Abstract
After the year of 1989, the history of religious orders active in Bohemia and Moravia in the early-modern period has become one of the more intriguing topics, offering historians a broad field of research, limited as its investigation was during the times of the communist regime. The scholarly study of this theme is also desirable due to the prominence of cloisters in the life of the early-modern society, acting as important religious as well as cultural centres.
Remarkably, the historians' attention so far has focused on an order most important for the early-modern ages-the Society of Jesus-leaving the research into other religious orders unjustifiably aside. The goal of this collective monograph is to contribute to a broadening of the monasteriological scholarship by dealing with the Capuchin order, whose scope of activity, in terms of the sheer numbers of members and houses, matched those of the Jesuits.
It does not, however, aim to provide a complex overview of the entire field, which is due to the current state of the scholarship. This monograph treats of the history of the Capuchins from the viewpoint of the specific activities within the society of their time.
The Capuchins left their mark on the history of the lands of the Czech crown especially as preachers, missionaries, confessors, diplomats, military chaplains, nurses attending to those stricken by plague epidemics, writers, librarians and apothecaries. These areas are reflected in detail by the individual book chapters, whether by those dealing with them in general (e.g. preachment, missions, caritas in the time of plague epidemics, etc.), or by those focussed on the biographies of individual prominent order members (Valerian Magni, Lawrence of Brindisi, Basilius of Aire, Mark of Aviano), who were active in Bohemia, sometimes gaining reputations in more than one area only, e.g.
Lawrence of Brindisi, a famous diplomat, writer, preacher as well as military chaplain.