The Master Thesis World of the Burgesses of Rokycany in the Light of Their Testaments in 16th - 18th Century is based on the studies of two books of last wills and testaments stored in the State District Archives in Rokycany. The base of sources is further enlarged by the prescriptive literature of that time, i.e. books of good deaths, the book of the St. Mary's Fraternity and church registers. Attention was gradually paid to the transformation of the testamentary practice in Rokycany, to the representation of piety in the testaments and to the perception of death. Moreover the author of the work has aimed her attention to the evidence of the structure of families in the Early New Age, of the social environments of the testator and material culture of the burgesses' households seen from the testaments. A component part of the thesis is a picture annex.

The archaeobotanical analysis of the waste infill contributed to understanding its origin and composition based of two types of sample extraction. Large amount of desiccated botanical marco-remains was determinated. Beside of the common taxa rare imported species were also captured. Some of them are the first determinations in Central Europe; one case is the first evidence in Europe at all. The richness and uniqueness of the archaeobotanical collection declare the high society status, economical and cultural centre of the Prague castle in the early modern period.

The reflection of childhood in Baroque miracles This Master's thesis aims to capture the reflection of childhood in miraculously answered prayers of the Baroque era. It works with a representative sample of cases, which was collected from several diverse Czech and Moravian pilgrimage sites (Karlov in Prague, Church of Our Lady Victorious with the statue of Infant Jesus of Prague, Hájek, Sázava, Chlum sv. Máří, Chrudim, Dobruška, Svatý Kopeček u Olomouce, and Křtiny). The sample thus comprises children coming from various environments and social strata. The records referring to miraculous answers to prayer are taken from manuscripts as well as from printed books of the period related to religious pilgrimages. The individual chapters outline the main aspects of Baroque-era children's lives found therein. The thesis first analyses issues associated with the birth of new life - the infertility of married couples, miscarriages, or complications during pregnancy, giving birth and childbed. A significant part of the thesis is given over to childhood illnesses - an extremely serious issue of the early modern era. Attention is also paid to diverse accidents and injuries of children. In addition, matters concerning adolescent and adult offspring are presented (the world of work duties, various wrongdoings, problems...

(in English): Archeological exclavations on plots no. 72.74 in Nymburk present basis for wider study of functional disposition of urban plot and town as a whole. Then, there is a question of material culture of high medieval and early modern household in Nymburk. Shifts and changes in disposition and constructions on the urban plot and waste and water management. Written sources are considered as well as analogies from already researched contexts. History, appearance and development of town of Nymburk is studied and described and earlier field and academic research is summarized. Keywords (anglicky): archeology; town; urban plot; material culture; Middle Ages; Early Modern Period, 1250-1650

The presented M.A. thesis pursues leisure activities in the Jewish Community in Třebíč in the early modern period. The research is based on Pinkas ha-kahal Trebitsch (1674-1803), communal book preserved in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem. This manuscript wasn't sufficiently studied up to this day. The author analyzed the regulations of selected aspects of leisure and put them in context of early modern European regulations, both Jewish and Christian.

The thesis deals with the transformation of perception of vampire in Western culture from early modern period to present. The vampire in modern Western culture is very popular and has an unwavering place. Vampires are now attractive and basically not dangerous. The subject of this work is question whether it was so in previous centuries. Work present the change in appearance and character, both fictional character and "real vampires." Based on the analysis of selected fictional works (literary and visual) from the late 18th century, when the vampire came to Western fiction, work shows how gradually transforms the image that this supernatural beings attributes in West. An essential part of how culture perceives certain phenomenon is a belief in it. Therefore I am interested in how the West over time explaining this phenomenon. Work also introduces the Norbert Elias's civilization theory. Analysis of transformation in the perception of a vampire in Western culture follows it's tracks and the results are compared with it with the goal to give answer on question whether this phenomenon is turning into the terms of this theory.

This dissertation examines the character, conditions and change of peasant stratification in early modern Sweden. Wherever and whenever one looks, one finds that resources were unevenly spread among peasant households. In the literature, there are different, and conflicting, views compatible with this finding. In order to explain its character, this study places peasant stratification into a broader system of resource reproduction. Resource holding, families, and individuals are studied over time. The study is based on an extended family reconstitution comprising the landholding peasants in the Mid-Swedish parish of Björskog between 1620 and 1820. Data has been compiled from cadastres, poll tax registers, parish registers, court records, and maps, and has then been related to the information on resource holding as given by tax lists and probate inventories. Six elements and three general principles are identified as fundamental to systems of resource reproduction among peasants. Starting from these, the book argues that the resource holding of a Swedish peasant household was relatively independent of family demography; that wealthy peasants were able to retain large surpluses even during the period of high rent pressure in the seventeenth century; that the reproduction of poorer peasant households was imperfect whereas the reproduction of wealthier households was extended; that wealthy peasants dominated the local community; that economic inequalities within the class of landed peasants did not increase during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; that land accumulation and cyclical mobility became important features of peasant society, but not until the decades around 1800: and that the peasant community was characterized by a large degree of geographical and downward social mobility.

