Vrchnostenská privilegia pro sbory Jednoty bratrské na základě knihy fundací

Property basis and economic security of congregations of the Unity of Brethren were not based only on their own property; their economic development was enabled also thanks to favors of religiously allied nobility who provided the Unity of Brethren with means - in the form of various movable endowments and intangible support - for their activities. The provision of tangible and intangible gifts and other privileges, the aim of which was the benefit of the congregations of the Unity of Brethren as well as the actual donors’ benefit, was certified by legal acts, either in the form of a deed or in the form of commemorative entries in town, mayors’ and other types of official books kept in the town or nobility office. Transcriptions of nobility privileges for the congregations of the Unity of Brethren from the territory of southern and south-eastern Moravia are captured in the book of foundations which is deposited in the Akta Braci Czeskich Fund in the State Archive in Poznań. The study addresses diplomatic and content analysis of 89 privileges from the period 1507-1593 that are recorded in the above mentioned book of foundations.