Regesten der in den Handschriftenbänden Acta Unitas Fratrum I-IV überlieferten Texte

Abstract

For a small religious group active in a limited region of Central Europe and regularly outnumbered by their Catholic, Utraquist, and later Protestant rivals, the Unitas Fratrum have consistently hit well above their weight especially within the Bohemian context. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it was their literary legacy in particular that became especially valuable in the protracted struggle for an independent Czech state. The teachings of Chelčický, the writings of Comenius, and their landmark translation of Scripture, the Kralice Bible, became essential elements of a newly defined Bohemian patrimony.Many scholars would claim, however, that the most important source left behind by the Brethren has sat for centuries unpublished. A series of fourteen volumes known as the Lissa Folios or the Acta Unitatis Fratrum has remained in manuscript form. Compiled between 1548 and 1589, the collection consists of more than 10,000 pages primarily in Czech. The Brethren originally stored the volumes in Ivančice (Eibenschütz), their key settlement in Moravia. After the imperial victory at White Mountain (1620) and their subsequent exile, the Unitas Fratrum took the Acta to their new refuge in Poland (Leszno/Lissa). There they were eventually forgotten. It was during the Czech National Revival that figures such as Josef Jungmann (1773–1847) and František Palacký (1798–1876) once more drew attention to these remarkable sources.In the nineteenth century the predecessor of the National Museum in Prague purchased one of these volumes while the remaining thirteen went to the Moravian archive in Herrnhut where they remained until the end of World War II when they were lent to the Czech State Archives. There have been various attempts since the nineteenth century to publish the Acta. In the 1950s a microfilm of the fourteen volumes was produced, but no print edition has appeared. Finally, in 2011 a joint German-Czech commission was created for the publication of the Acta. This text under review offers a summary of the first four volumes of the collection and is the initial step toward this ambitious goal.This volume epitomizes ninety-seven documents that range chronologically from the 1440s to 1545. Most of these are either tracts or letters of the Brethren. There is a noticeable unevenness of chronological and thematic coverage. For example, there is scant material on the relationship that develops between the Brethren and Luther. There is relatively little as well on the prehistory of the Unitas Fratrum. These lacunae notwithstanding, the Acta offer invaluable insights on Bohemia’s religious landscape from the waning revolutionary zeal of the fifteenth century to an age of confessional consolidation as the Brethren respond to the German and Swiss Reformations in particular. Three areas in particular merit special reference. The Acta include an important series of letters between the Brethren’s founder, Brother Gregory (Řehoř Krajčí), and his uncle, Jan Rokycana, the fifteenth-century Utraquist bishop. The dialog between the two highlights early distinctives of the emerging movement. Later in the century there is a fascinating interchange between the Brethren community of Litomyšl and one of the most powerful Catholic nobles of the period, Jan Zajíc of Hazmburk. Here we see the new church formulating an articulate defense of their beliefs. Finally, these early volumes of the Acta include a series of texts documenting the late fifteenth-century schism that occurred in the church after the death of Gregory when a Minor party pledged continued allegiance to the ideals of Chelčický and separatism while a larger contingent began cautiously to engage society.We owe a debt of gratitude to this accomplished and experienced team of Czech and German scholars who have produced this first volume of the edited Acta. Though the project is intended to be multilingual with the appearance of volumes in both Czech and German, it may have been helpful had the editors of this German edition included both a map and gazetteer listing place names in both languages, though an index does help. Not all Czech names have a recognizable German equivalent, for example Mladá Boleslav/Jungbunzlau and Jihlava/Iglau. Regardless, this volume is an impressive achievement, and though these documents may have the greatest utility for scholars working on Bohemia and the Unitas Fratrum, it is important to emphasize that their significance extends far beyond regional specialists. The Brethren offer a unique window on to a transitional religious culture that crosses the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern. A careful study of the Unitas Fratrum through these texts helps us better understand broader shifts that were occurring in this period as new patterns of piety, worship, and belief began to emerge.