The Statutes of Roudnice : The Customs of the House of Augustinian Canons in Roudnice nad Labem (an Annotated Edition and Translation)
Abstract
The order of the Canons Regular of St Augustine followed the Rule of Augustine, which, however, contained very few specific regulations and thus could not be the only normative text that governed the everyday life of the community. It was necessary to supplement the text of the Rule with more detailed regulations for religious life, which led to the emergence of the so- -called statutes.
The first house of the order of the Canons Regular of St Augustine in the Czech lands was founded in 1333 by the bishop of Prague, John IV of Dražice, in Roudnice nad Labem (Raudnitz). The new foundation also received its statutes, which are referred to as the statutes of Roudnice, although they were later used in many other religious houses as well.
These statutes were created specifically for the Czech environment, but they are based on earlier normative texts. They are the most similar to the statutes of the house of Augustinian canons at Marbach in Alsace, a daughter institution of St Rufus in Avignon, where John of Dražice spent eleven years during his stay at the papal court.
The statutes of Roudnice probably originated at the time of the foundation of the house of Augustinian canons or shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, the text was created over a longer period of time, and the extant records of the statutes of Roudnice document five redactions of the text: the original statutes were gradually supplemented with a total of four chapters, and the text of another chapter was later revised.
The statutes did not receive their final form until several decades after the foundation of the house, perhaps under the provost of Roudnice Nicholas, who probably held this office in 1354-1383. The statutes of Roudnice are divided into thirty-two chapters.
In comparison with other statutes of the order of the Canons Regular of St Augustine, their text is very concise and their mode of expression is economical. There is a clear attempt at clarity and lucidity, but in some passages, the text is very condensed and somewhere too abbreviated.
The statutes of Roudnice soon came into use in all the Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian houses of Augustinian canons. The statutes of Roudnice spread to neighbouring lands and were used in the houses that were populated from Bohemia: in Wrocław, Żagań and Kazimierz near Cracow in Poland, in Nové Mesto nad Váhom in Slovakia, and with a significant influence in German-speaking areas.
In Austria, they were first adopted by the Augustinian canons in Dürnstein and Vienna, and they strongly influenced the statutes used by the Augustinian canons in Klosterneuburg, Herzogenburg and St Florian. In Germany, the statutes of Roudnice were particularly influential among the Augustinian canons of Neunkirchen near Nuremberg, Langenzenn near Fürth, and Indersdorf.
The reasons for the great influence and rapid spread of the statutes of Roudnice are hard to determine. The adoption of specific statutes may have been based on a decision made by the founder, on a membership in a congregation, or on a network of filial ties or confraternities, but the statutes may also have been adopted because of their specificity or difference from other texts of this type.
A significant factor in the spread of the statutes of Roudnice may have been their brevity and economy of words, which could have been seen as a welcome change because they did not bind the canons with a large number of detailed regulations and left many matters to the competence of the superiors. However, another reason must be sought outside the text itself, as a certain role was undoubtedly played by the religious and cultural influence of the Roudnice house itself, directly or indirectly supported by the highest church officials.
This book presents the first modern edition of the text of the statutes of Roudnice. This critical edition is based on their earliest surviving record, available in the manuscript of the National Library of the Czech Republic XIX B 3, fols. 11va-36rb.
The edition also takes into account ten other handwritten copies identified so far and text of these statutes preserved in two 18th-century printed books. The critical edition is accompanied by an introductory study and a detailed overview of the manuscript tradition of the text of the statutes of Roudnice.
In addition, this book also contains a translation of the statutes of Roudnice into Czech, making the text accessible to a wider range of readers.