Publication details
Ego plantavi: Parish priest as a gardener. A case from mid-seventeenth century Moravia
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Years of research into the regional history of Moravia in the early modern period – focusing on cultural history in the broader and narrower sense in which the parish and its administrator play important roles as the basic network and key intellectual of the community – has necessarily led me to follow the fate of individual priests of the Olomouc diocese more closely in a broader context. There are at least several clergymen whose fates and activities can be traced in detail not only in terms of individual biographies, but also as pars pro toto. The parish priest in Příbor, North Moravia, Václav Kozmián (died 1657), has not had such a remarkable career, but there is rather an extraordinarily diverse variety of sources, in which his fate and activities are reflected. Based on previous research, we are able to trace his background in the 9 family of a town clerk, the typical career of a Jesuit student and the actions characterizing an active priest (renewal and promotion of the local parish fraternity, purchase of music prints for the parish church). Less commonly consulted sources reveal other facets of his work: the visual ones testify to an extremely deep imprint in the memory of the local community as we find his emblem on the parish church bell attesting to a donation, an idealized portrait of Kozmián as the initiator of many spiritual vocations and even his appearance in a 19th century “comic” depicting memorable events in parish history. In contrast, the probate documents surprisingly reveal the rather dark sides of his long-term work and therefore dominant position in a small town: at the very least, he was very inconsistent in the administration of legates and other gifts to the Marian Brotherhood entrusted to him, which were claimed and traced among his personal property only after his death. |
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