Spolubratr císař : Habsburští panovníci v matrikách barokních náboženských bratrstev v českých zemích

The study deals with the topic of inscribing the Habsburg Monarchy rulers and their family members into registers of the members of religious confraternities which existed in the Bohemian Lands during the period 1620–1750. The study follows from a sample of 26 confraternities in the registers of which there is evidenced at least one entry made personally by the ruler. It studies the reasons why the heads of the Habsburg Monarchy made these entries. It also discusses the importance of their entries in the registers for the individual confraternities as well as the circumstances under which these entries were made. The study also deals with the question of whether the rulers’ membership in the given religious confraternities, which ensued from the inscription into the given registers, was only symbolic and purely formal, or if it could practical implications as well. The cases when the confraternities claimed that they were protected by the ruler, although no evidence of the ruler being inscribed in the register existed, are discussed as well.