Praha – Karlov (Czech Republic)

The house of the Canons Regular of St Augustine at Karlov in Prague was founded in 1350 by the Bohemian king and later Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, and its existence came to an end only during the secularisation reforms of Emperor Joseph II, when it was dissolved by imperial decree in 1785. Throughout its history, the house was afflicted by a series of calamities and was repeatedly plundered, yet the study of its library nevertheless sheds new light on medieval book culture in Prague.

Twenty-six manuscripts and six volumes containing incunabula have been identified from the library, although this represents only a small fraction of what was once a substantial collection. All the books date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; most are paper codices, and a quarter are illuminated. In terms of content, the collection is dominated by moral-theological works, sermon collections, and liturgical books. Biblical texts, works of the Church Fathers, exegetical literature, and works of systematic theology are considerably less numerous.

A comprehensive study of this library has been published, along with a detailed catalogue of all its manuscripts:

• Adéla EBERSONOVÁ, Středověká rukopisná knihovna řeholních kanovníků sv. Augustina v Praze na Karlově [The Medieval Manuscript Library of the House of the Canons Regular of St Augustine in Prague-Karlov], in: Studie o rukopisech [Manuscripts Studies] 51/1 (2021), pp. 31–105

  The full text of the study is available here: https://www.academia.edu/82151206

Research on this library has also been published here:

• Adéla EBERSONOVÁ. Středověké rukopisné knihovny řeholních kanovníků sv. Augustina v Čechách [Medieval Libraries of the Canons Regular of St Augustine in Bohemia]. PhD thesis. Praha: Charles University, Faculty of Arts, 2020, pp. 106–138

  The full text of the thesis is available here: https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/124141