Songs of the Czech exiles and the Catholic hymnography of the 17th and 18th century. The study examines Czech spiritual songs since the beginning of the 17th century until the end of the 18th century and deals with the connections between the non-Catholic songs of the Post-White Mountain exile and the Czech Catholic hymnography. It has been thought that these connections were almost unpossible. This study deals with the songs of the exiles in the Czech Catholic hymnbooks, broadsides and manuscripts – the aim of this study is to show the function of media in the Czech hymnography. The contacts with non-Catholic exiled and Catholic hymnbooks were mediated by orality, manuscripts and broadsides. This example shows the Czech hymnography as a media space; the study examines the position of manuscripts and primarily broadsides in this media space, both are very close to orality.
The author of this article focuses on two transcriptions of the Tovačov Book, previously unknown in the literature. The first case involves Manuscript R 4 in Strážnice Museum. The manuscript comes from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries and is worth noting because it was transcribed from a source in a text version not too remote from that in which the Lord of Tovačov presented it to the nobles. The text is of the "Olomouc type". In addition to the Book it also provides a dual non-identical translation of Matthew's freedoms (and if we examine the other texts, the codex provides sources on Moravian provincial law up to and including the 16th century). The more recent Liberec transcription, housed in the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec, is interesting for its features which are related to manuscript A 165 of the Mitrovský collection, which we can justifiably place at the front of the Olomouc variant manuscripts' affiliation order.
The manuscript collection of the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians Library in Strahov, Prague, currently houses over three thousand manuscripts (plus almost 700 manuscript fragments). A catalogue by Bohumil Ryba helps us to find our bearings in the collection for shelf marks DF–DU. Shelf marks DA–DE have not to date been made available for printing. This study provides an inventory of early modern manuscripts compiled between 1526 and 1620 with shelf mark DA–DE.