Kramářské písně v rajhradské benediktinské knihovně

Abstract

The Rajhrad collections currently contain 81 song prints that can be classified as broadside ballads. Most of them are stored in boxes, like many other small prints from the monastic library that came there in the 19th century. Only a few provenance notes make it possible to identify the original owners of at least some of the prints. The analysis has also shown that almost half of the ballads were printed in Brno workshops; these represent song production from Prague, Hradec, Králové, Jindřichův Hradec, Litomyšl, Jihlava, Znojmo, Vienna, the New Town of Vienna, Linz, Krems and Skalice. Other places of publication than Brno are represented only by individuals. For almost a quarter of the prints, the place and date of publication cannot be precisely determined. It is only known that they were printed sometime in the 18th century. The vast majority of songs are religious – only seven prints are devoted to a secular theme. The clearly predominant language of the printed production is German, because the only surviving bound collection of chapbooks (in Czech špalíček) consists exclusively of German songs. From the 1780s, Czech predominated in the press. The only rock print in the set is in Slovak.