The Bohemian Ephemeris (1584) and the Protestant Historiography in the Bohemian Countries: On Adaptation in a Multiconfessional Environment

The article deals with ways in which Lutheran concepts of history developed at the University of Wittenberg were adapted to the new cultural environment in the Czech lands in the second half of the sixteenth century. Rerum Boemicarum Ephemeris, a historical calendar compiled by Prokop Lupac of Hlavacov, illustrates a complex dynamic of this cultural exchange. Lupac adapted Paul Eber's Calendarium historicum (1550) to suit the needs of the Bohemian scholarly community, providing information about existing literary works that served in turn as a tool to cultivate a common intellectual identity. His text focused mainly on the University of Prague and the literary activities of its graduates and teachers. Moreover, the calendar provided a platform for the publications of poems by Bohemian Humanists that had been handed down in manuscripts. The Ephemeris emphasised astronomical and astrological lines of argument that had also featured in Eber's model. Lupac sourced much of his information about extraordinary celestial and natural phenomena - signs that, to his opinion, also directly affected individuals and society - from private manuscripts loaned to him by former Leucorea students. These scholars apparently paid close attention to irregularities in the created world even after they had returned to the Czech lands and maintained a scholarly network through which they fostered and communicated their common interests. While at first sight Lupac's reports of the workings of special divine providence may seem radically Protestant, his calendar was moderate from a denominational standpoint, and it even lacked an explicit eschatological vision. This caution regarding denominationally polarising topics was typical of many Latin works produced by former Leucorea students from the Czech lands.