L’histoire des femmes et l’histoire du genre se sont développées conjointement depuis plus d’une trentaine d’années. Pourtant, elles ne sont pas encore pleinement reconnues par les institutions universitaires, et encore moins par les institutions collégiales, les progrès historiographiques dans ces domaines étant exclus du cursus enseigné. Du moins, c’est ce que nous avons observé au niveau collégial au Québec, à la suite d’une évaluation de la trame narrative des manuels francophones et anglophones utilisés pour le cours Histoire de la civilisation occidentale. En effet, grâce à une analyse des chapitres couvrant la période moderne, soit de 1500 à 1800 environ, des manuels les plus utilisés pour l’enseignement de ce cours, nous avons pu établir que l’histoire des femmes et l’histoire du genre ne sont pas intégrées et qu’une différence existe entre la trame du manuel francophone et celle du manuel anglophone. Nous avons constaté que le seul cours d’histoire obligatoire au niveau collégial, qui tend à former des citoyens et des citoyennes éclairé(e)s ainsi qu’à transmettre une culture générale de base, exclut la moitié de la population de leurs enseignements. Aussi ce mémoire propose-t-il trois façons de remédier à cette situation. / Women and gender history have developed in conjunction for more than thirty years. Nevertheless, these domains are still not fully recognized by the university institutions, and even less by the college institutions, as the historiographical advances in these areas are being excluded from the curriculum. Indeed, this is the situation we have observed at the college level in Quebec, following an evaluation of the narrative transmitted by French and English textbooks used in the History of western civilization courses. In fact, thanks to an analysis of the chapters covering the early modern period, which ranges approximately from 1500 to 1800, in the most often used textbooks for the teaching of this course, we were able to establish that the history of women and the history of gender are not integrated in the narrative and that a difference exists between the narrative of the French and English textbooks. We observed that the only mandatory history course at the college level, which endeavours to form enlightened male and female citizens as well as to transmit a basic general culture, excludes half of the population of their teachings. Thus, this work proposes three solutions to remedy this situation.

So far the academical reception of Czech chronicle by Václav Hájek of Libočany was criticized for not being considerate of the early modern period literary context. It can be concluded from this paper's analysis of previous critiques and interpretations of Hájek's chronicle and from the excerption of key aspects of the theory of fictional worlds, that there is a lack of knowledge about the early modern period discoursive praxis, which defined the fictionality of text(s), as well as about formal and methodical aspects of this kind of work. Only through a thorough inspections of these two aspects it is possible to understand Czech chronicle and similar works as both historiographical sources and components of literary progress. This paper is comprised of selection of theoretical tools meant to identify the distinctions between fictional and non-fictional narratives, of overview of Hájek's chronicle's reception in compendia and editorial comments, and finally of a synthesis of theoretical conclusions and practical classifications of Hájek's chronicle, meaning this paper evaluates their expressive value regarding the current (non-)fictional state of Czech chronicle.

This diploma thesis, entitled "Testamentary Practice of Prague Jews Based on Analysis of the Books of Testaments from 1681-1850," deals with the Jewish books of testaments which arose from the office of the King's Prague Old Town during the years 1681 and 1850 and nowadays are deposited in Prague City Archives. The text relates to conclusions presented by previous bachelor thesis and its main aim is the analysis of Jewish last wills from years 1773- 1850 from various points of views - for instance typology of records, testators, language, contents and other. Also analysis of chosen records are attached to the practical section of the work - last wills and related writings of Abraham Offner, Philipp Eidlitz and Löwi Gisternitz are introduced. Collected datas are consequently compared with facts extracted from Jewish books of testaments from years 1681-1773. Detailed summary, diagrams, as well as the photographic attachment are the integral part of the text. Keywords: Jews, Prague, early modern period, manuscripts, testaments, testator, last wills, Abraham Offner, Philipp Eidlitz, Löwi Gisternitz