Leseprobe

Places & Regions 168 FIG. 2 David Klement Broumovský, Monstrance, made of silver from melted-down Utraquist chalices, Chrudim, 1630 (base early 19th century), silver, partly gilt, h. 153 cm, w. 54 cm, d. 29 cm, Roman Catholic Parish – Archdeaconry of Chrudim the Battle of White Mountain such a norm was hardly enforceable in Bohemia. Locally, however, it was applied in the domains of the Catholic nobility.6 The situation changed radically after the defeat of the uprising, when the door was opened for the Catholic pro-Habsburg party to comprehensively re-Catholicise the country. Seen in a broader context, the process of re-Cathol- icisation can be seen as an attempt to create a new identity for the country’s inhabitants—a Catholic identity loyal to the new political and religious order. Within this process, images are to be regarded as one of the instruments through which this action was carried out.7 The importance of the role ascribed to images in the process of re-Catholicisation is clearly illustrated by the declaration recorded in one of the Prague registers of oaths shortly after the middle of the seventeenth century: “I do solemnly affirm that images of Jesus Christ, of the Virgin mother of God, and of other saints, shall be retained and kept, and that due honour and respect shall be given to them.”8 One of the first stages of damnatio memoriae during the re-Catholicisation period was the elimination of the cult around Jan Hus. Hus, who had been condemned as a heretic by the Council of Constance in 1415, was perceived by the Catholic party as an extremely objectionable figure, espe- cially because he was venerated as a saint by the Bohemian Utraquists.9 The date of his death also meant that the tradi- tion of the Bohemian Reformation extended far back into the past.This impeded Counter-Reformatory efforts to con- struct a historical narrative portraying the country as having only recently departed from the path of Catholic tradition due to the deviations of the Reformation. It is therefore not surprising that as early as 1622 all celebrations in honour of Jan Hus were prohibited—the Prague churches were offi- cially sealed on his day of remembrance (6 July) in order to prevent festive gatherings and services.10 The prohibition of Hus celebrations was accompanied by the destruction of paintings, altarpieces and sacred spaces commemorating him, with the result that the number of surviving pictorial representations of Jan Hus is very small today. In the field of monumental art, for example, we know of only three altar fragments and one wall painting depicting Hus, which have survived more or less by serendipity.Quite a large number of