by Kateřina Bobková-Valentová, The Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague and
Hedvika Kuchařová, Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov, Prague; The Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
Is it possible to find out what a person living at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries did year by year? If this person entered a religious order, then in many cases the answer would be yes.
Once the Bohemian Revolt was defeated in 1621, a large number of male and female religious orders started to flourish in Bohemia and Moravia and this heyday lasted 160 years up to the reign of Joseph II (1780–1790). All of these orders were keeping records of its members, which had — besides purely practical reasons — also its legal and spiritual importance. By entering an order, the man or a woman committed himself/herself to leading a certain type of life and to fulfilling certain duties; life stories of deceased members were passed on within the community as examples of particular abilities and virtues, and the community prayed for its dead members. The Bio-Bibliographical Database of Members of the Religious Order Living in the Czech Lands in the Early Modern Age weiterlesen
