The study offers a basic overview of the manuscripts of the ars memorativa treatises in late medieval Czech lands. On the basis of the surviving evidence it is possible to prove that during the 15th century this ancient art (however suspicious and cumbersome it may seem today) was known and practiced here. It coexisted with general (often primarily medical) set of advices on efficient studying some of which openly criticize the art of memory for being too impractical. Besides copies of Italian and West European art of memory models, there is a number of these treatises and shorter treatments of the art composed in the Czech lands. Each of them includes specific features and innovations not encountered elsewhere. The manuscript context of ars memorativa shows that it was not seen as a part of rhetoric theory intended for a restricted number of intellectuals but as a means of storing and recuperating important information actively used especially by students and preachers. and Lucie Doležalová.
Since the 1950s the term “gombik” has been used in Czech and Slovak archaeological literature to describe artifacts from the Early Middle Ages resembling buttons, which appear as an accessory of modern Hungarian as well as some Slovak men’s and women’s clothing. The most frequent occurrence of spherical pendants was recorded in graves of women and children; a lesser occurrence was recorded in graves of adult men. We may presume that the class that is referred to in written sources as dukes or even as noble faithful men applied it to jewelry - the “gombik” was probably created in the cultural space of this class and thus became indentifying symbol. and Hana Chorvátová.