presented sets its aim as setting out the key themes and significance of the complex research of the municipal offices, using the example of Bohemia and Moravia, so the knowledge gained could become an indispensable base for further study of urban history. Despite the undoubted difficulty, which is placed on the researcher of research focused in this way, the reconstruction of the Hradec (Králové) municipal office activities to 1620 proved for instance that even with the greatly fragmentary nature of the material, it is possible to reach quite fundamental knowledge on the development of the Bohemian urban milieu, especially thanks to overcoming the formal diplomatic analysis and studies of the isolated sources and thanks to the use of knowledge from a number of historical disciplines. Another indisputable advantage is monitoring a longer time period of the development of the relevant office, which can easily reveal the progress or regress of the individual towns, that had not yet formed a homogeneous whole in Bohemia and Moravia even in the period of the Early Modern Period, namely not even in the case of royal towns. This certain individual nature is typical also for the area of municipal offices, the organizational structure of which and the method of keeping the documents reflect the importance and emancipation of the relevant urban milieu and generally also the number of its denizens. It was only the reform interventions of Maria Theresia and especially then Joseph II that created the new conditions for the development of municipal office practices and for their unification, which arose from the new classification of Bohemian and Moravian towns.
The paper focuses on the case of the Hradec Králové suburban population, which was gradually forced to move after the second half of the 1760s in order to free the area for the building of a bastion fortress. While the first generation of the evacuees (“vybouranci”), as this population was called, moved to new suburban settlements on the very outskirts of the town district and remained in contact with the town community, though separated by the military zone, their descendants had converted their settlements by the mid-19th century to separate municipalities and became new neighbours of the fortress town of Hradec Králové. The present study aims to map this complex process, the consequences of which have been strongly reflected in the urban, demographic and economic development of the town and its immediate surroundings.
The present study sets Marian plague columns into a broader context based on fragmentally preserved sources as well as existing literature related to the topic (especially regional historiography, art history and historic preservation. Through the comparison of two minor East-Bohemian towns of a comparable population, it follows the factors playing a significant role in the creation of complex Baroque sculptural compositions. At the same time, it aims to identify the functions that the sculptures were to fulfil through their position in the public space. In this sense the study is inspired by the classic essay by Peter Burke called Conspicuous consumption in seventeenth-century Italy, which considers “the consumption” to be a specific form of communication. The composition of Marian plague columns can be perceived as an undeniable form of communication. From multiple perspectives, the article documents the key determinants, which are sometimes rather surprising, influencing the choice of partial components of the sculptural compositions as well as their overall impression – the communicative intention. Both Marian plague columns, to this day the most important monuments decorating the public space of the towns in question, are therefore approached in an interdisciplinary way especially in the context of the history of the towns, their manors and the East-Bohemian region. Therefore, the religious situation of both towns and their surroundings is not overlooked either. With regard to the fact that Jaroměř and Polička have been royal dowry towns, the Marian plague columns also reflect the relation to the Bohemian queen, which is expressed verbally as inscriptions on them. In particular, the artwork in Polička and the events related to its creation importantly signalize the “conspicuous consumption”.
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