Martin Luther in the Libraries of Bohemian burghers c. 1600: toward the reception and influence of Luther's teaching
Abstract
In the religiously tolarant climate of the Bohemian townships in the secondhalfof the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, the great confessional history played a far less significant role than the local and, above all,individual lives of particular burghers.The authors of this article have analysed1364wills of the burghers of Prague and Louny between1550and1620where they discovered519inventaries ofpersonallibraries.Luther'sworks are prominentinsixteen percent of these libraries; these are predominantlyinGerman, seldominLatin and very rarelyinCzech.Luther wasamongst the most widelyreadauthorsinPrague and Louny, morepopulärthan John Hus and other Bohemian writers. Most numerous are his postils, his catechism, his sermons and, of course, his German translation of the Bible.
Even his collected works were ownedinPrague. Not present, however, are his most important writings on Church politics.
After 1600 the number of his works in library inventaries notably declines and after 1620 they disappear altogether, although morc up-to-date Lutheran authors continued to be read until the end of the seventeenth Century.